Watered down Northern Powerhouse rail plan leaves Bradford out in the cold

Government’s £100bn integrated rail plan, set to be published tomorrow, will not only see the eastern leg of High Speed 2 scrapped but will also water down plans for the Northern Powerhouse Rail project. A key part of the Northern Powerhouse project would have been to link Leeds with Manchester, with a new line running via Bradford. The watered-down project will instead see a short new section of track built from Manchester to Huddersfield. The remainder of the route will come through upgrades to the existing TransPennine route. Bradford Council claims that, with a population of 530,000, it is the worst-connected city in the UK, pointing out that both the city’s stations sit at the end of their lines with through trains having to reverse out from the platforms to continue their journey.   The FT (£)