IN the early 1800s, the forward-thinking businessmen of Liverpool came forward with a scheme that would change the world. They built the Liverpool to Manchester Railway, the world’s first inter-city passenger link.
Decades earlier, in the early 1700s, entrepreneurs of the day introduced the country’s quickest stagecoach service. Until then journeys to London from Liverpool could take 10 days, even longer when the weather was bad. Manchester narrowed the time to five and a half days, so soon after the Pony Express journey from Liverpool took three days.
The problem for places like Liverpool is towns and cities along the direct route will take a quantum leap into the future – and this isn't one of them
Here we are in 2013 and those three former Empire giants, Liverpool, London and Manchester, are embroiled in a debate about trains that will whisk people to the capital not in weeks, days or even hours…. but minutes. The future, say some, including Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson, lies with 250mph trains.
The West Coast Line is reaching bursting point and within years it will not be able to cope at all. Few then can argue with the need for something new. Except ….instead of being in the driving seat, 200 years after that pioneering work in Liverpool, it will be Manchester manning the wheel.
So let’s do a score chart to see who really wins in the race for HS2. The first leg will link London and Birmingham. Then HS2 goes its separate ways with one arm to Manchester and the other to Leeds. Oh, and they are throwing in a dedicated station at Manchester Airport.
Will the Manchester conurbation bag the lion's share of inward investment for decades, with firms queuing for spaces along the HS2 corridor?
Will the ability to alight a train on the airport's front door step pose a threat to Liverpool JLA, particularly as once-snooty Manchester Airport now welcomes low-cost airlines with open arms?
Will trans-European freight trains haul containers directly to the Port of Salford for shipment along the Manchester Ship Canal to huge container vessels waiting at Seaforth? Could that harm the Port of Liverpool?
Will there be a daily brain-train, transporting North West talent on the short journey to jobs in London?
Will any civil service jobs going spare migrate to Manchester so government workers can head home each night to the smoke?
Will Greater Manchester expand, overwhelming its not so far neighbours like Liverpool, Wirral and Warrington?
Will Wigan, quicker by train to London than Liverpool, become Manchester's third city after Salford?
Will money once destined for urban rail improvements be lost to fund HS2?
Will Mayor Anderson and the other North West council leaders have to journey to the Palace of Manchester to beg for the things Emperor Leese of the Northern Dynasty doesn't want?
Manchester is already planning a new world-class rail terminal with spin-offs including 4,500 new homes, 625,000 sqm of commercial office space, 100,000 sqm of retail space, 1,000 new hotel rooms, the creation of numerous high quality public spaces and a string of cultural and community use buildings.
That is all good and well, but will the North West map of the future change to read Greater Manchester with everything else called Outer Manchester?
Far fetched? The problem for places like Liverpool is towns and cities along the direct route will take a quantum leap into the future – and this isn't one of them.
As things stand, the fastest trains of the future between Euston and Lime Street will take 1hr 36mins - less than half an hour quicker than now. Head to Manchester from Euston and the journey takes a fraction over the hour. As things stand, that's the time it takes to get 40 miles from Lime Street to Oxford Road.
So what can Liverpool and its “out of Manchester” neighbours do? It is now clear the economy of Liverpool will take a hit with HS2,
So why not kick, scream and shout for a compensation goody bag. How about demanding Seaforth becoming the North's sole container base with direct freight services from mainland Europe?
How about filling in the gap at Ormskirk Station to give direct links from north Lancashire and Cumbria to Liverpool city centre and JLA?
How about opening new rail links from Liverpool and Wirral directly into the heart of North Wales? Or demanding the Euro money Liverpool is entitled to be sent directly from Brussels, rather than be channelled via Westminster?
The danger is, just as Liverpool was promised all kinds of things for backing Manchester's Commonwealth Games bid (and we got nowt worth having), if we repeat that act of neighbourliness, we may end up as a branch line backwater.
The journey Liverpool started at Edge Hill in 1830 could be terminated near Manchester Piccadilly in a few years from now.
