Oddly, back in about 96 / 97 I can remember talking to folk at the MRC about the capacity crunch on the bottom end of the WCML, at the time.

We were thinking that it would be a lot easier to build a new high speed line from (for instance) Watford to Rugby (then probably Birmingham after that) to take Virgin’s new wonder-units (just think, they could have been built for faster speeds as well, 145mph is a bit tame these days) and once that was built (with little disruption to the existing route) that would free you up lots of capacity to rebuild that, keeping the current fast lines as 100/110mph lines for mail and semi-fast passenger services which then allows more freight paths and more commuter paths, depending on time of day.

It’s a shame, as they are now saying we could probably have had that working by now, for less than the present mess will have cost…