I was utterly disgusted by how misleading the exhibition was.
I pointed one part out (about how much would be tunnelled, following existing roads/lines etc), only to be told that it could be interpreted as fact.
They couldn't make their mind up if it was £17bn or £34bn, only to then decide it was £17bn for Phase I (the bit to Lichfield (why Lichfield?)), then to contradict that later.
Then say the business case, seemingly mosted made up of how much extra 'productive' time Birmingham to London travellers would have (as apparently you can't work on trains...)) was £11bn over 60years. In fact, the entire business case said this would save the country just shy of £20bn over 60years. Yet would cost £17bn (or £34bn, if they can make up their mind) in building it...
...then there is the ongoing maintenence. They say the tracks will have to be replaced every 8 to 15yrs.
As a counter argument to upgrading the WCML again, they use the amount of disruption as being the problem. Yet this will need similar disruption after 8-15yrs (I suspect this will be less, due to the wheel damage by running on non HS2 lines, and the wheel damage will cause HS2 track damage).
Oh yes, something I wasn't aware of, they won't be running the 400m long, taller trains, carrying 1100 people each (which is what the business case is based on). We found some small text that they would have to run shorter (200m), narrower, lower trains, as beyond Birmingham, these trains have to run on normal track, as Phase II (Birmingham to Leeds/Manx) isn't planned in our lifetime.
There own figures, bearing in mind the exhibition is pro HS2 on Route 2, HS2 London to Birmingham = 50m, the current WCML = 1hr15. The WCML is more useful as it stops at useful places, whereas HS2 will only stop at a site about 4m from Euston, and a place in East Birmingham, again just a couple of miles from the planned Curzon Street terminus. Is it worth it?
They used a strange audio scale that I'd not come across before to describe the noise increase... ...they average out the noise fluctuations out over 18hrs (HS2 will not run at night :-/), and their scale said it would average to a level between a hoover and a hair dryer. They also say that just under 5000 houses in our local area will receive a noise increase of 3db. 3db means noise doubles, as db is a log scale. In the local area, I suspect there are only 5000 houses

.
In the interest of fairness, I also went to hear what the Stop HS2 brigade had to say, who were camped up just outside the carpark (apparently not allowed on site

). There were equally weak
