Northern Powerhouse Rail - What's the plan? January 24, 2020
As the government continues to determine what should happen about the HS2 rail project, one arm of which would link a few parts of Yorkshire to Birmingham and London, it is worth taking a look at what is happening about the other great northern rail project Northern Powerhouse Rail.Government watchdog the National Audit Office recently confirmed the view that there are significant challenges to the HS2 railway delivering value for taxpayers, saying it was over budget and behind schedule because the Department for Transport, HS2 Ltd and wider government have underestimated its complexity and risk.
Will the same criticisms eventually be levelled at the government and the Northern Powerhouse Rail project?
The Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) concept is to create a completely new west-east link across the north, which would be in addition to an upgrade of the existing rail infrastructure.
It was back in 2014 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne proposed the high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester. Mr Osborne later went on to become chairman of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.
One puzzling feature of that concept diagram was how it would create a fast rail route linking Manchester to Bradford to Leeds. Indeed the illustration itself cause some consternation as it appeared to move Bradford south of its actual position in order to fit a straighter line.
Criticisms being levelled at HS2 are that under-estimation of complexity and risk is a reason for it being over-budget. Some of the complexities of the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail concept also immediately raise questions, but these still do not seem to be being addressed:
• How would a reasonably straight line for a new railway between Manchester, Bradford and Leeds be achieved through one of the widest stretches of South Pennine moorland?
• How would a new line avoid connecting with the existing winding valley-following but population-serving Calder Valley line or the existing straighter trans-Pennine line through Yorkshire's fourth-busiest hub station at Huddersfield?
• Just what engineering would be needed to avoid and by-pass some of the heavily populated towns along the route, for example Oldham and Halifax or Huddersfield so that the new railway would only speed between the biggest cities?
By now some of these early questions have been addressed maybe?
Apparently not.
Something that was exposed during a debate on HS2 in the House of Lords on January 23, 2020, is that the Northern Powerhouse Rail project is still no more than that vague line on a map.
Transport Minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton said in that debate: "NPR, much as many of us would wish that it was not, is at a very early stage in the process."
"It is currently no more than a Sharpie line on a map." *
"We have to move it forward and we are working at pace to do so, but I am not going to lie; it will be quite some time before the first customers can board an NPR train."
* Sharpie is a brand of marker pens.
Our view
More important than this though is that an NPR project which might ultimately be deemed too expensive to go-ahead is not used as a device to stall much-needed and long-awaited upgrades to the existing and more-connected railway infrastructure. Delays to these upgrades continue to cause delays and cancellations for railway commuters.
See also
Yorkshire's busiest Latest on HS2 at 
Also in Yorkshire.guide