Hmmmmm, you can't ride a bike on the M1? You can't drive a car, a lorry or a conventional bus on the existing rail tracks either never mind on the HS2 rail tracks.

Like I said, we should be encouraging business locally, even discouraging commuting long distances. One of the daftest examples of long distance business was harvesting produce in Norfolk, transporting it to Lancashire for processing/packing and transporting it all the way back to Norfolk for sale. Fresh eh?

Apart from people, what else can the HS network carry?

Surely if you're travelling from Birmingham and need to go to Gatwick, you might as well fly there directly then change planes and fly on to wherever you're going?

There's far too many other things needing to be built to make the thing work and if it isn't all ready at once, the early bits will be be in need of updating to catch up with what's built later.

Adding up the few minutes saved and making out they're "man-hours" isn't a saving in man-hours at all. It would be if they were all travelling individually but they're all travelling in the same cattle waggons so the saving is still only a few minutes.

The end of the Rainbow isn't in London and if people think that's so, they're sadly mistaken.

You said there are real benefits in the system? List them?