Just think of all the expert design, planning and legal time put into Phase 2 (East and West, including the Golborne Link), all about to be trashed.
How will they rationalise this with last year's IRP, which depended on HS2's route into Manchester for NPR?
And Hunt's "no conceivable reason why HS2 will not reach Euston", from earlier this year?
HS2 Crewe-Manchester was almost shovel-ready, with the Bill well on its way through parliament.
There's no way an NPR route can be ready for parliament within 5, maybe 10 years.
And what of Water Orton-East Midlands Parkway, and working out "how to get HS2 trains to Leeds"?
They can also halve the order for HS2 trains, which will put the price up sharply, and cancel all the linked WCML upgrade work north of Lichfield.
Oh and there will be a lot of highly-paid people, many of them railway specialists, about to lose their jobs.
There will be increased pressure on Labour to say what they would do.
Don't expect a simple reinstatement of the HS2 plans.
Maybe we'll have some WCML, MML and ECML upgrade plans as a sop.