The BBC reported last week that Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce was asking the government to include an East Midlands link in their plans for the High Speed network in the UK. The Chamber believes that it would be beneficial to businesses in the area – mainly through time savings on journeys to London.
The problem for them is that HS2 have already warned against having too many stations. Back in December, Sir David Rowlands, then chair of High Speed Two (HS2) said that the government was likely to face tough political battles when it told different cities they couldn't have a High Speed Station of their own. He told the Scottish newspaper, the Herald that “There are a lot of local interest groups who want to be included in a high-speed network. If we’re not careful we could end up with a medium-speed network which doesn’t fulfil what it’s set out to do."
Network Rail's chief executive Iain Coucher has also warned about the distances between stations, in the New Civil Engineer: they should be at least 100 miles apart, he said, and Birmingham to London only just reaches this distance. A spur line between the proposed Birmingham Interchange and Derby or Nottingham is a lot less.
If the distances are too short, the trains can't get up to full speed between the stations, and the benefits that High Speed Rail can bring on longer journeys simply aren't there for shorter ones.