Fascinating to see what a small footprint the GC route had on the landscape around Calvert, compared to the broad, almost motorway land take for HS2.
There's the line maintenance depot to fit in here of course in the NE quadrant, and the HS2 route itself will be in a deep (10m?) cutting over most of the area covered by the drone, with the attendant cutting slopes to fit in.
To add to what others have said, I have seen some photos of the construction of the GC, and although not quite as wide as the current construction for HS2, it was quite wide, especially at junctions, bridges, and cuttings. The main difference is that HS2 does use a lot more heavy machinery, and has its own "roads" to avoid congesting and dirtying local roads, this does increase the footprint too, and also Calvert Junction is where the Depot is located, so again likely to have a much larger footprint, especially with access lines and the depot itself.
As said by others, once done, and re-landscaped, the scar will be considerably narrower, and i suspect would probably still be far less than a motorway (though greater than the original GCML, taking into account the greater loading guage, increase gap between rails for high speed, and space for catenary and less steep earthworks)
Thanks for that, I was looking at the press release which has 11m as the maximum depth of the Mixbury cutting, further north than that at Calvert, which is evidently shallower.
The GC solum (some of it having been expropriated by local farms) also looks slim as it is overgrown and blends into the background.
The EWR route viewed by the drone probably gives a better idea of what the GC route would have looked like during its construction phase in the 1890s.
I dont think you can compare the EWR works with the normal new construction of a line (Hish speed or not), as the permanant way has already existed, and in many cases deemed adequate for the speeds, services to be provided, requiring considerably less earthworks than woudl be required on a completely new line. In places where the new line differs from the original you will see significant earthworks, such as Calvert where EWR goes above HS2 (which runs either level or slightly lower, not sure) which unlike the GC, which ran above the level running Oxford to Bletchly line, as well as at new stations, or re-routed areas.
Yes, a lot of it is simply to assuage NIMBYs who don't like trains in the background. Which is odd considering how well railways have integrated into our mental landscape of the English countryside.
I still remember when the GW was electrified, the complaints about the caternary, and how it will "scar" the landscape, together with artist's impressions with "artistically empasized" catenary! which completely ignoring the much wider scar of the motorway in the same shot!
I think its more a case of if a railway is not of percieved use to them, they dont want it, which is probably just human nature, but i also remember how Milton Keynes residents were objecting to HS2 initially (mainly because it was directly no use to them, as it bypassed their town completely), However, when they realised that it would in all likelyhood increase their own local services, they did quieten up a bit.
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