We're in a situation with HS2 where it doesn't really add up, isn't worth the money now (and the numbers really never added up), but there's people who love the idea of more trains as well as people who are trapped in the sunk-cost fallacy about it.
So politicians have to make sounds around doing something with HS2, without actually spending much. This gets translated by the news media into "full link to Euston" and the trainspotters are happy. But I doubt there will be any private finance, which I assume means a company gets paid based on a share of the fares, because there are few companies out there beating down the government's door to build railways.
We're in a situation with HS2 where it doesn't really add up, isn't worth the money now (and the numbers really never added up), but there's people who love the idea of more trains as well as people who are trapped in the sunk-cost fallacy about it.
So politicians have to make sounds around doing something with HS2, without actually spending much. This gets translated by the news media into "full link to Euston" and the trainspotters are happy. But I doubt there will be any private finance, which I assume means a company gets paid based on a share of the fares, because there are few companies out there beating down the government's door to build railways.