Will a high-speed rail improve transport links?
Ministers have revealed plans for a new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham with a possible future extension to northern England and Scotland. Will this improve transport links in the UK?
High-speed trains are expected to arrive and depart from London Euston station with the route of the line passing through the picturesque Chiltern Hills to Birmingham.
The public will be consulted on the proposals but work is unlikely to start until 2017 at the earliest. There are also concerns over the environmental impact on the Chilterns.
Will a high-speed rail help to revive the economy and create jobs? Has the best route been chosen? Do you live or work in the affected region? Are there any other parts of the UK that could also benefit from a high-speed rail link?
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This is a great idea.
Reinvesting in the railways and fixing some of the damage done by Dr Beeching in the 60s is what we need in the UK to ween the UK off of its car dependency and obsession.
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Not if Network Rail and all those parasitic train operating companies have anything to do with it!
And it still amazes me, that in the 21st Century we have not progress from metal wheels and strips of steal to move the public around the country! Have none of our brilliant engineers heard of electro magnetic propulsion? We could all be whizzing around at 400mph in our public transport utopian society - if we had the will to achieve such a great leap forward!!!
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It is an absolute joke that this country does not have a high speed rail network, or even an efficient low speed one!
If our governments stopped spending our taxes overseas in ilegal wars perhaps they could divert some of this money back into Britain to improve the country?
Or is that just a crazy idea...
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I'd have though up-grading the existing line (or running it alongside) would've made more sense.
Still, good news however it's done.
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When this country is up to it's armpits in debt should we not be satisfied with maintaining our existing network, rather than spending a fortune on new technology. Why talk about spending in 2017 when Labour can't decide what it should spend now.
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Will a high-speed rail improve transport links? Is this a stupid question with an obvious answer? Perhaps not. A high speed rail link can only improve things if it doesn't drag funds away from other areas of the rail infrastructure and it is affordable to use. If you are going to use it, it needs to be faster AND cheaper than using a car.
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More money being spent on links to London (cutting staff for LU, thus making the journey worse when you get there).
Cambridge to Birmingham, 4 hours, Liverpool to Southampton, 6 hours - I could go on. Why not upgrade some of the other lines?
Of course,now the UK no rail infrastructure manufacturers, all this work will go to Italy, France, Germany and Japan.
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It is a pity that the line will still only serve the southern part of the country.
Can the government please remember that the rail network should cover the whole of the country.
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I'm sick of hearing about new ways for people to travel to or from London. When will the UK Government support the UK and improve transport in other areas?
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What the country needs is a high speed 'Goods Link' from the Channel Tunnel to Glasgow, with spurs to the South West Wales, The Midlands, and so on. Built to take the biggest loading gauge in Europe. Built to carry millions of loads a year, built with the infrastructure to include rapid container transfer from road to Rail and back. Run at cost, not to profit some foreign shareholders.
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How about fixing the "slow-speed" network first? And in any case who is going to pay for this?
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The whole thing is a joke isn't it? Not starting until probably 2017 with completion in 2025! Typical of this country when the government get involved. They'll be the usual NIMBY's, environmentalists, tree hugging nutters who will delight in (excuse the pun) railroading this project so we'll be lucky to see this finished in 50 years time. Why don't they get the roads sorted first, have you seen the size of the pot holes in Berkshire?
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This has got to be one of the most important investments the UK will make this century. Having travelled on European high speed networks, it's clear this is the most realistic from of quick, scalable, mid-distance transportation for the coming decades.
Just imagine if the Victorians hadn't made the investment in our rail network in the 1800s. We'd of had no industrial revolution and Britain, and the entire world, would be a very different place today.
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6. At 1:41pm on 11 Mar 2010, Robert Eva wrote:
Will a high-speed rail improve transport links? Is this a stupid question with an obvious answer? Perhaps not. A high speed rail link can only improve things if it doesn't drag funds away from other areas of the rail infrastructure and it is affordable to use. If you are going to use it, it needs to be faster AND cheaper than using a car.
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thats hit the nail on head. Unless they can bring down the cost of rail travel so that people can actually afford to see it as an option then they can install nuclear powered hover trains and people will still avoid the rail network.
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A high speed link is a great idea BUT London to Birmingham??? Is that enough distance to make it really attractive? How many people fly between London and Birmingham? Would this cut down air travel and associated environmental damage? I doubt it.
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Who will own this high speed network, will it be sold off for the fat cats to own shares in within the first 10 years.
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Off course it will improve the transport network in the Uk and it is long over due!
However I am sure the train company will ask premium prices for the little time gain and at the end it will NOT be competitive with the car or plane. Governmental subsidies are continuous required to keep the train going due to total mismanagement and pure greed.
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Can I suggest that we introduce hover cars or space cars such as the one in the Jetsons? These methods of transport are about as much attainable to our 'red tape' society as a high speed rail will ever be.....
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Lots opertunity..
No catering for Channel tunnel freight lorries to travel directly the Birmingham before being unloaded.
No park and ride for Gatwick and Heathrow
No moving of Freight from Gatwick and Heathrow to the meidlands airport customes centre
No HS link to Birmingham to Gatwick
All of the above were on offer in 1998 but Prescott turned down the preposal.
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I think this is a good announcement, but it's too little too late. This country has seriously under-invested in public transport for at least 30 years, probably longer.
The railways were invented in Britain yet we have the most antiquated, most expensive and least efficient network in western Europe. Back before Dr. Beeching there were train stations all over the country including two stations within a mile of where I grew up - but by the time I was a kid in the 1980's those magnificent buildings had been turned into shops and homes.
If previous governments had invested in continuous improvement in public transport infrastructure we wouldn't be talking about high speed rail - we'd be talking about upgrading to MagLev trains like those 400kph bullets they have in Tokyo.
Also consider the fact that we don't even have enough railway carriages in the country to fully provide the service as it is currently timetabled, yet passenger numbers continue to grow. To add insult to injury the UK doesn't even have the manufacturing ability to construct new carriages - any new ones would have to be imported from Europe or Japan.
Good infrastructure is always good for the economy, which is exactly why the network should never have been so badly neglected. People are having to travel further away from home to find work during the recession and for most the only viable option to transport them there is to drive. Not to mention the thousands of jobs that could have been created if the government had committed to upgrade the whole railway network. Such an ambitious scheme would make never be spoken of by our current crop of political masters because of the initial outlay by the taxpayer.
The worst part about this is that Network Rail is actually going to be cutting jobs and reducing its maintenance schedule on our current delapidated network. You couldn't make this stuff up.
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Upgrading existing lines would be much more efficient and environment-friendly.
Also, why does it always have to be about LONDON?
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Only MPs will be able to afford to use it!
Public transport is a joke, should be renamed middle class and MP transport. Fares just make it prohibitive to use.
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Just think of the cost its already cheaper for 2 people to use a black london cab to go from central london for a 1 hour meeting at the NEC than for them to buy rail tickets!
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Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...................
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Too little too late, as usual. Why not fix the existing network first? The route will be overloaded before it opens. Getting the rail company's to provide a decent service should be the first priority.
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Will the minister conform that those of us in KENT who are paying increased fiars to pay towards HS1 dispite the fact that our journeys are not effected by HS1 and we cant use HS1 will NOT be paying increrased fairs for HS2
The HS1 surcharge in fairs only applies to fairs for rail users in the south east (mainly Kent)
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All the usual HYS complaining asside, this is a great idea. I just wish the plans were far bigger and they would get built far sooner. Compared to countries like Japan, Germany and France, our rail network and rolling stock is a joke. Any investment is money well spent.
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Trains are expensive to use at the moment so only the wealthy will be able to afford to use this high speed service and it will still be considerably cheaper to fly. I don't have any rail service where I live on the east coast so I guess I will be one of those lucky people who will pay for the new high speed line out of my taxes but will be ignored when it comes to public transport.
How about this government, or whatever party wins the next election spending a fraction of this £34bn on a light railway line or low speed line to connect this part of the UK to the rail network?
Any MP's reading this then Lincolnshire does still exist, look it up on a map, you should be able to buy one and claim it back on expenses.
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we need investment in the railways, coaching stock and stations, but do we need a fasr rail link that in reality will only cut minuets of birmingham to london, when you look at the collosal cost, you have to wonder if this is the wiset way to invest in the rail industry.
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This is described as "high speed" and it will be another 7 years before they even start to build it? You couldn't make it up.
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Its not as if we even have the capability now to manufacture the new trains and infrastrcture in the UK now anyway.
I really welcome it,
but like most people have said on here, its years of under commitment and investment into integrated rail that have left the UK decades behind the continent.
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I rather like instead the super high-speed broadband of the Tories so we can telework rather than travel at all.
Indeed if MP's teleworked in one massive web conference they need not claim expenses. (Beyond the broadband cost, obviously)
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He said the first 120 miles between London and the West Midlands would cost between £15.8bn and £17.4bn.
To any of us voters, this means an actual cost of possibly £25bn to £30bn+.
I cannot remember ANY government plans of such magnitude that have come anywhere near initial suggested costs.
The Millennium Dome (02 areana) was massively over budget and the channel tunnel was also massively over stated costs, hospitals, schools etc and many other government buildings funded by taxpayers end up being excessively beyond stated costs. Even military expenditure.
When do they get anything right. They talk about these plans, BUT it is TAXPAYERS money that funds their incompetance.
When ever Government plan something & cost it, for a more realistic cost it is reasonable to just add anywhere from 25% to 100% to the total.
Any & all public expenditure contracts are ALWAYS far over budget, even 1st new BBC digital buildings & BBC new current buildings are also over budget.
Whenever a public contract is mentioned, contractors are rubbing their hands with glee.
I think that those who planned & built Arsenals new football stadium should have the job of planning & costing & contracting because they actually managed to maintain high standard of cost compliance.
All this means to me, is yet more worryingly excessive & negligent planning & expense.
Wonder why people dont trust or have much confidence in governemnt/politicians. The expenses fiasco was just the tip of a very massive iceburg of incompetance & wastefulness at taxpayers expense.
Maybe they will put a tax on other lines to pay for it, as they are doing similar with cable/broadband.
I wouldnt pay £10.00 for a McDonalds burger, so why should taxpayers have to pay similar excessive inflated prices for buildings & roads & hospitals & tanks ,helicopters, aircraft carriers, & of course railway improvements. Trouble is, thats closer to any realistic reality of this high speed line.
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Possible future extensions to northern England and Scotland. Good news, but hang on...I'm sure I've heard that somewhere before.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/263836.stm
Aaahhhhhhhhh!
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The route through Burton Green is crazy. With 14 trains an hour at 250mph at the end of our short garden my house would fall down! This route goes along the back of a line of houses. Given that Burton Green is the highest point in the area the route needs to be further South and tunnel under the Cromwell Lane area.
Burton Green fended off a mine 20 years ago and will do the same again.
Given that it's only 63 mins from Coventry to London anyway, how much benefit will a slightly faster line really bring, especially as the cost will be even higher than the current fare, which at over £100 is already prohibitive for many.
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Hi Victoria here. Here's an article from the Press Association: http://www.pressassociation.com/component/pafeeds/2010/03/11/high_speed_rail_plan_to_be_unveiled?camefrom=news
Are you opposed to the plans? Is this for political or environmental reasons?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
It will be overpriced as everything else is I'm sure.
Besides, it apparently cuts the London - Birmngham journey to 45 mins...from the massive 1 hour Euston to B.International route currently available with Virgin? (at obsence prices goes without saying)
Now whatever will I do with that extra 15 minutes??
Come on, you can excite us more than this, Try Rome to Inverness in 2 and half hours...
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For the life of me I can't understand why they've opted for a duplication of the West Coast Main Line, especially having just spent millions upgrading it.
Surely they ought to go for a central spine railway with spurs off to feed all the major conurbations.
If planned carefully that might mean the spine route actually missing all major cities with their environmental issues and high costs, but the spurs serving Birmingham, Leicester, Derby, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds etc.
As it is the link to Leeds will never get built because the Peaks and Pennines are in the way.
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Yes, It will improve transport links, help revive the economy & create jobs but can we afford it. As things stand we will need to make cuts elsewhere to pay for it which will decrease jobs & damage the economy. Given the time scales involved, it may be a good idea provided we don't have too spend much money on it in the near future.
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It takes approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes from Euston to Birmingham (100 miles). THAT IS FAST - compared to the time it takes to get from Charing Cross to Hastings (60 miles) which is supposed to be 1 hour and 45 minutes, but invariably it takes 2 hours. I was under the impression that the vast majority of wealth producers in this country live in the south east - would it not be sensible speed up the trains in the south east?
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We desperately need a high speed rail network but we also need to improve our existing railways.
Currently the trains have too few seats leading to standing and when seats are some available they are desperately cramped and uncomfortable. There are no minimum standards in place to ensure passenger comfort or the provision of sufficient seating. A shambles that UK travellers should protest about.
Furthermore there are many communities without rail connections and these ought to be prioritised over high speed lines duplicating existing routes.
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I cannot believe the way this question is worded as if there was any doubt that a high speed rail link would improve transport links. The real question should have been how far and how soon will this come into effect? We are years behind our continental cousins in France, Spain, Germany and Italy and our major roads and motorways are already overcrowded as we all know only too well.
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Matters will improve only when our railways are run for our benefit as part of a fully integrated public transport system for the UK, not as a basis for making big business profits and stock market speculation. Nationalise British Railways Now.
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It will turn out the same as everything our incompetant country does. It will be bogged down in planning applications for years due to nimbys and when it finally gets going will cost x times more than estimated.
Take a leaf out of those great railway builder, the Victorians, books.
Start it now, hand it over to engineers, tell planning consultants to get stuffed, confirm it is going all the way to Glasgow, start work at four places at the same time. Finish by 2014.
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It would be a lot better to take up the Central Railway idea, building a new freight railway line connecting High Speed 1 to the north of England, using much of the trackbed of the former Great Central Railway. Such a line could significantly cut traffic congestion by carrying lorries on flatbed trucks. It could collect passengers from Heathrow, and take them through the Woodhead Tunnel, or via Leeds onto the Settle and Carlisle to Scotland.
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To all those naysayers at HYS:
1. It takes 7 years to go from outline proposal to start building. That's life. Stop making out like you dream up a perfect proposal and start building tomorrow. It doesn't happen.
2. Part of the reason for using London is that many business journeys go to or from London. That's reality, it's not politicians doing it to suit Londoners.
3. The cost of this is about £2bn - £3bn a year. Peanuts. But it's wasted unless we do it each year for 30 - 50 years.
4. It's not this OR magnetic trains. The 400kph bullets may be used for other shorter routes. The first one in Shanghai was only from the airport to downtown......
5. If the plans are sensible there will be stations at the edges of major conurbations and near airports.
6. This would be a great stimulus to restarting a railway engineering capacity in the UK. Yes, some would be outsourced abroad. But what a chance to bring back engineering to this country, eh??
7. Routes are not limited to those discussed today. The concensus is that the economic case currently is greatest for Manchester, but there is also a case for Sheffield-Newcastle BEFORE an East coast spur from London is built. There are discussions also about fast upgrades (but not HS2-style) to cross the North of England...
8. There are a lot of people who want us to fall further and further behind our European neighbours. Shame on them.
9. There needs to be cross-party commitment to a 30 year programme or its pointless. There's nothing wrong with a feisty debate upfront, but the whole thing will fail if its 'my legacy, not yours', 'our NIMBYs, not yours' etc etc. By all means debate rigorously. But don't do cheap election punditry by trashing £50bn intergenerational projects.....
10. Lord Adonis is a can-do man. Oh but there were more like him.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
No-one is taking these plans seriously are they? They are just a ploy to try and win a few votes. The fact is Labour have mismanaged the economy so badly there isn't the money to buy a horse and trap. Unless of course you tax the middle classes some more.
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Whos going to afford the fares ? o i know claim on expenses woo hoo last train to San Fanando
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What a waste of time and money, not to mention damaging (we really should be avoiding doing anything destructive to any of the few attractive parts left of the UK, England especially, considering what a mess we've made of most of it). It is also unaffordable in the current economic mess. Even if we could afford it the money would be better spent improving the existing trains, so that we return to decent-length trains instead of short over-crammed-full multiple units, or (re)expanding the network to places currently missed by it, instead of duplicating existing tracks.
Anyway, if you need to travel that fast often enough for this to be useful (and from Birmingham it's not going to be a massive time-saver over existing services) then you really need to get your life better organised. Do we really need to be running around the country like headless chickens?
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If a certain Dr Beeching/government had not been allowed to close all the stations which he did, and if British Rail had NOT been privatised.
There probably would be a lot less cars on the roads.
Hig Speed between cities may be a good thing, but it does not keep cars off the roads.
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Why Preston?
ALSO
They need to sort out HS1 first. Train times from the North Kent coast have got slower since HS1 cam into service
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#41 - "I was under the impression that the vast majority of wealth producers in this country live in the south east - would it not be sensible speed up the trains in the south east?"
Those would be those people who have brought the country to its knees with financial mis-management? They've never produced wealth, they've just managed to make a bit of money by providing services (often at extortionate cost) to people and businesses who do by actually making things. Oh, since what they do can all be done by computers and phones then why do they need fast rail services anyway?
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And who pray tell will pay for this marvel? No doubt after “hard” negotiation Network Rail will carry the lion’s share. The “private” franchise rail companies will demand hand outs for the trains. Environmentalist will be forced to drive to protest campaigns for the “lesser spotted dove tailed Chiltern gnat” (for the environmentalists there is no such creature) whilst bemoaning the lack of “green” transport option! Nimbi’s will object! Celebs will be rallied to support!
This hurts! The French got it right. They said, “we want a high speed rail track from here to there, what is the shortest route? Good we build there…” The protesters complained and they were met with a Gallic shrug and the line was build on time and budget.
2017 my eye!
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32 Neon
"I rather like instead the super high-speed broadband of the Tories so we can telework rather than travel at all."
Good point.
Why do policymakers assume we all want or need to travel?
Advances in IT have significantly reduced the need for face-to-face contact. So much can be done via video-conferencing and emails, nowadays.
But even if we accept the need for improved rail travel, I'd question
a - why start with London?
b - why not just upgrade existing lines and rolling stock?
I can't help thinking that the whole thing will involve endless, expensive, quango's consultants.....jobs for ministers' friends, in short.
Whereas improving existing lines, and buying better rolling stock, would just involve the rail industry doing its job. Where's the fun in that, eh?
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Surely cars are more "old-fashioned" than trains. Unlike trains, cars haven't changed any fundamental components since they first settled on the current configuration around a century ago. They use roads first paved millenniums ago. Whereas trains have changed fundamentally from steam to diesel and now to electric (cars are trying to do the same but don't see how they can overcome the fundamental issue of fuel/power storage).
Also high-speed trains not only travel many times any standard car's top speed. Trains are the future, which is why young kids still marvel at them. You'll never get a young kid standing next to a motorway marvelling at the cars in the way he would when stood next to a train track.
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Yes, build them, then ban internal domestic flights, then there will be no need to add to airport capacity.
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As a customer I don't really have a problem with the speed of the trains, I have an issue with the inflated prices. This move will raise the prices even further at one point or another....whilst any improvement is beneficial I would rather see a more appropriate pricing system
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It sounds to be a good idea, yet I suspect that what is really needed is an acceptance that Britain came to the Industrial Age too early, and that it may be more effective in the long run to uproot the entire present system, and start again from scratch. Otherwise, you end up with a situation of putting patch upon patch upon patch, fiddling about and making do. It's the sort of thing that the British do superbly well, but it would be nice to see the job done properly for once. If it was, we might even see a drop in fares to reasonable levels, as we wouldn't need to pay for the inefficiencies that are inevitably built in to what is effectively a 250 year old system. I could think of worse things to spend public money on.
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# 10 BarryP - an excellent post - couldn't have put it better myself! The problem is though, that those that decide these things have neither the political will or the common sense to do as you suggested. Pity, really.
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Rail should be utilised more for freight rather than commuters.
It is also depressing how long it takes for this country to put any kind of idea into action.
It shouldn't take 7 years of planning for an 8 year long construction project. The channel tunnel was 8 years in total!
China would have this set up by the summer.
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It's a nice idea in principle, however Ministers' idea of "high speed rail" is even more outdated than their idea of high speed internet.
Simply put, having a train that does 140mph would have been a real breakthrough, back in the '60s! These days, 300mph is a fast train, and the Ministers simply don't seem to realise this.
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12. At 2:05pm on 11 Mar 2010, Chrisl wrote:
The whole thing is a joke isn't it? Not starting until probably 2017 with completion in 2025! Typical of this country when the government get involved. They'll be the usual NIMBY's, environmentalists, tree hugging nutters who will delight in (excuse the pun) railroading this project so we'll be lucky to see this finished in 50 years time. Why don't they get the roads sorted first, have you seen the size of the pot holes in Berkshire?
This post is hilarious; I just wanted to draw more people's attention to it! I will be off to Berkshire to view these enormous pot holes directly after posting this!
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Waste of time and money. Replace the existing railways completely with magnetic propulsion services similar to those used in Japan for the last who-knows-how-many years. It will be cheaper and more satisfying in the long run than just throwing money at a poorly infrastructured and outdated mode of transport. In fact, these magnetic rails are believed to be capable of working under water, so it's not inconceivable that they could even replace air and ferry travel before long. But only if governments have the sack to try them out.
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What we need is more branch lines and local stations, with lots more cheaper parking at stations.
This high speed link will only help people living in, or very close to, Birmingham reach London slightly quicker.
Ideally we should be encouraging people to live nearer their work, rather than making it easier for them to travel half way across the country to work.
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Why are ministers obsessed with the biggest fatest shiny-est fabulous project that will serve London and a small number of provincial cities, rather than sorting out commuter services and "sensible" infrastructure projects such as Leeds Supertram (cancelled in favour of the 2012 Olympic fortnight) and re-opening te woodhead Tunnel (no one south of Watford knows where it is)? To satiate their overblown egos, perhaps? Or maybe it's so that when they cancel the project they can claim to have made £30Bn of the "spending cuts" we all know are neccesary. Just another fiddling in the books.
And I'm pro-rail big time!
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" ABOUT TIME" But why is Wales not in the plan??????? we need a modern railway system very badly, as our railways are a big joke. A high speed link is what we need now in Cardiff. If the nimbys in England dont want to have they lovely view damage by any train line? run it from Cardiff and Wales please !!!
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Sounds great. I'm sure that by the time they've implemented this they'll have invented teleportation making it all rather pointless :)
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I hope it will improve transport links. However, I wonder if the aim of getting more journeys by rail and fewer by car could be achieved considerably more easily if the £30bn or so they are planning to spend on this were spent on subsidising fares on the existing rail system.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would travel by train more often if they could afford it.
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Work is guestimated to start on the new rail link1n 2017 with completion in 2025, 8 years for 105 miles of track in fairly easy country ! ! Come on you guys You have fleets af diggers and muck shifters. How long did it take Brunels navvies to build the London Bristol line?
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If there is such money available to be spent,perhaps it might be a good idea to update and expand the present network first! But I'd welcome the advent of TGV lines in the UK...20 years behind everyone else as usual,but still welcome! One worry I have about such a scheme is that it would be private financed,which would mean the investors would expect a healthy profit on their investment. This might mean fares might end up being unaffordable for ordinary people and so the whole thing just ends up an expensive luxury method of transport for the well to do and the business community...at a cost of massive environmental damage for the rest of us.If something like this cannot be done for the general benefit then perhaps it is not justified.
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Fast trains are and will only be available to a few who are living near the largest cities.We still have slow trains taking us to London unless we travel by car to a station where Virgin trains stop. Trains should be available to all and if they are spending so much on a new line only of use to those working in Birmingham or London, what will happen to all the rest of the network?What about creating fast trains from east to west? Travelling to Cambridge from the Midlands is so slow that the car is the only option. Travelling from here to Wales is a joke and getting to Cornwall is a one day's journey.Why do the southerners get all the advantages and the high wages that go with it, is so unfair and it will not get my vote.
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"46. At 2:59pm on 11 Mar 2010, danensis wrote:
It would be a lot better to take up the Central Railway idea, building a new freight railway line connecting High Speed 1 to the north of England, using much of the trackbed of the former Great Central Railway. . ."
Absolutely spot on! I'd like to click on the "recomnend" button, but can't seem to find it. GRRR.
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We in Scotland do not want this railway imposed on us from westminster we can build our own. Scotland will be out of the united Kingdom by this time and also the commonwealth so will not be engaged with the rest of the UK in any form
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Knowing this country it will be another thing that's supposed to be good, but ends up being rubbish... And i bet people will still be noisy in the 'Quiet Zone'.
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One of the busiest air routes in the world is that between London and Dublin, why not a high speed rail link under the St George's Channel linking London and Dublin, if passed through Cardiff it could link three capitals not just two.
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And another thing...
At £30bn, that's £500 for every man, woman and child in the country. If they stay on budget.
I guess maybe 15m people live near enough to a station to potentially benefit, so that's £2,000 per potential beneficiary.
Of these, say 2/3rds will never need it or be able to afford it.
So every traveller will be paying around £6,000 capital costs for the privilege. If this was our money, would we do it, just to get to London a few minutes quicker?
And of course it is our money.
To make any sense, surely the route also has to link directly with the Channel Tunnel?
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Sounds good - even if it's 30 or so years late. Still plenty of time for government ministers and other unqualified (i.e. mediocre degree in law, no work experience) MPs to meddle, of course. If they keep the IT component to a minimum it may even have a chance of success bearing in mind the "reverse Midas touch" of NuLaburr seems to be able to ensure a complete mess-up of every IT project it dabbles in.
Although potentially we could be catching up with the rest of the world at last - which would be marvellous - I have a simple question:
I agree that high speed rail links were sensible 30 years ago - which is why many sensible countries adopted them - but, after all this time, is the benefit of high speed rail still there? It could be even more compelling now than 30 years ago but has anyone done a proper cost/benefits analysis study, other than Prescott on the back of a fag packet, that is?
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Number 59 is right about fare comparison. I'm planning to go to Glasgow soon from Heathrow. Rail fare - £225 and 7 hours; air fare £78 and about 1 hour; coach fare £60 odd and 10 hours.
Which would anyone else choose?
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How is this going to be paid for? Will we borrow the money or print it?
@DaveRN #75 Ah what a lovely thought - please let it be true.
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How about providing rail lines to areas that don't have them and what about connecting up more stations from east to west.
Having to go all the way to London to get to a place that's just a short distance to the west is ridiculous.
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It'd be a step in the right direction.
But it's perhaps not the most important first step - the first step should be to rebuild the goods yards that were torn up between 1960 and 1990 - Beeching isn't the only one to blame here either.
Get goods back onto rail to all major towns and cities, take the majority of the long distance, and worst of all, international, freight from the motorways and town streets back to something that can handle it without destroying our towns.
Once we have freight back on rail, THEN we can worry about how much we need to rebuild passenger services.
Oh, and one last thing, make sure to FUND the railways this time, British Rail was the *ONLY* european railway system expected to be financially self-sufficient. And it's an unfair requirement when you consider the benefits to town and countryside that a fast effecient rail network brings.
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I think journey times on the main routes are pretty good already. You can reach London in less than two hours from Yorkshire/Lancashire for example. It would not make much of a difference if the journey was 15 minutes quicker. Of more importance is the number of lines and trains we can run, and the cost of tickets. Little point if we have faster trains that only the rich can afford to use.
At the moment we have so few lines that if a train breakdowns it blocks the track for countless other trains, as there are not the tracks available to divert the train on to. To be honest it's the same with the roads, we have so few motorways that if accidents occur at a number of key places the network grinds to an halt.
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I think the whole transport planning is an outrageous attrocity.
While politicians dream up big schemes, current train travelers in many areas have to put up with ridiculous number of carriages & massive overcrowding with some at times not even being able to get on their regular train.
Theres a huge problem in Yorkshire & promised extra carriages will not be available until 2014 and after.
I'd hate for us to get into a really serious war, because this Labour government & previous Tory government couldnt adequately plan a tea party let alone something deal with something more serious.
How can it be that extra carriages are so slow to come online. Passenger capacity has far exceeded actual train capacity. WHEREs the environmental planning to get people off the roads. People want to use trains but its more & more difficult & not nice being herded like cattle in some 3rd world country.
Its completely ridiculous to even suggest such a scheme, especially with Torys not agreeing to it as it stands.
I just wish we had some cross party compliance, which is what this country desperately needs.
Maybe a hung parliament would actually achieve it or even if politicians were strung up in a room together there might be some new understanding & bonding that we are all in this together so should work better together.
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All those that look enviously across the Channel at the TGVs in France etc. should remember that many quite large towns in France don't have rail stations, so as good as their high-speed rail network is, it simply isn't available to many people. Stations in the UK are much more widespread, despite the efforts of Dr. Beeching.
The main thing that will detract from the success of the project is (of course) potential cost of using the service. Train travel is so expensive that people are forced onto the roads, or up in the air, which is really the opposite of what is required. The train operators missed a trick by making the HS1 ridiculously expensive, so that even people that can afford it feel ripped off. You just KNOW that they will make this new service prohibitively costly if it ever does get built. Why can't they just see sense for once!
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Who on earth can afford to use the railways? I for one cannot. I do wonder however why the government doesnt bring back British Rail. After all doesnt all this money for new railways just go into the pockets of shareholders.
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Great, but why can it not be started until 2017, and the extensions further north even later.
I an glad that the route through Heathrow was not chosen. Presumably the idea of those in favour of routing through Heathrow, is that it should become a transport hub for the whole of the UK.
One of the problems which besets transport in the UK, is that most airlines, in particular BA, use hubs in the London area. This means that to travel to even common destinations on the continent, or the US, from anywhere in the UK it is often necessary to go via a London airport. This is infuriating for passengers who have no wish to spend a few hours in a shopping mall in the middle of their journey, increases congestion at the London airports and probably increases the carbon footprint.
Heathrow should become a hub for the south east only, and as such does not need a high speed link to the north.
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Well its a great idea.. but if the train doesnt leave on time will it make any difference and as for weekends what happens when they dont have the specialist drivers ? I suspect its just another great idea that will be another useless service.
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As I don't live in London or Birmingham, I don't really care. It would be nice to see some major projects in other parts of the UK for a change
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Is Lord Adonis his real name? Cool! When I get to the House can I call myself Lord Hercules or something?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Let's understand this: It currently takes 1hr10min from London to Birmingham International and 1hr25min to New Street (approx 103 miles) and 1hr25min to Bristol Parkway and 1hr40 min to Temple Meads (approx 107 miles) - So, they are planning to spend £16,000,000,000 of general tax-payer's money (when we already have a Government debt some 50 times this size which the country will struggle to repay) to reduce the Birmingham journey time by 20 or 25 minutes (assuming, of course that additional security checks are not required for passengers boarding these 250 mph trains, and that one of them doesn't break down on the line or fall off it, causing potentially days of disruption to the whole service).
And how many people will actually benefit from this quicker journey?
And what benefit will the other 50 million-odd taxpayers (including all the ones who have to suffer trains rushing by twice as frequently and at twice the speed - and hence approximately 4x the sound energy) see from this?
I say pull the other one!
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66 Paul
"This high speed link will only help people living in, or very close to, Birmingham reach London slightly quicker.
Ideally we should be encouraging people to live nearer their work, rather than making it easier for them to travel half way across the country to work."
Well said.
I'd sooner see the money invested in
- local rail
- cycle paths
- broadband.
I question the very 'need' for the high speed network. Actually, that's a lie. There is a clear need.
There is a whole network of consultants and quangoes out there needing feeding. The Olympics will run dry soon. This project will be there next little earner.
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2017 - hardly worth considering is it. It won't get off the drawing board so what's the point. Where's the money coming from? In 2017 we'll be one of the worse off countries around. Get real.
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Pfft. Pigs might fly.
I've moved to using buses instead of the trains here in North Essex (Colchester to Braintree and vice versa) because they're more reliable and cost 1/3 of what I was spending on travel to and from work.
The Tories won't do what the public want in the way of public transport, in the same way that NuLab haven't. Until the public transport system is taken out of the hands of profiteering fat cat companies and made viable for all as an alternative to the car public transport in this country will not improve one bit, Tory promises or no Tory promises.
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There was, I believe, a "Yes Minister" or "Yes Prime Minister" episode where the concept of a 'fully integrated transport system' was acidly lampooned in a very funny but accurate way.
We are a small country which would benefit from having a single transport authority with a wide remit to explore all modes of transport and meet the needs of all sectors.
It is no good having fast rail links if the infrastructure at the terminus is poor.
There are some startling anomalies. I went to Liverpool last Friday from Birmingham. The cost of an advanced single with senior railcard (£6.60) was less than the taxi ride from my house (1.5 miles) to New Street Station. However for open tickets at peak time, it can cost more to go by train than by plane, even when taking into account travel to the airport and parking. Rural transport links are laughable once you get a few miles outside the city.
We need careful research, analysis, integrated planning and joined-up thinking and decision-making without political interference. But I see pigs flying outside my window ...
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It will be great but until its cheaper than driving it will only be used by those that have a need rather than a choice. Ticket pricing is around 4 times more expensive than driving at the moment so there is no point in using them.
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How many billion? I didn't realise that a 250MPH train requires solid gold rails. Why will it take so long? Many of us will never live long enough to see the benefits, only our children. The longer it takes, the more it will cost. It should be finished by 2017, not started, that gives them 7 years, why do they need longer? This could be a good excuse for getting our planning laws sorted and streamlined.
Why does it have to carve a new route through the countryside? What's wrong with running it alongside the M40 for most of it's route - OK, the gradients in the Chilterns will have to be addressed, but I seem to remember a tunnelling machine going spare somewhere near Dover.
In it's present form it will be of no benefit to the towns and cities in-between London and Birmingham, I'm sure that places like Oxford would love to benefit from a high speed link.
No wonder it's going to get a lot of opposition.
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I just don't see why we have to wait until 2017. We needed high-speed rail links yesterday! And making only a link between London and Birmingham isn't going to solve anything. We need high-speed links along all the major motorway routes to get people out of their cars and onto the train. But more importantly, we need for it to be run at a price that'll make it a realistic alternative for those of us who choose our method of transport according to the cost!
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£30bn & 49 minutes eh?
... and when this money is spent I'll still be having to stand for 50 minutes if I need to travel into London in the rush hour!
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If the tube extension on the East London Line is anything to go by the proposed "improvements" will mean a reduction in services on the local station.
Addionally any "fast" services will no doubt charge a premium rate over the already extortionate walk on fares.
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What for, it doesnt stop anywhere, It goes from point A to B at 250 mph and thats it. London to Birmingham 1/2 hour so one wouldnt have time to have a cup of tea. Besides the noise or the movement of air might just have a health risk to anything around or near it....no Im not jesting and yes it does sound like an original agrument when the Stevenson's train made its way down the track.
But this is serious, 250mph(366 feet per second) and leaves on the rail, dead wild life everywhere, it just might take off or skid to a halt not in Birmingham but Edinburgh.
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A step in the right direction, BUT I believe that as usual, they have got many things wrong.
I believe the route is wrong. It should have followed the west coast main line - M1/M6 corridor, which would have allowed it to serve the heavily populated (and rapidly growing) south midlands, with a stop in the vicinity of Luton/Bedford/MK. This also would have allowed a future East of Pennines branch leaving the main line near rugby.
The point of high speed rail is to get people between cities. The proposals for two stations in London and two stations in Birmingham will not work, as they are two close together. A station should have been built halfway instead, and connections around each city done by connecting rail/rapid transit/bus services.
Finally, the proposal to terminate trains at Birmingham CURZON STREET is ridiculous. This is a disused former station which will require a complete rebuilding. The are NO onward connections; it would require a walk to Birmingham's main new street and moor street stations. It MUST terminate at new street, either by expanding the existing concourse or constructing a new lower-level station, where people will be able to easily connect to conventional rail services to complete their journeys.
It also will not work with our privatised fragmented system we currently have. In France, the TGV only works because it has reasonable fares which people are prepared to pay and it is integrated with the rest of the system and other modes of transport. Unlike the domestic HS1 services, where rail fares were raised by 8% to pay for it and the new service charges a premium. To relieve existing lines, they must charge the same fares (which should also be lower than they are now.)
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Yes. Next stupid and bleeding obvious question?
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The decision to develop a high speed rail link is above politics and concerns us all. We must advance transport in this country or grind to a halt. The concept of high speed trains between all major cities must be the target and those of us subject to suffering the interference of such transport must accept it for the benefit of our country as a whole. I look forward to travelling on such transport and hope the designers of the track will ensure it can accommodate higher speed forms of transport which may emerge in the future'
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The only way to improve transport links is by cheap integrated travel like they have on mainland Europe.
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No. 80 states; "Number 59 is right about fare comparison. I'm planning to go to Glasgow soon from Heathrow. Rail fare - £225 and 7 hours; air fare £78 and about 1 hour; coach fare £60 odd and 10 hours.
Which would anyone else choose?"
If your going to be realistic about comparing rail and air then please make a fair comparison. let's say 45 mins for example travel time to the airport. Arrive at least two hours before flying. One hours flight, wait for baggage say 30 mins. Your hour flight is now not so quick, factor in the flights are less regular than trains and then the travel from the destination airport to your final destination - add on the other costs and it's not looking so good.
Personally i prefer rail and the sooner this country invests heavily on public (not private or PPI/PFI) transport the better. Outside of London public transport is a joke, proper investment is what is required.
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What will happen to the existing railway link from Birmingham and Manchester. This is very fast, frequent and usually on time.
Will Virgin be compensated for loss of passengers? If so at what cost.
Why not spend the money expanding all the current routes to at least 4 tracks and improving the signalling to allow the Pendolinos to travel at their design maximum of 140 mph?
Britain is too small to really benefit from the extra speed - particularly for those who do not live close to the centres of population.
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And what can we expect from this? Even higher prices of tickets to subsidise the line which will only benefit those who wish to travel from Birmingham to London?
Why not fix the rest of the country's rail networks and bring them up to standard before spending more than this country owes to the IMF on 'high speed lines'.
God forbid Labour win this next election. How can we spend our way out of debt? That's like someone shooting their way out of a prison and once on the street the individual is suddenly a free man.
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This would be great news, except that public transport in this country is a blatant and total ripoff. I live in Yorkshire, if I wanted to get a return to London it would cost me nearly £200. I can buy a full tank of petrol for £40. Sure, the car has already cost me a couple of grand, but think - a rail ticket is a one-off thing. The car can get me to many more places than just London. £2500 spread over 8000+ miles is better value than £200 for 500. And more comfortable. And is there when you want one. And won't break down or be delayed as often.
If public transport were affordable, this would meet with applause from me. On the one hand, I'm glad that we're finally seeing fit to modernise this country's archaic rail network, on the other I know that the already exorbitant fares will only hike with the new convenience factor. Once you're done with the trains, Parliament, start on the buses. It should NOT be cheaper to get home in a taxi than by bus.
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It sounds so attractive as it trips of the tongue doesn't it, but is its beauty as deep as it needs to be? Do we need fast distance rail services or is there something else that would help the infrastructure of this country more?
What about more affordable houses, and improved local train and bus services? Spending money increases jobs however you do it, but how many people really benefit from a train link that will knock thirty minutes off a train journey from one city to another?
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This definitely the way to go, I have travelled Japan a lot and bullet trains are used everywhere and so good, but make sure we do this for the right reasons, if I were planning this first rail link make it so it can be accessed for the Euro Star and Heathrow then out to Birmingham + airport, Manchester + airport, Liverpool on to Newcastle and Edinburgh, Glasgow.
The second line should again start or finish which ever way you want to look at it, with the Euro Star, Heathrow to Oxford, then across to Bristol, with a branch going to the west country and another going to Cardiff, Swansea then up to Aberystwyth, Caernarfon and to Holyhead for connections to Dublin.
Make the thing work for the country and get some use out of it. Even if it only travels at 200mph it will still be fast!
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While I'm heavily in support of high speed rail in this country, the plan doesn't go far enough. The government should commit to building a network across the country, thats up to Glasgow as a guarantee, not as a further project. Likewise the network should also cover the South West and Cardiff.
However the South West is always totally ignored. The economic impact of a high speed line running from London to Plymouth via Bristol, Exeter and Torquay could be huge for the flagging economy of the South West and for tourism which it so heavily relies upon. A branch line off to Cardiff will take some of the traffic off the horrible M1 but these things are never thought of by polticians who consider this country to start and end at London and Birmingham and on rare occasions Manchester also.
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To all the supporters of Maglev technology instead of wheel-on-rail technology:
For once, I believe that the government has made a sensible choice to use existing and proven technology rather than new technology which requires further development, will cost 10 times as much, will require specialized equipment and workers due to it being completely different to what we already have.
HSR also has the advantage that it is possible to use existing tracks around stations/in metropolitan areas, rather than having to bulldoze a new path through cities and build completely new stations. It also allows HSTs to turn off the high speed line and continue along conventional lines in order to connect places not directly served by the high speed line.
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The proposed route runs through the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, one of the most beautiful areas of southern England and one rich in rare wildlife. I am not convinced that it is worth destroying this landscape and habitat for the sake of a small cut in the journey time from London to Birmingham. The West Coast mainline from Euston to Birmingham and beyond has recently been upgraded, at considerable expense. I would prefer to continue to invest in this, rather than build a horrendously expensive new line from scratch. If this project goes ahead, the West Coast mainline is at risk of decline due to lack of investment.
In any case, unless rail travel becomes substantially cheaper, many people will continue to use car and air travel to get around the UK. A virtually empty train running at such high speed will have a hefty carbon footprint.
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Why this rush to get high speed lines in operation?
The rail service in general is sinking under the weight of its many and varied problems and any spare money should be spend on them.
It will cost a vast amount of money to shave minutes off journey times - money wasted in my opinion.
It seems that the authorities are trying to compete with air travel so no doubt the cost of going from A to B will be roughly the same as flying the same distance. Too expensive for most pockets.
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Yet again another london centric proposal - when will any government come to realise that travellers from parts of UK outside London and all parts of Europe want to complete journeys without inconvenient, expensive and difficult transfers in capital cities. Can we not come up with a solution that integrates with for example the Eurostar so that Birmingham to Paris is a single journey!! then the airlines are completely shot..
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It would be good if it served the whole country but as usual the north will miss out and the real benefit will be for London.
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I think it's good that they have finally acknowledged Yorkshire! Leeds and Sheffield really don't deserve to be left out, like usual, especially since Leeds is the largest financial center in the UK outside London.
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Why has the North been over-looked yet again ? How do we ever expect to narrow the wealth gap when our taxes are always spent in the South ?
Until we get better infra-structure to the whole country, the divide will remain, and likely grow.
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A long overdue development - However, although I am familiar with Birmingham International airport, The city Birmingham, East Midlands International airport, the cities of Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester, I must confess that "Old Oak Common" is a new one to me! Is this the nearest station to where the minister of transport lives?
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They'd be better off thinking of transportation as a whole. Has anyone tried to get from the M4 to Reading's railway station, a main hub to the North West and London, at rush hour? The Victorians located it directly in the town centre, which worked for them but which doesn't so much for us; the road traffic to get to it is horrendous.
A 'People Mover' style transport link, similar to the system that operates at Gatwick, from M4's Junction 12 direct to the station would be a far better investment and far cheaper. It would have many benefits but chiefly would make it easier and faster to use the railways.
If the government want more people to use the railways they need to consider the total journey time, not just the time from station to station.
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My flying car idea is a work in progress.
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Though rail is probably a better transport alternative than air or road from an ecological viewpoint, I question the wisdom of improving the speed of journey times. One of the major impacts on the environment is the number of commutes that are regularly undertaken by people whatever mode of transport is used. As a society we should be looking to reduce the distance travelled by people to their work. This project will only see more places fall within the orbit of commuting distance to the conurbations. Like eco-towns, I suspect much of the motivation for this is to do exporting people from living the south-east whereas what really needs to happen is the export of jobs from the south-east to other parts of Britain so as to reduce money wasted on unnecessary transport and alleviate congestion of the rail and road networks.
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Sounds a great idea, but will anybody be able to afford a ticket?
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If the sections north of Birmingham are cheaper per mile than the stretch out of London, why not build them first?
I guess the reason for the cost difference is to do with land and property prices (rather than engineering difficulty). Shouldn't we be paying attention to that economic cue? The south-east is over-developed, overcrowded and too full of its own importance. Time to redress the balance and build the long overdue high-speed cross-Pennine link and links to Birmingham and Scotland. There seems to be some idea that London has to have everything first, and that getting to London is our highest priority.
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Living about 250 miles west of London, I am too remote from this link and cannot imagine why I will even wish to go to Birmingham.
I am happy to remain here in Pembrokeshire.
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If we are to have a decent High Speed Rail line outside of Kent (don't get me wrong, I love HS1 and it shaves loads of time off of my journey home, but it's stupid that more wasn't done with it when it was being built) then it should be government-owned. Private train companies aren't amazing when trying to run a simple suburban line, let alone a high-cost, high-maintenance High Speed line.
Any HSR network should be nationalised.
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This government will continue to rape the English countryside until there is none left - and all for commerce.
While public transport does need to be updated, new businesses do need to be established, how many trains will be derailed at 250mph by the obscene number of hooligans in this country?
What we need is a more thoughtful approach to the 21st century, and less Victorian meddling.
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Excellent idea, however a feasibility study should be aimed at higher speeds in excess of 350mph not 250mph!!, complete waste of time or money if lower speeds are set as a goal, magnetic levitation also proves for stability rather than the wear and tear which would also reduce maintenance. I know levitation can be in efficient, but hey this is 2017 we’re aiming for, i’m sure superconductors will then come in to replace out current inefficient electro magnets. And don't forget thermal fusion power plants or Black light power will be up and running, never the less we will always have a new power generation source by then. Think longer term, not for the next 40years, but more like 120years
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What a great idea but after Labour has failed to invest over 13 years in infrastructure I will not hold my breath.
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"Network Rail chief executive Iain Coucher said high-speed rail was "a vital part of a modern, dynamic economy".
He also said that it would "take cars and lorries off the road, cut domestic flights and release capacity on the existing rail network, transforming services even for those communities not served directly by a high-speed line. "
Take lorries off the road? Sounds like clutching at straws to me..... Now if they were talking about introducing 100mph freight trains and re-introducing wagon load (which will never happen now the infrastucture has long gone) then, yes, the green argument would be good. In the mean time an awful lot of money is (potentially) going to be spent on connecting a very few cities, leaving cross-country travelers to cope with ever reducing services (see HS1 in the South East) due to them "not being economic".
10,000 jobs created? Probably, but mostly in Japan or Italy or such - God forbid that any rolling stock be designed and built here, we don't want to encourage manufacturing in the UK do we?
This is just an ego, eco project that will never be what it is intended, the NIMBY's will ensure that.
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A high speed rail link will certainly create construction jobs for the duration of the building. The big question for travellers once the link is ready is will be whether the banks will be providing 100% mortgages to cover the cost of the ticket, or will it simply become the exclusive service for MPs who are not subject to train fares?
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Will never get built but how can the planners ignore a station for Coventry - the 9th largest in the UK - when the proposed line passes along the city's southern boundary?
So that Preston - Preston !! - can get a station?
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It is all very well building a new rail link, but what is the point if it is cheaper to fly, and in most cases quicker. Until the mess that is the railway system in this country is turned into some thing that is not only cheap but efficient the money for this scheme should either be put aside or used for a better scheme.
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Great idea, about time, but 2017 to start work is a joke; In France and Asian this would be completed including to Scotland by 2017 and it will probably get cut as by this time we will be ready for the next downturn while still trying to pay off Brown's Debt Mountain
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I can't help noticing that all the high speed lines go North. Presumably there are no Labour voters in the West Country for them to have decent rail links.
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Watching tonight's news really upset me. I'm not some Conservative high earning executive NIMBY who drives into london in his/ her BMW and has never used public transport in their life. I am a secondary school teacher and world traveller who lives and works in the Chilterns. On the way back from work today I saw people cutting down tree and burning them in what is known as "Common" Wood. It again made me really sad, and angry. In who's name is all this development happening? Who is making all these massive decisions about our woodlands and common areas and historic fields and valleys? It sure as hell isn't me. No one EVER consults us on our environment. I pay taxes and vote and pay council tax and recycle and give to charity, and yet all I get in return is idiotic people talking absolute rot on the news. Here are my arguements against the high speed trains proposal: 1) Massive destruction of natural habitat, for animals and for humans!! 2) Disregard for environment, history and heritage of area 3) Waste of money. Why doesn't money get spent on improving and upgrading the existing lines? (I dropped my sister off last night to the train station in High Wycombe to get the train back to Gerrards Cross, but there were NO trains running, so I drove her back myself!!)
4)No one could afford to use it anyway, rail prices are so high these days its cheaper to drive into London if more than one person in a car, as for going to Liverpool it's, again, cheaper (and often quicker) to drive!! Therefore invest money improving the present line to make it affordable and user friendly!! In my opinion these proposals are ill advised, wasteful and deeply disrepectful to our heartland and heritage. In conclusion, I suggest we sort out the problems we already have, rather than create more.
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This proposed route is already twenty years too late. It should already have been completed into Scotland and have been in full operation for a decade or so.
But successive governments have fought shy of investing in rail infrastructure. They seem to have been stuck in a timewarp where the infamous Dr Beeching rules, where to extend a rail network would be an act of sacriledge.
Poppycock!! Railways are both cheaper and more cost effective than motorways. The new high speed link should be operational before we even consider another yard of major road construction.
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How come it's taking so long for anything to happen? Is there any way this can be 'fast-tracked' as it's clearly of importance to get it built quickly!!
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Yes it will improve transport but it should have been started 25 years ago.We sold off all the real technology because government wanted the railways in private hands but subsidised by the tax payer.We sold off ever single inovation that could have given us the best railways in the world only to buy the same inventions back 20 years later.Government after government couldnt run a coconut shy.
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So despite all the talk over the past year about whether or not the new line should go via or have a spur out to Heathrow, that option gets no mention in the white paper or the reporting of it?
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I thought they promised something like this 13 years ago - probably been stopped by a signal malfunction in Westminster.
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Probably not in my lifetime given the way this Govt manages things; vide the medical database etc, etc, etc......
And with their progress in education there is a serious question as to whether there will be any Brits capable of designing and building it anyway. But of course that will allow more IMMIGRATION
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It is another 3 weeks to 1st April. I'm looking forward to what is election pledged on 1st April it will have go something to top that.
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Why exactly do we need another north-south railway line?
Take a look at the map of the rail network and you will find a honking great gap between London and Birmingham where there are very few routes that run east-west. The same applies to the map of the motorway network. This is all fine and well as long as you are going north or south; everything is biased in your favour. If you are trying to go east-west, forget the train. Luton and Stevenage both have railway lines, but the only way to travel between then by train is to go into London and back out again. They are ten miles apart; why can't we connect some of these lines together?
Similarly, the system works fine as long as you are trying to go in a straight line. As soon as you try and go somewhere that requires that you change trains, the whole thing falls apart. It's bad management, see. Several years ago, I was looking to go from Milton Keynes to Poole. I worked out it would take about five hours. It would take a similar amount of time to get to Skegness. A large part of this time would be spent hanging around in stations waiting for connecting services because the system simply is not joined-up correctly. In both cases, the journey by car takes around three hours, so why go by train?
There is also a service I discovered which runs between Coventry and Nuneaton. It takes about half an hour to make a journey of about ten miles with one stop along the route. It arrives at Nuneaton two minutes after a connecting train going north. This is stupid.
What we need are not necessarily trains that go faster but trains that take us where we need to go and do it efficiently without all the waiting around in stations. Unfortunately, this country specialises in incompetant management, so it is not going to happen any time soon.
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Judging by past performance:
• It will be completed late.
• It will cost hundreds of millions more than originally estimated.
• None of the trains or carriages will be made here in the UK.
• The only new jobs for British people will be station or canteen staff i.e. yet more service roles.
• The carriages will be the wrong size for the tracks, and have to be rebuilt.
• It will be too expensive for most people to use as a viable alternative.
• First hint of snow or dead leaves and the whole line will grind to a halt.
• Another area of natural beauty will be destroyed.
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Imagine the state of the buffet car!!
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If it were a project within a programme of improvement and change I might be more supportive. As it is it looks like tokenism and a good media savvy project to promote. Like most projects in this government though they will say it but probably never do it anyway.
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Nimby time. The proposed route will run over ground very close to my house. Same area is planned to be impacted by additional air traffic from Heathrow expansion. So hit twice with new noise polution.
I understand the argument that says we just have to suck it up for the national interest, and support high speed rail extension, but why twice ? Do we now quailfy for some of recognition for "doing our bit" for blighty ? Perhaps a tax reduction, or a set of ear plugs ?
Or would Her Majesty's Government prefer to go the whole hog and really pump up the area's green credentials. There are at least a few hundred yards between us and a bullet train that's just crying out for a wind farm.
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So, it goes to Birmingham, with an "option" of going north at a later date. If it ever gets built, it will head to Manchester and the north west. Yorkshire will be left to wither as per usual.
We currently have a government run service on the East Coast an its as bad now as when National Excuse, sorry Express ran it. Late, over priced and over crowded trains.
I for one will continue to drive south as I can rely on myself to get me to where I need on time.
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Yes, this is an essential and neccesary transport investment. It should be funded by radical increases in road tax for gas guzzling vehicles (>200 g/km CO2 emissions and rising as CO2 emissions increase) and by a congestion charge for such vehicles.
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Hmmm. I sense a massive cash injection will shortly be made into the bank account of one of the governments friends. Its the only reason why any major public works is undertaken in this country.
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And despite all the investment you will still be able to get from London to europe in less time than it takes to get from London to weymouth, where a little thing called the olympics is happening in the not so distant future.
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High speed rail travel is the best way to travel between cities in the UK. However I have security concerns. Since the Madril rail bombings all passengers travelling on long distance trains in Spain pass through a metal detector and have their luggage X-rayed. It happens on the entrance to the platform and takes little time. There is similar security for EuroStar. We should have such security in the UK.
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It's a nice idea but when Mrs Moggins at the at a tiny parish council along the route decides that she wants to delay the project for ten years by exploiting our over complicated planning laws then forget any building work starting in 2017.
In addition there is not the political will to embark on projects of this scale. The public has a fetish for spending money on the NHS, prisons and pensioners and therefore politicians will always see infrastructure as a low priority. That's why CrossRails, badly needed and on the drawing board since the late 1980's, has been put on hold by successive governments.
That's why we our transport system is below standard for an industrialised country, why our housing is in short supply and why we will soon be held to ransom by unsavoury regimes if we want to stay warm in the winter.
We simply do not have people in charge willing to say 'we need this, we will spend the money and face down the protestors'.
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I see that arguments over the route have already begun. Expect tiny groups of NIMBYs to successfully bury this project for decades by exploiting our hideously complicated planning laws.
In France (or Japan or Germany or any other western nation for that matter) the government would say 'this is for the good of the entire nation, I'm sorry but your little village has to lump it'...
But this isn't France and there will be no new line.
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How can they seriously believe that this will take cars off the road? If anything, the roads will be more crowded with people getting to the stations.
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There always seems to be an obsession with removing lorries from the roads and putting them on the railway. fine if, as suggested by and earlier comment, you need to travel vast distances but in this country we dont have the distance. Glasgow to Milan makes sense. By the time the truck is loaded in London, sent, at low speed, to Birmingham and offloaded then driven to the delivery point it could have done the trip and been back at its start point! Removing trucks from roads onto rail is political point scoring. you will still need the truck to take the container to the rail point which will be at the most congested end of the trip!!
that said a passenger link would be great if the infrasturcture either end supported it.
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35. At 2:36pm on 11 Mar 2010, Jerry Marshall wrote:
The route through Burton Green is crazy. With 14 trains an hour at 250mph at the end of our short garden my house would fall down! This route goes along the back of a line of houses. Given that Burton Green is the highest point in the area the route needs to be further South and tunnel under the Cromwell Lane area.
Burton Green fended off a mine 20 years ago and will do the same again.
===================
So do we simply not build our new line because you might face some disruption? If it was down to me you would be be forced to move (with compensation of course).
But the planning laws are horrendeous and you will win I expect.
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With all that money and work, they are only going to 250mph! It will be out of date by the time that it is finished. The route wil parallel most of the West Coast Main Line, which is one of the good services (if overcrowded) we already have (except if you are going to Glasgow). By contrast, the West of England is a rail and road wilderness, with journey times little better (and sometimes worse) than they were under steam in 1910. Still no electrification??? The route to the East Midlands and Sheffield from St Pancras is pathetically slow. Forget about going to East Anglia by rail. Meanwhile the old Great Central route from Marylebone to Sheffield lies abandoned and useful spurs and cut offs all over England have been abandoned by National Rail and built over. We have seen from the Channel tunnel debacle how the modern railway engineers have taken account of our weather with over-optimistic assesments of traction on rail, steep inclines, never any manual back up systems, no proper facilities for communications to customers, no fast recovery of broken down trains, no facilities to look after detrained passengers, and no luggage space. We have gone back in time.
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Why is it within Scotland to go from Edinburgh to Aberdeen with the line not being electric it takes over 2.5 hours, going south I could be in York in the same time. I'm all for upgrading of the railways but the price of tickets often means it is cheaper to fly, e.g. I flew to Southampton there and back on one day on Tuesday for half the price of the train, I don't like to fly as increases my carbon footprint, but it makes more economic sense.
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As usual, anything South or West of Bristol clearly only exists during the summer holidays. I am so glad that Birmingham and Scotland are likely to be included in this high speed rail link. What about those of us who live in Devon and Cornwall or should I say Brigadoon.
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should have already happenned!! But as usual anybody north of the watford gap are ignored!! Even these plans only go to Birmingham with possible considerations for ONLY upto Manchester and Leeds. Does the North East not exist?? Darlington, Newcastle, Or even Edinburgh??
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this will be an over expensive luxuary whcih we can do without
rail fares will be higher to pay for it.
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A high speed rail link for England...nothing for Wales and Scotland...as usual
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Much as I am in favour of rail travel, I think the money would be better spent delivering local tram or trolly bus schemes to cut the everyday congestion in our towns and cities. Here in Leeds we have been trying to get such a scheme for 20 years. Our current proposals are lost in the depths of Whitehall waiting for a decision, which I fear will be another cancellation. With 50bn we could fund 180 Leeds size schemes, rather than cater for a relatively small journey time saving which will benefit a small number of people nationally. Mind you, if we hadn't had to bail out the banks we could have afforded both ideas...
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Why is building only starting in 2017 or 2015, why not now? If the country needs it - get moving. Start in 2017 - finish when? Say 2030? This country is so pedestrian. I suppose the delay gives, lawyers and landowners, and business consultants and etc etc time to line their pockets. And will it be used for freight - I doubt it somehow.
I bet its never built or at least not in my lifetime.
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Think of all the fantastic things we could acheive in this country if we were not squandering our best young men and countless £billions in Iraq and afghanistan.If and when this scheme gets of the ground,can we please build world class trains in this country instead of Japan,France or Germany getting the benifit?.
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Speed is only one factor in improving tansport others being reliability, affordability, safety, frequency etc. High speed links may make the network faster but at what cost to other factors?
There is little point in having an infrequent, unreliable high speed service that nobody can afford ot use. The money would be better spent improving the current service.
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Yay! High-speed rail!!
From London to... Birmingham. Oh. Hum.
What a wasted opportunity.
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We can not run a day to day rail network. The money should be spent bring the whole net work up to standard
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If the Government thinks that I am willing to support such a proposal then it can think again. As a taxpayer, why should I fund a scheme costing billions of pounds which is to be of no benefit to me and thousands of others? By the time it is completed, like everything else in the British Isles, it will be out of date. Where is live it takes almost an hour and a half before I reach the nearest motorway. Does anyone care? No. Where I live it takes at least two hours to reach the nearest airport by road and considerably longer by train. Does anyone care? No. Where I live I get 576.0 Kbps broadband and if I lived a few yards further down the road I wouldn't even get that. Does anyone care? No. Our local hospital desperately needs money spending on it but apparently there are not any Government funds available. Why, when there of billions of pounds in the kitty to fund this absurd proposal?
Where do I live?..a village about 8 miles from Aberystwyth. What happens to the 10,000 created jobs once the scheme is completed? Hopefully this Government has finally stuck its head on the chopping block. However if the rest of the parties are supporting this madcap idea then I will not be voting for any of them.
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More comfortable trains (the seating has become far more densly packed into fewer carriages in the last 15 years), a more extensive rail network and cheaper fares. Those are all things that I would much rather have before getting faster trains.
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If this is to upgrade the infrastructure, why is it only serving links from London to the North?
What's wrong with the West Country, the South Coast, Wales etc? This is a completely pointless exercise unless all of the main routes are upgraded. This is a politically motivated announcement, timed to create maximum exposure for the Labour party, 2 months prior to a General Election.
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It's about time they spent some of those "Green" taxes they have taken from us. Pity they don't think about the west of England as well as the north.
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So many people think that this is a good thing and i do not know why, The proposed route goes right through the heart of the Chilterns with no thought about the destruction of the countryside, Wildlife and the effects to the local communities. For myself it will be nigh on in my back garden destroying the views , giving noise and disrupting the community as a whole.
One thing that i really do not understand though is why they cannot just upgrade the existing line instead of building a totally new line that will run pretty much adjacent to the existing one ?
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Wonderful idea. Should have been done years ago. Two questions, though: how much will the tickets cost? will it help poor lost souls to get to that hell of an airport called Heathrow?
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I'd be interested to know how a train moving at 200+ mph is controlled - there's no way a human could do it (take a look at the video simulation). It raises all sorts of safety and control questions. As it could be argued that our railway operators are generally incompetent at all sorts of things from track maintenance to fleet operation in the event of an 'incident', I get this nasty cold feeling running down my back when I think about it.
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If this or the next government would allow the engineering infrastructure to redevelop in order that everything from trains to track would be built in Britain by the British then I would be applauding this with both hands.
The more likely outcome is that, if elected, the Conservatives will scrap the project before it starts because the country "cannot afford it".
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To those complaining that it only goes to Birmingham: This is only the first section! Eventually it will continue to Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and HS3 will link London, Sheffield, Leeds and Edinburgh. There will also be stations to change for Heathrow and a London hub with connections with HS1 and the Channel Tunnel.
But perhaps before we go off and build all that, it might be worth testing the market by linking the countries two biggest cities...
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I'll be 63 come 2017. I hope they speed up the consultation & planning process.
High speed trains linking North & South are really for business travellers.
Ordinary travellers do not need that speed, however they need cheap fares, reliable service, and cheap transport link and accomodation on their journeys.
Cheap transport and cheap accomodation for ordinary travellers is what will benefit us.
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Lets not get ahead of ourselves with all this high speed talk, as there are more fundamental problems to sort out, like plugging holes in our battered network post-1960s that those nutters back then ripped up, such as Uckfield to Lewes, plus get a grip on the handouts given out to these mickey mouse train companies (or better still, introduce some form of hands-off renationalisation seeing that the taxpayer is paying out 3-5X more than they ever did to BR), before we get excited about new high speed links. The 60s also destroyed the high speed link to the north that already existed because the late victorians built that with gentle inclines and wide curves to connect London out of Marylebone with the north at high speed (called the Great Central, look it up), so wouldn't it make more sense to plug those gaps between the bits remaining rather than blighting enormous new swathes of Britain? And unless HS2 connect up with HS1 out of St Pancras, what's the point, if you have to struggle from one terminus to another? HS2 sounds too good to be true because right now it sounds like Westminster pre-election hyperbole.
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Well, it's about time.
I'm glad the government has actually chosen to bite the bullet and think in the long term, rather than do everything for short term gain which is usually what happens. I just hope that this is only that start, and that soon we will be able to speed to all corners of the country like they can in France and Germany, and not just around middle england.
Will this produce jobs in this country? I hope the rolling stock and track is made in this country rather than in France, Germany or Japan. Ever since the tories privatised the railways trains are no longer made in this country, which should change.
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I have travelled on rail networks in many countries. It is so apparent that the UK's transport system, whether road, rail, plane or sea, is one of the most expensive and least value for money in the world.
People deserve affordable transport. Sadly I don't expect that high speed train travel will provide this.
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Rail is too old and outdated. High speed road and coach links would be better
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Why are people still going on about Beeching? It was Thatcher who killed the UK railway industry. Before she came along, the old BR was moving in the right direction. The infamous APT was a real trend-setter which was dropped before it could be properly developed and the HS125 went on to be a big success. Under Thatcher, the money that should have been spent on the infrastructure and rolling stock went to a bunch of management consultants and lawyers who drew up the plans for privatisation. Need I say more?
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So we cant afford new trains for the existing network (Virgin have had their order cut the DFT) Platform extensions are on hold due to lack of funds. Waterloo international is sat empty as there isnt the money to convert it for domestic use yet.
BUT we can spend billions on a new railway
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Since when is Birmingham in the north? Middlesborough Newcastle Gateshead etc are north Birmingham is the Midlands.. surely Mandelson must have had something to say.. He lives in the real North East
Who cares about the rail links? the roads are in dire need of repairs.. theres no plans to drum billions into repairing them so why jump on the rails and put a high speed link in?
Us tax payers want safer roads.. we don`t want lower speed limits cos of the potholes, we don`t want deaths due to motorcycles hitting potholes
The network of roads are far more used then the rail network.. it`s far more taxable then the railway... so why doesd the railway gets billions to make things safer when we pay billions to die cos of lack of need to repair the taxed roads
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I expect it will. However by the time it is finished only the very rich will be able to afford to use it.
Why is it going from Euston ? it would make more sense to me to go from St Pancras so it would link up with the HS trains to Europe.
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There is no question that we should build high speed railways. We've spent 50 years building motorways and the pendulum is now swinging back in favour of rail. What we need to have is a vision for society's needs in 150 to 200 year's time: If we think about the way the Victorians built today's rail network we can see what we ought to do for our future generations. Where will they want to travel and why? Will they need freight lines or just passenger lines? Will steel on steel remain the means of traction or will Maglev supersede it? We can think about these things and build accordingly now.
All these things are common sense. Let's build to a bigger loading gauge, with tunnels and bridges wide enough to take twice the amount of tracks we currently envisage. Let's not get bogged down in avaricious aguments about whether we should build the line or not, let's argue about how well we should do it.
See what the French have done with the Millau Viaduct, a beautiful structure designed by a British architect - and be inspired!
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Sounds like a great idea. It would be even better still if I could afford to travel by train. If only they hadnt closed the Great Central;they wouldnt have to be finding so much money now
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well it has only taken just over 100 years to get to the point that was started by the old Great Central Railway and a certain Watkins etc with ideas of trains travelling from oop nurth all the way down though London and on to the continent via a channel tunnel. He even had the foresight to construct the Great Central to the Berne loading gauge so that 'johnny foreigner's' trains and wagons could be brought over and onwards to a central destination. Then it was all given the bums' rush by Beeching and we all went by road instead. Most of the route is still extant, and part of it from north of Leicester to south of Nottingham, is in the hands of a railway preservation group.
It is still the best and only route sensible to use and rebuild and goes to show how consectutive governments have shafted this country and sold off our heritage for a fast buck. Wasn't it a certain Marples that presided over the blitzkreig of our railway systems with one hand and the other signing cheques to his company building the motorways?
If we are really serious about railways and connecting this great country's cities together, get it started now, this year, not in 5 10 or 15years time. And when it's done, give us a link to the Isle of Wight as well please, we have been waiting just as long and are still no nearer being a real part of England!
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By 2017, 250 miles/hour will be designated snail's pace.
Work is not likely to begin (per Transport Secretary Lord Adonis) for seven years; so, how is that going to help unemployment in the immediate future?
Haven't we enough problems?
Let's stay reasonably focused on the NOW.
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In the 1970s, Britain decided that we could run a high speed network on existing track. This was a stupid mistake, and as a result we now have half the amount of true high speed railway as Belgium.
At last a line is being announced as if it was something special. It is far too late, and we can predict a decade and a half of people whining that it is too near their house or interferes with the only known habitat of the lesser spotted goosepimple.
Britain pretty well invented the railway; and now we have left it in the lurch.
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I'm all for it. However, the costs have to come down.
Lord Adonis seems to forget that you can today be charged over £1,000 for a one person return ticket to travel to a destination in the UK is a moral outrage.
This government has long reneged on the promise it made to "comprehensive and reasonably priced public transport" in it's 1997 manifesto.
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Why link up some of more invested economical areas with each other when they could link areas with large potential growth yet lacking of investment. Birmingham to London is a joke by forgeting other areas as the South of Wales and South-East of England.
Even more absurd is the idea of using HS2 when MagLev technology exists, why must the UK play catch-up continuously when we could start investing in real future technologies, especially in an environmentally concerned time.
The BBC's 'The magnetic attraction of trains' (1999) shows;
"Maglev has environmental advantages - there is no engine and no wheel contact, so there is insignificant noise pollution or vibration; there is no use of fuel so there is no air pollution (at least not from the vehicle), and because there are no steel wheels to slip on steel tracks, it can climb higher gradients than conventional trains."
As we move to renewable energy sources I am sure this train technology in the long term would save a lot more money. It would probably manage our terrain effectively causing less damage to the environment as we do not need to carve out straight, flat areas of Britain.
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Whatever the attempted improvements to the rail links in the UK one thing is absolutely certain ;in 2020 say, there WILL STILL be ;unit failures , signal failures ,late trains , trains cancelled at short notice,short notice platform chages , continuous and annoying automated 'apologies' , a despicably poor level of catering , unbelievably complicated ticketing policies ,'cack handed' ticket checking at stations etc. etc. etc. How do i know this? I just know..well you don't have to be clever..just a certain age, and a train user.. it's become the NORM now!! Poor 'service' is part of the UK's , so called service industry 'DNA' now, oh yes , and having 'performance tables' attempting to prove otherwise. Put it this way .the Manchester to Liverpool journey time ,for example was quicker in 1968 than it is today and railway coffee was also better and available in standard class in the old days too, why?....Discuss. Bring back the Titfield Thunderbolt!Maybe we need more graduates to sort it?......(not really.. just people with a sense of public duty in charge.)
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Magnetic propulsion services really aren't what they're cracked up to be, due to some rather severe limitations and practical issues, and are relatively rarely used. No, the Japanese Shinkansen, French TGV, etc are not maglevs.
65. BulletMonkey's comment implying that the Shinkansen is a maglev and stating that they can also be used underwater is extremely incorrect.
As for the proposal itself, a 2017 starting date is rather unambitious and the project will probably have run out of steam by then.
The choice of Birmingham station of Curzon street doesn't sound like a fantastic idea to me either.
I'm also going to echo the comments of many here in saying that many aspects of the existing network need to be fixed. Running overcrowded, infrequent 2 carriage DMUs on major lines (which sorely need improvement work) simply won't do.
As for the lorries on trains idea, a quick idea is to just run some vehicle trains from Callais to a spur from HS1 heading to near the start of the M1. A huge amount of freight on lorries clogs up the M25 to get round London to Europe... (The loading gauge, speed and space issues would be a problem though).
The best thing that could happen to the UK rail network would be if DB or SNCF started running more trains through the channel tunnel and potentially further up (now that the safety regulations on the tunnel have been relaxed to practical levels). Presumably they'd have the intelligence to build HS2 (and hopefully a connecting spur between the two) to the Berne loading gauge so they could be used that way.
Sad to say but the only way things are going to get better is if it's done by foreign bodies (or if transport was nationalised and mutually coordinated by a neutral non-political non-profit body, but like that's ever going to happen).
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of course it will. investment is well overdue
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We have a rail system which nobody uses except near London and now we are going to spend millions on getting people in and out of London even faster. This is nothing to do with a new rail system but more to do with London, if it were otherwise the system would be built from the North of Britain (Inverness) down to the overdeveloped south.
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There are many cynics out there but ponder this....we are not only behind France, Germany, and Japan, but by 2020 will also be behind Poland, Portugal and Turkey who all have plans for high speed rail in the next 10 years
In Turkey a place I know well the first high speed line is running, a second will be operational by the end of the year, and the Istanbul Ankara line is under construction due to open by 2013...by 2020 6 routes, covering 1500 miles, connecting 7 major cities will be operational by 2020.
And complaints of no jobs created...well if we used the Turkish example again, they have set up their own rolling mill producing high grade steel required for the tracks and signed 2 partnership deals with Korea and Italy to manufacture trains capable of 220mph under licence. May be if we were a bit more forward thinking we could re-develop our train industry...its not just a market in advanced economies but emerging markets too
Have some ambition or the UK will be third division status soon
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What about Wales? Mind you the most exciting thing the Welsh Assembly has done apart from waste tax payers money is put a 50mph limit on the M4.
Know wonder we need European funding...
"Wales...., probably quicker to walk!"
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Given the amount of disruption that HS2 will cause to the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, it is difficult to comprehend why there is no stop on the line between London and Birmingham. HS1 has three between London and the entrance to Eurotunnel, at Stratford, Gravesend and Ashford. I spent today thinking about where the station could be placed without a new road and infrastructure being required and yet the answer was close to my doorstep - Brackley. It has quick links to the M1 & M40, Silverstone on the doorstep and is close to what is destined to be the 10th largest city in the UK within 20 years. The politicians and planners need to wake up before there is yet another missed opportunity.
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It's crazy that this route is planned to terminate at Euston and not join up with the existing HS route to the Channel Tunnel. If you want to get people to use trains instead of planes then make it a through route to Paris/Brussels from Birmingham & Manchester/Leeds. With the interchange at Old Oak Common it would then also make it easier to get from Bristol and South Wales to the Continent.
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Can you imagine the cost for a standard class ticket on these trains. The existing trains range between 2 and 8 times more expensive than driving a car so how much of a premium will these guys charge, I hate to think.
The idea of the UK investing in this is much like the old USSSR investing in the military whilst the vast majority of people lived on virtually nothing.
Get real, NuLabour have given all our money away and we can't afford it....
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I got on a train the other morning freezing with no heating not the first time either. Makes the old soviet bloc look luxurious. Trains are late every single damn day - EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sort out our existing railways first.
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Dont be silly, the faster the trains go the bigger the required gap so less frequent services will be offered.The only reason its wanted is to artificial hike prices....
Its reliability and more services with more not less stops that are required with more passenger and luggage space that is required, and an end to overcrowding which is outlawed on every other form of transport.....but railways do it day in day out.
The only high speed line that might be built is london birmingham like the eurostar was supposed to run from glasgow right through north of birmingham will be forgotten. Yet again london gets the cash .If they are serious start at the far end.
With all the scanning etc now required on airlines there is very little in city centre times for example edinburgh london so its all hogwash about competing with airlines.The current trains are quite fast enough IMO and this huge amount could be better spent improving services for all rather than just the select few who can use expenses.The cost of a walk on ticket is appaling and bears no relation to the distance travelled or comfort found on the train.
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Am I alone in thinking it daft for the trains to come into Euston? Would it not be much better for St Pancras to be the terminal so that people can connect directly to the Channel Tunnel? Indeed, I remember talk some years ago of trains going direct from Paris or Brussels to Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, etc. What has happened to this idea?
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This works out at
£2,288 per INCH
per INCH
thats two grand for ONE INCH of railway.
Is this a joke?
How much in backhanders is the minister responsible getting in brown envelopes?
Proper journalists would look into that.
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The pretense that providing a high speed rail link will magically make businesses move up north is utter rubbish. It takes almost as long to reach the relatively close to London south coast by train as it does to reach the midlands and we aren't bleating about needing a £30 billion investment in rail to improve our lot!
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I don't think it will ever get built anyway. Labour doesn’t have a great 'track' record in actually doing the wonderful things they say they're going to do. Now Mandleson is back in the fold it's back to the full-on spin! They publish great proposals like works of fiction and keep us waiting for years and years before each clever scheme eventually gets scrapped due to lack of funding. I'm still not convinced that we'll get Cross Rail. They spend millions of pounds producing visuals of how it will look, simulators of how it will work, maps detailing where it starts and finishes, surveys and opinion polls, unelected quangos to sit and ponder the project, marketing and advertising campaigns, PR events, a new logo, expensive legal advice and planning applications before they discover there was never enough money to lay the first sleeper. Don't believe a word this bunch of con men tells you. They just want your vote!
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I did a degree in transport. To clarify a few points - you can either have a TGV style 250mph train line, or you can have a maglev 400mph line, but not both, they're not compatible with one another. A normal train can't run on a maglev train line and vice versa.
There are concerns about electromagnetic pollution from those living close to the currently running line in Shanghai - maglev is not without its own pollution issues.
The Shanghai airport to downtown will never recoup the cost of the build as it currently runs at around 20% capacity. That may be acceptable in a single party state, but not in a multi party democracy political system such as the UK. HS2 will have to pay its way or it won't be built.
My main concern with HS2 is that the French are busily building 406km for the new LGV Est (Paris to Strasbourg) which will run at over 200mph (most of it is already built). The budget is €9.5bn. Why will it cost us so much more for a track that's half the distance?
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If the new line does go ahead, I hope lessons will be learnt from the ghastly experience in Kent when the Eurostar line was being planned. Parts of the region suffered planning blight, uncertainty and stress for more than a decade, Ashford was encouraged to expand only to have the number of trains calling there drastically cut when Ebsfleet was opened, and of course there is now an area of Waterloo station standing idle as its role has been taken by St. Pancras. Delays and changes of plan waste money and add to the distress of those most affected.
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I am a big supporter of rail travel but surely £30bn pounds could be better spent revitalising our existing rail network for the benefit of the whole country, rather than just those who want to go from London to Birmingham and save 40 minutes. If we invested that sort of money in the whole rail system, I'm sure it could produce a service that would be clean, comnfortable but above all affordable for everyday folk who currently would like to use the train but cannot afford the ludicrously high fares - so they stick with their cars. And a railway that was modernised across the UK could also attract freight traffic away from the roads. All in all, such a huge sum of money should be spent for the benefit of everyone, not just the few. Anyway, once we've built it we'll probably sell it to the French
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FishFingers wrote:
"I'm sick of hearing about new ways for people to travel to or from London. When will the UK Government support the UK and improve transport in other areas?"
It's been undoing John Major's idiotic rail privatisation for a while. It was such a mess and there is so little political will among the nation's 4-wheel box brigade to spend on rfailways and not roads.
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This country has a very good railway network and the speeds are more than good enough now. What lets it down is the disaster of management and logistics between the rail companies, and the huge cost to the traveller. I looked up a railfare last night £105 return off peak from the midlands to London. That is disgusting, needless to say any trip will be done by road instead. As a teenager I used to travel by rail on an weekly basis and at low cost, now I couldnt afford that fare in a year much less a day trip!
Sort out what we already have, then upgrade, or you will make the rail network look like windows vista, obsolete and a white elephant with force upgrades to cover the failures of a proper operating system.. oh hang on, it already is. What a mess privatization has gotton us into!
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"The existing trains range between 2 and 8 times more expensive than driving a car so how much of a premium will these guys charge, I hate to think.
The idea of the UK investing in this is much like the old USSSR investing in the military whilst the vast majority of people lived on virtually nothing.
Get real, NuLabour have given all our money away and we can't afford it...."
No. The Last OldConservative government privatised the railways against expert advice. That is why trains are overpriced "services" (railwayspeak, not my words).
Some perspective, please.
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It will transform travel and commuting.
It won’t have enough capacity.
It’s taking too long.
Stations must represent regions or it will be slow speed rail.
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Yes but this is a near joke! Work doesn't start until 2017 & will take 10 years to complete the first stage. By that time our global competitors will have moved on and we will still be backward by comparison. In the meantime anyone who has travelled on French, German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese & other HS links will realise how pathetic our railways are. Moreover, we must adddress the problems of our existing system which is truly dreadful. Read Matthew Engel's brilliant 'Eleven Minutes Late'. The railways in Britain are more than a transportation system and speak volumes about our deficiencies as a people & society. The fact ours are so crap says everything about us as a nation.
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Yes, infrastructure like this is what the government should spend our taxes on, instead of stuffing it into the holes in the credit and house-price bubble. During the inevitable multi-year downturn, programs like this can create jobs to make up for the derelict real economy. Once the country has overcome the consequences of the last decade on debt, this infrastructure will be ready for the better times to come!
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Hmmm let me think now. We are planning a high speed rail lines on iron rails which won't even start to be constructed until 2017. In the meantime in the far east they already have rail networks using magnetic levitation, the next generation. I don't really see the sense in it all. it's a bit like announcing new steam locomotives in 1980. Out of date before it even starts. Perhaps we will soon be announcing a new black and white television service as well.
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What a joke !!! What we need is a reasonably priced rail system. Poland has a basic low cost efficient rail system that works, because the population can't afford anything else. We are ripped off because market conditions mean we will pay what it takes to get to our places of work. There are certain things like fuel,housing food and transport. In other words "services", that are essential to a basic standard of living.
We should not be be ripped off at every turn, by a modern 40 thieves, including our own government.
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Not before time, but this needs to be part of an integrated transport system to ensure that the railway line connects to the main airports, and that bus time tables link to it. It needs to be so good it encourages people off the roads, as they are gridlocked.
They have to be fast, regular and cost-effective. They will encourage inward investment to keep us moving - and railways use less land than 8 lane motorways.
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Like many 'grand plans', they can be done well... or badly.
Given Labour's waste and incompetence, I hope they are well and truly out the picture come the time for planning, procurement and implementation.
It may also be worth noting we will he heading towards a crux in paying to hit the 20:20 renewables targets about 2017 too, so will be paying for the the equivalent of 2 new industries at the same time. Not overly long after the Olymics either! Can we not already hear the case for increased immigration, higher taxes, more State borrowing....? Oh, how the spiral perpetuates!
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The new line must allow for direct trains, or easy connections to the Channel Tunnel link, otherwise it will be of limited use.
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If you are going to do the job properly and to make sure that it is a rail system, not only to be proud of but is very fast, then make it a MagLev Rail System
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The high speed rail link is long overdue. It is embarrassing that the UK, which invented railways, lags so far behind other developed nations. Although the present government has delayed far too long, the chief culprits are the Tories who were as useful as a lead balloon to the railways, starving it of funds throughout the 1980s, and then capped it all with a disastrous privatisation.
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"Will a high-speed rail improve transport links?"
Um...it depends. If you want to go from North London/Euston to the middle of Birmingham it might well. But the total travelling time may not live up to these dreams. Adding on the time taken to get to a terminal station might make a slower line a better prospect.
Like, getting to France on Eurostar. There was a time I could catch Eurostar at Clapham Junction. It took me half an hour to get to Clapham Jct. Then it was Ashford - takes me just over the hour to get there. Now, certain services only go from St Pancras or Ebfleet which would take me well over the hour. Once on Eurostar and the French TGVs, great...
That doesn't compare well with flying to Paris or Nice, not on price nor time. Gatwick is a 20 minutes away.
But let's not kind ourselves - the argument that "the French can do it, so can we" doesn't wash. We aren't France. We're a tiny living space by comparison. We don't have the railway experience. What took the SNCF 4 years (to lay track from Lyon to Marseille, that's roughly the distance from Birmingham to Edinburgh) will take us about 20 years.
So it might improve our transport links - it would be a lot better if it also handled freight - but some of the benefits realised in larger countries might be lost on our smaller landmass.
But...do we really want to go that fast? And at what cost? Ticket prices will no doubt be prohibitive for many travellers.
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As I live in the South East, anything that takes the economic and house-building pressure off to some other part of the country is welcome.
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This 'story' shows how lax UK journalism has got under "New Labour" - this is purely a party politcal statement dressed up as a news story and hence should be labelled as such, something I'm under the impression New Labour have done several times before...
Hence I was surprised a few weeks back when Jeremy Paxman (on Newsnight) failed to roast Adonis when it became clear within the first couple of questions that this announcement was a party political statement intended to embarass the opposition and divert the media's attention away from the mess created by the government party, in the run up to the general election.
The press seems also to have failed to pick up that there has been no public consultantion on this document, it is published complete (http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedrail/); the only consultantion will be on the government's preferred route - under the terms of the new Infrastructure Planning Commission, which has the remit to limit public consultation.
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It's a good idea,but....
Most of the high speed european lines are run by state owned railways.
It was the worst thing Britain did when it privatized the railways.
It should be brought back into state ownership once again and given the proper investment it deserves
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It's a good idea in principal, but the rail fares in this country are too expensive. Until they dramatically reduce the cost of rail travel most people will still drive/fly.
The other issue is the route. Think it would be better to route it: London - Luton Airport - Milton Keynes - Coventry - Birmingham Airport - Birmingham.
This would then take in other major centres/rail interchanges, and two major airports instead of one (and let's face it Luton airport needs a proper rail station!)
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If the rail network was efficient we wouldnt buy cars. If we dont buy cars the economy would crash even more.
UK PLC has no interest in having an adequate public transport system.
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A rail route will only be successful in terms of environmental impact if it is affordable for people to travel on. With capitalism out of control in the UK and rail operators' profits going into private pockets, will the fare on such a service be affordable to most? Of course it won't.
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This will never happen, not if the Tories get in the first thing they will do is kick it into the long grass.
If however Labour are returned there may be a chance, but only if they issue an act of parliament to compulsory purchase the required land, and forget about all this Public Consultation and the Tree Huggers who want to save some plant/frog/toad or keep the nice view from there own back yard.
Britain needs a HSL and needs it now, not in 50 yrs.
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David wrote:
"We are ripped off because market conditions mean we will pay what it takes to get to our places of work. There are certain things like fuel,housing food and transport. In other words "services", that are essential to a basic standard of living.
We should not be be ripped off at every turn, by a modern 40 thieves, including our own government."
Er, you do remember that it was the *last Conservative* government that privatised rail against advice from basically everybody?
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If you live near Birmingham station and work near Euston station then yes this will improve transport links for you, otherwise no it wont. Trains are only good for freight and comuters. A car is always going to be more convienient because its direct from origin to destination with the freedom to roam. Flying will always be quicker for long journeys and is a more comfortable way to travel than a train. The only time a train, fast or not, is a benefit is if the train actually runs from where you are to where you want to go, that doesn't happen a lot of the time.
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Will a high-speed rail improve transport links?
May well do!, but any high speed rail link will come at a slow speed pace, hearing that it will be 2017 before any ironwork is laid in building it as the endless inquirys decide where to put it!, but then thats how we doing things just like the power grid we wait until what we've already have is just about clapped out and then can bearly steal ourselves into action to get a replacement going, then finally when its realised we rob all and sundry who wants to use it.
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@#54
> #41 - "I was under the impression that the vast majority of wealth
> producers in this country live in the south east - would it not be
> sensible speed up the trains in the south east?"
>
> Those would be those people who have brought the country to its knees
> with financial mis-management? They've never produced wealth, they've
> just managed to make a bit of money by providing services (often at
> extortionate cost) to people and businesses who do by actually making
> things. Oh, since what they do can all be done by computers and phones
> then why do they need fast rail services anyway?
#41 is right - the majority of wealth in the UK is generated in London and the South East, so it is vital to make sure that these areas are also well serviced by high speed rail. On your question about financial mis-management though, there are clues to where in the UK the problems began in the company names:
Northern Rock
Royal Bank of Scotland
Halifax Bank of Scotland
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Mattimandu wrote:
"I don't think it will ever get built anyway. Labour doesn’t have a great 'track' record in actually doing the wonderful things they say they're going to do. Now Mandleson is back in the fold it's back to the full-on spin! They publish great proposals like works of fiction and keep us waiting for years and years before each clever scheme eventually gets scrapped due to lack of funding. I'm still not convinced that we'll get Cross Rail."
They are tunnelling for CrossRail as we speak so it seems unlikely that they will just not use it.
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It should improve the rail system, BUT will anyone be able to afford to travel on it?.
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This is long overdue, unfortunately the prices will be so high nobody will use it and existing services will either be reduced or cut altogether just like they have on South Eastern with the new expensive service from Ashford to St Pancras. It is amazing how good ideas can be killed off in its conception by financial greed of train operating companies.
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I'm an 'interested party' as the proposed route will pass within 100 metres of our house as it passes through West London. I can appreciate it's potential benefits to the country but will admit that it's unlikely to be of use -given it would take me as long to get to the nearest terminal as the subsequent journey to Birmingham.
Looking at the route it appears that a significant element of the cost will be the proposed tunnels between Ruislip and Amersham and partial tunneled route between Aylesbury and Birmingham
It seems vaguely ludicrous that the majority of the people affected by this route (through West London, Birmingham) will have the additional noise etc of 14 high speed trains per hour but the countryside (cows, ramblers, Peers country homes) will be protected.
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When the family silver is gone, make something new to sell off! Genius! Except that it'll inevitably be at a loss. Still, I suppose it'll put some people in work for a while, eh? Keep them off the dole figures.
Incidentally, I think it's great for people whose businesses will stump up the cost of the frighteningly expensive tickets. Perhaps it'll even force some competition into the rail industry! Perish the thought!
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A high speed rail link between London and Birmingham is not a priority by any stretch of the imagination. It is not going to cut much off anyone's total journey time so it is a nice to have, not an essential.
Routine maintenance of existing stations, rolling stock and tracks is essential.
A high speed rail link will not generate a significant number of jobs; only an improvement in the economy will do that.
So yet more NuLabour misdirecting funds into projects for the sake of it.
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This is a brilliant idea, and let's all hope this can be realised. The Achilles Heel is that there seems to be no link provided to the Eurostar system. Could some services not run a little further Eastwards than Euston and provide a connection to trains from the continent - at St Pancras or Ebbsfleet for instance. We need to properly integrate HS2 into the existing European high-speed network.
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By the time this rail link is built, the majority of business will be undertaken from our homes via high-speed broadband and the daily commute to the office will be a thing of the past.
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Maybe our representatives should concentrate on local commuter journeys, I was shocked to discover that a return bus ride for one adult and two children, up to town and back again, a little over a mile.
Cost nearly nine pounds!
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I've only ever used trains as far as from Brighton to London and a couple of times to Bournemouth so im not sure about how they run over longer distances but I've never had any troubles and have always been fairly impressed, the prices seem heavy but the quality of the service has never come into question for me, although we do like a good moan in this country so that might be part of the problem here. I think the money would be better spent elsewhere to be honest.
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HS2 will be redundant by the time its completed, as we'll all be hooked into fully immersive 3d environments driven over the internet by then. The name of the game is shifting bytes not atoms. No, this is a 'make-work' project that just too conveniently dovetails the completion of the Cross-Rail project in London. Such is the cynicism of our times - pitiful really.
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"No. 80 states; "Number 59 is right about fare comparison. I'm planning to go to Glasgow soon from Heathrow. Rail fare - £225 and 7 hours; air fare £78 and about 1 hour; coach fare £60 odd and 10 hours.
Which would anyone else choose?"
If your going to be realistic about comparing rail and air then please make a fair comparison. let's say 45 mins for example travel time to the airport. Arrive at least two hours before flying. One hours flight, wait for baggage say 30 mins. Your hour flight is now not so quick, factor in the flights are less regular than trains and then the travel from the destination airport to your final destination - add on the other costs and it's not looking so good.
"
But it's still not going to be a total of 7 hours, and even if it is it is costing well under half the price. It has been cheaper to fly for ages, and a lot quicker to do so.
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Brilliant idea, a high speed railway "spine" right through the UK. I know a great way to make sure construction starts really soon and the line definitely is completed fast! How? Easy, start work at Glasgow Central and work the way south to London - we will be there in jiffy!
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241. No #41 is wrong. Income and money are not to be confused with wealth. Service industries do not create wealth, only agriculture, fishing, mining, or manufacturing can produce wealth essentially, and they are by no means mainly in the south east. That is why this country is in a mess has been so for a long while. The real wealth producers are in recession. That said, lines in the main commuting territory around London should be upgraded, rather than providing means for yet more workers to get to London quicker but living ever further away.
And in answer to another point, it is easy for countries like Turkey to install high speed rail by comparison. It is not only the size of Germany and France put together but has a relatively low population density and very little democratic input into decision making on a local level and less conflict anyway. With such vast distances too it makes sense to invest in these sorts of rail projects. Even the smaller countries mentioned have few large conurbations in such a small area as does England.
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At last some of the destruction of the railways will be undone.
The only shame is - why wait so long ?
Why not take a leaf out of FDR's book and build our way out of recession.
This could be our Hoover and Grande Coolie dams.
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What would be the point of going to Heathrow? To allow Londoners to get to Heathrow quicker?
The current travel time from Trafalgar Square to Heathrow is 53 Minutes, to Euston, 16 minutes add the 30-50 minutes journey to Birmingham (BHX) is almost as close to London as Heathrow. No need for a new runway at Heathrow, more destinations from BHX so fewer people need to travel to Heathrow from the Midlands and North!
It is a real shame that HS2 will not be linked to HS1. Okay, the walk along the Euston road is about the same as the walk from check-in to gate at Heathrow but a joined-up High speed network offering direct Eurostar trains through the tunnel from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds could offer a realistic alternative to flying.
Okay, it does not take much imagination for the optional Heathrow loop to be used to transfer passengers between Heathrow, Birmingham and Manchester airports with through ticketing and baggage transfer. Then we relly have the ultimate transport hub!
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Does anyone remember the integrated transport system?
We were to have a high speed rail "backbone" serviced by local road and rail links. The majority of goods would be shipped in a similar plan to containers.
As a plan it was a work of simplistic genius - and thats the best kind.
Whatever happened to it? I think it went the same way as most of the spin that UK governments have fed to us over the last 50-60 years; it made good news media copy at the time, but none of the gang running this place saw a need for it - after all, they could travel in their first-class comfort, insulated from us, the great unwashed. It didn't matter that huge chunks of the supporting economic systems disintegrated, and that the lorry lobby would become the almost unstoppable force that it is today.
We, the citizens of the UK need to tell the government - and it doesn't matter which one - that we will no longer tolerate the 3rd world road conditions and goods vehicle congestion that we suffer now, and will suffer increasingly more from as time goes by.
They need to know that WE demand a decent, affordable transit system that is bereft of empire-building, political brownie-points scoring, or sheer bloody-mindedness, and we demand it now.
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This is completely pointless unless you first undo the dogs breakfast of current railway management. It is fatuous for the country to invest tens of billions over decades into a system run for private profit where the most effective railway companies do not necessarily keep the franchise. Does any other country have high-speed rail run by an assortment of private companies? No, the only sensible justification for this sort of investment is if the whole system is nationally owned and administered.
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Pity it won't reach Bristol; another big infrastructure project benefitting London without having any impact for the majority of the country.
I also think it's a lot of expense and countryside to be ruined for a half an hour saving - it's not exactly going to set the world on fire.
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Just to add that I agree with the other posters that say the £30 billion could be better spent improving transport over the whole country rather than just between Birmingham and London and with a fairly small improvement too.
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It is good to see that the government is moving ahead with this plan, as a Brit living in Japan, I get to enjoy the Shinkansen network, which is truly phenomenal! Punctual to the second, accurate, fast, and smooth.
However, it is disappointing to see the government has lacked the guts to actually go for it, and develop a meaningful network, just running a line from London to Birmingham. Rather than taking the bull by the horns and develop a REAL plan for the nation, and stretching this out to communities that would really benefit from a high speed line.
The point behind this is to stop people flying around in planes, and not many fly from Birmingham to London. However, the further north you get, the plane becomes much more attractive because of plane fares, and the speed of the plane. A high speed line to Scotland would really challenge the plane, and be far more environmentally friendly.
As to building a maglev line, it is cripplingly expensive. More so than a regular line. The Japanese, who are willing to sink money in to projects like this, balked at the price tag when thinking about a line from Tokyo to Osaka. The only line is in China, where they have no transparency, and are willing to sink cash into something like this just to prove China's greatness!
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Have any of the people leaving comments actually read the DfT report? People asking questions like "why don't they just upgrade existing lines?" and "why is it only from London to Birmingham?" need to realise that plans like this are made by well-meaning and intelligent civil servants (not politicians), and there are good reasons for the plans being the way they are. By building a new line instead of upgrading older ones gives a far great benefit to cost ratio, and the London-Birmingham stretch will only be the first stage of a bigger network. I think the plans are very exciting and the government is doing the right thing. The only bit I'm disappointed about is that it will be such a long time before we all get to use the new line.
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Other countries have had high speed rail services for years. Other countries have efficient services too.
The two don't go hand in hand but it would be nice.
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So they're building this new line, yet by allowing trains from the high speed line onto the old speed line, sounds like they're not thinking it through. If you look at france, they had to seriously increase the capacity of the TGV network because it was so popular. To do this, you have several options:
-increase frequency of trains, this is achievable up to a point, but you're limited by train separation distances.
-increase capacity of the trains by doubling the length of the trains, or by adding a second deck. The second is far easier to do as you don't need any extra work to be done to the stations, you just need new trains, but it requires this capacity to be built in from the start.
If the new line is built to the same loading specifications as the old track, then come 10-15 years into service, there'll probably be massive problems trying to upgrade the line and will cost far more to do so.
Of course, my own view is that they should build it with wider tracks so you can sit six abreast in carriages rather than 4 abreast as is the standard at the moment. But they'll never do that.
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Yes but don't give the contract to British engineers - our days as the world's leading civil engineers are long over. Instead, get the Japanese onto it. They have a proven track record in this area in their own country, Taiwan and now, Mainland China.
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I guess there are more Labour Voters in Birmingham.
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Referring to post 265. Building it to anything other than standard gauge would be a daft idea, as you would no longer be able to integrate it with any existing track at all, so in effect it would need to be completely isolated. Furthermore, there is barely any existing rolling stock/track in that size (you'd need something like 2m gauge).
Building it to the Berne loading gauge on standard gauge rails is by far the most sensible solution, and you can easily fit a double-decker train in that. (Not that it would fit under the low bridges on the old lines).
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This money would be far better spent on the present system - buy more carriages so most passengers can actually sit down and enjoy the railways in comfort. Also some of the money could be used to help reduce the ridiculous cost of travelling by train - but please not into the coffers of the train operating companies who are just a bunch of thieving rogues.
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High speed rail sounds great. Its about time the British rail network modernised, all that leaves to be questioned is the governments idea of modern.
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Nope; wholesale-demolition great-tracts of London... 'unlikely' so laser-straight 'graphic' featured on BBC News 'a-con'.
Rattling-across existing infrastructure, especially entering-&-leaving existing-cities, inevitable.
ONLY alternative being laser-straight mag-lev say double-height & quad-width integrating-with [hubs; passengers-&-freight ALL-change] missing existing-cities completely.
Channel-Tunnel links to Manchester, Scotland ideal-precedents.
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At 05:01am on 12 Mar 2010, Sethvir wrote:
Building it to the Berne loading gauge on standard gauge rails is by far the most sensible solution, and you can easily fit a double-decker train in that. (Not that it would fit under the low bridges on the old lines).
Addressed 1997 when trading-as Railtrack; asset-management IT-applications HAZARD, OLEARI... logged that 'owned'; digging-under those bridges 'retained' means doubling, trebling... carriage-height 'cheapest-option'. Obviously 'digging-out' extends [at-least] hundreds-of-metres either-side of retained-bridges & many speed-limits must be reduced.
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At 11:59pm on 11 Mar 2010, David Williams wrote:
By the time this rail link is built, the majority of business will be undertaken from our homes via high-speed broadband and the daily commute to the office will be a thing of the past.
ONLY if we rip-up pavements & lay Terrabyte-plus fibre-optics; vague 'mud-hut' target of 2-Meg' hopeless TODAY; can you imagine business, school, universaties operating hi-def audio-video at millions-fold current-usage? Throw-in interactive shared-files [more-than the-odd text-message] & the-old 28k dial-up would-seem fast.
Japan, Korea 'struggling' with 100-Meg TODAY; perhaps UKs future rests with Baldwins knicker-factories, population working in-their-own-homes.
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It absolutely beggers belief that another show piece multi billion pound structure is going to be built south of Birmingham Do not the taxes and other reciepts that flow into ANY governments coffers also come from "UP NORTH" any more structures in the south will cause this country to start sinking into the sea from Brighton upwards ...........Oh then you southerners will know theres a North of England when you jumo into your Jags Mercs Porches and the like and panick drive up to Newcastle Applying logic to the original question however is easy Get these confounded 6 mpg lorries off the road put the frieght back on the rails where it belongs Out of harms Way improve our quality of life and reduce our reliance on diesil Beeching should Never have been allowed to dismantle the railways as he did but that was another prime piece of legislation like the privatisation of the railways Just remember while Nimbys bicker about their beautiful Chilterns Theres a Whole county namely Lincolnshire that has only one rail line in it and that goes to Skegness All this money spent on electification only resulted in 20 minutes saved on the London to Glasgow run and that was done by Steam Trains Thank god for Railway Preservation
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what a complete red herring and waste of time.
Its all pie in the sky, successive govts. for 50 years have neglected the rail network, and for sure this is just more talk.
They are talking about this when in 10 years time the UK will run out of electricity, or that it will be so expensive that they wouldn`t be able to run these trains.
They will bring up anything to mask the fact that nothing ever actually happens in this country, except a lot of useless talking, talking, discussing......just get on and do the job, if not get out and stay out
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49. At 3:01pm on 11 Mar 2010, Edwin Schrodinger wrote:
No-one is taking these plans seriously are they? They are just a ploy to try and win a few votes. The fact is Labour have mismanaged the economy so badly there isn't the money to buy a horse and trap. Unless of course you tax the middle classes some more.
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Dear God no. This is a thread about improving transport links not political squabbling. OK, so you want a battle here's one.
How mave Labour mismanaged the economy?
Perhaps you're thinking about the deregulation on the banks? The deregulation of the banks began in 1980 under the Thatcher government. Perhaps you're thinking about how Labour have had to borrow money to bail out the banks? If they hadn't the ATM cash machines were about 48 hours away from drying up, then you would have starved.
Perhaps you're thinking about Labour borrowed money to improve public services? Well, the Tories continually slash public services so the entire country grinds to a halt and is unable to function correctly, which is why the Tories are always voted out - people get fed-up of being out of work and not being able to spend to keep the economy going. Labour have to pick up the tab to get the country back on its feet again.
I could go on but I have work to do; how many people could say that under the Tories?
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The elephant in the room is price, not speed. Cost of tickets as a ratio of average income is the worst in EU. You can get cheaper tickets by booking in advance, but that put onus on the consumer, like exact fare city buses.
And other countries have still cheaper advance booking and they don't demand exact change on buses.
We have too many politicians in the pay of business eg. oil- so they block better trains to keep us driving.
And in India you can use the elephant for transport.
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This would make a difference if it were a network rather than a line.
Britain needs af full North-South-East-West high speed network. Then it would make a difference. This project is simply a "me too" by guilty politicians who see high speed networks emerging throughout the rest of the world and realise that Britain is very, very far behind.
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The money would be better spent on some freight rail lines to get as many lorries off the roads as possible. Lorries on roads are bad for the following reasons:
1. They clog the roads up, especially at rush hours. Freight does not HAVE to be on the roads at certain times, whereas human beings, going to work, meetings, etc, do.
2. Listen to any traffic report on the radio. How many more times do we have to hear: "An overturned lorry is blocking......". Lorries seem to be involved in a disproportionate number of accidents.
3. The damage to roads is exponentially increased as the weight of vehicles goes up, by the power of 8 I believe (something on the lines that if you double the weight of a vehicle, it causes 8 times more stress on the road). Now extrapolate that from a 1.5 tonne car to a 37 tonne lorry. THAT is why are roads are so potholed.
Instead of building another passenger line over one short route, the money would be far better spent on building a proper rail infrastructure that can take as many lorries as possible.
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Of course a high-speed network will improve travel. However, it will not happen for several years and, in the meantime, the present rail system needs a lot of improvement.
I really believe it was easier to travel around the country before privation. Now on some journeys you can't get from A - B without changing trains. For instance, I used to travel direct from Euston to Holyhead. Now I have to change trains, sometimes several times, because of the different train companies. Now the emphasis is on profit and not on public comfort or convenience.
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given the ridiculous cost of a moribund standard of living in the UK who the hell can afford to live in Birmingham and work in london?!?! or vice versa.. unless high speed travel goes past my office and house im just not seeing the benefit of it in todas world... my city could do with an undergroud system as could most places i suppose
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Before the crash, California had the 6th largest economy in the world. I don't know where we stand now, but we will turn it around. We have voted to have high speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and we have voted money to begin the planning. That is a 450 mile leg. Eventually, the rail will go south another 150 miles to San Diego, and east from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Nevada. It will take years to plan, appropriate the money, and build this system, but it will get built, because we have to live in the 21st Century. By the way, California is actually broke right now, but we can't live in the past. Our rails will be owned by the state, as is the freeway system, as are highways and streets. We have permitted a few private companies to build a couple of tollways as experiments, and they have needed bailouts. Next time, the state will just buy out their interest, and take them over. Build High Speed Rail to Scotland. You are a country; we are just a state.
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Why does it take so long to get things done in UK?, the rest of Europe have had high speed trains for years, UK announces plans in 2010 to start building in 2017! And why central London to Birmingham and then maybe onto Scotland? It should go all the way from day one.
Heathrow is touted as the key to our continued survival, any new route between London and Midlands/North, should be routed via Heathrow, primarily so that travellers from points north of Watford can reach Heathrow easily without having to go into central London first, or battle with traffic on our overcrowded roads. The inclusion of Heathrow to the route proposed by Lord Adonis would not involve a major deviation and would pay dividends in the future.
In all probability there will be so many objections from NIMBYs in the home counties that it will be 20 years before the first sod is turned anyway! Another area where we could learn lessons from the French, build the line by the most convenient route and worry about objectors afterwards.
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Whilst I agree in principal with the benefits of high-speed rail I cannot condone a scheme that will disrupt the Buckingham countryside at no benefit to that area in order to reduced the travelling time to Birmingham to 49 minutes.
If we are going to have a high-speed rail scheme then let it run from the Portsmouth /Southampton area through London (enabling traffic from Kent and the continent to join the route through Liverpool & Manchester to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The scheme should enable high-speed trains to join this core route from existing lines so we could (and I cite this as illustrative only) have say, a high speed train run over conventional lines from Bournemouth in order to join the high speed route from Southampton. through london up to Edinburgh before ending its service on conventional lines at say Aberdeen.
Furthermore there should be through services from say, Glasgow down throgh London, Ashford, Lille to say Lyon. Now few travellers would use the entire length of the route but like any long-distance service passengers would be leaving and joining along its length.
As for Birmingham, there is no reason why services could'nt use in part upgraded existing lines to feed into the high speed route.
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What we need is an overall good public transport system to include trains and buses. These would be nationalised and paid for by taxation,and free at the point of use. This would free up the roads somewhat, but of course the government makes loads of money from the great god car.
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#265. "So they're building this new line, yet by allowing trains from the high speed line onto the old speed line, sounds like they're not thinking it through. If you look at france, they had to seriously increase the capacity of the TGV network because it was so popular. "
If you look at France the TGV trains sometimes run on ordinary lines too. Anyway, why all the comparisons with France? It's a bigger country with less over-developed land and cities much more widely spaced. High-speed rail is useful there. A country without it that might find it useful is the USA. For the UK, though, it's an unnecessary waste of time and money that involves large-scale building in a country that would be far nicer to live in if there was far less.
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having a fast rail network is the way to go, but will it happen or is it just words. Here in Leeds we are still waiting for our direct rail link to the Chunnel that was promised as part of the package to justify the building of it.
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This does not go far enough. We need a fast, reliable and cheap public transport system throughout the whole of the country. This will serve a very small amount of the population. It should start in either Edinburgh or Glasgow and stop in all major population centres.
Why not install a Maglev network? I have no idea of the cost but surely if they are spending this amount on such a small improvement then it is worth looking into. It is faster, more efficient and cleaner. There is no point doing things by half. Freight could use the network overnight and rid the roads of most of the congestion-causing trucks.
It is of vital importance that it is affordable, there is very little point if people cannot afford to use it. It should always be faster and cheaper than a car journey with a couple of passengers.
I have travelled on trains in Spain a few times and they put our rail network to shame. They are regular, clean, cheap, quiet, fast and modern.
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No good doing any of this, if only the rich few can afford to use it.
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I'd like to see realistic plans for linking other forms of public transport to this link, otherwise we are just compounding the problem. The Tories idea of taking it via Heathrow seems to make a whole lot more sense to me. So much quicker for those flying from Heathrow than taking the car or connecting flights.
We need real joined up thinking for the 21st century, not just gimmicks.
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Like renewable energy we must make this a national imperative to break the log jam of years of planning. We should be starting this now while unemployment is high not starting it in 2017. Our development is moving at a snails pace and we are rapidly becoming an industrial Museum, locked in the past. We also need stronger leadership in investments for example it is right Scotland to want the high speed link, but how does it reflect when we cannot even invest in a few miles of rail link to Glasgow airport. We need to set the vision and invest in it with energy and vigour
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Northernvoice wrote:
It is a pity that the line will still only serve the southern part of the country.
Can the government please remember that the rail network should cover the whole of the country.
I totally agree but you have to remember anything past Watford doesnt count. It seems that this is always going to be the case. Wembley £757million, The Millenium Dome £789 million, Olympic Stadium £547m, because there is nothing else suitable around the country in a more central place, like erm Cardiff Arms Park, Numerous Stadiums that are being closed due to lack of FUNDS etc.
This proposed new rail network just highlights the fact that we are not willing to look into any other possibilities. Why not link the whole country via high speed networks to say somewhere CENTRAL like Birmingham, Coventry or Leicester and move some investments a little further North.
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'Will a high-speed rail improve transport links?'
Of course it would. It would also be a 'green' boon for everyone, create many jobs, etc and we can obviously look forward to many more such 'golden wonders' - but not until after 2017...
All this high-profile, Media-aimed, nonsense in order to 'spark' our belief in Labours 'grit' - at our cost. Can our Leader not control himself just for a short while longer - when it comes to spending our Tax-money? Yet more UK debt planned with a more than empty purse.
This Government is using it's 'scorched-earth' spending tactics in order to hamper the new Government - even though it will hurt the people more than anyone else. I find this atitude absolutely disgusting and probably criminally irresponsible......
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It's going to be expensive because of decisions made in the 1950s after highly successful but self-serving lobbying by the Road Haulage Association.
The Department of Transport effectively became the Department of Roads as public spending went on motorways, which allowed the haulage companies to undeercut the railways. Their real transport costs were subsidised by the tax-payer(and still are), spending on roads was called investment, spending on the railways was called a subsidy.
The UK has a smaller land area than France, we should have had the high speed rail links before they did. European nations have alway had an integrated approach to transport policy, the UK just concentrated on roads.
All those environmental campaigners and local self-interest groups should realise that rail is a lot less polluting than roads, I hope the politicians have the moral courage to tough out the protests and build a high speed rail network for the entire UK.
Long haul travel by high speed rail, short local journeys by hybrid and electric vehicles, the future beckons...get on board.
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It's all well and good having a high speed rail network. But what is the point if it is going to cost too much to ride on. A high speed rail network would be nice, personally I would rather see the rail network nationalised.
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It would be nice if Euston was selected for the new high speed rail link, as it would give more backing to the rumoured regeneration of Euston and the reinstating of the Euston Arch.
However, yet again, the government have copped out - why not set in stone that this will run to Edinburgh/Glasgow? If we want to be green and encourage people out of the skies and onto the rails, we need to give them viable options. Cutting 20 minutes from the London - Birmingham journey time isn't going to stop people flying, but halving the train journey to Scotland would. I don't know anyone who flies from London to Birmingham, but plenty who (for reasons I don't understand as it's not really quicker and it's a lot more hassle) fly London to Edinburgh or Glasgow...
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before they start spending they should pay up the countries debt ,and improve main services NHS better education ,with better qualified teachers ,and recover the money LOANED to the banks ,
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The money would be better spent improving existing lines and railway facilities. Or a reduction in the price of tickets, if they can afford a line like this then they can afford a decrease in fares
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Spending $20billion (probably nearer £40billion when the job is done) on a new rail link to Birmingham to London seems a waste of money, Birmingham already has a fast rail service courtesy of Sir Richard Branson.
If the denizens of the DofT realy wanted to lay the basis for a Modern High speed system then it would take a route between those of the WCML and Midland main line as far as Rugby. and continue north connecting Leicester, Darby/ Nottimghan, Chesterfield , Sheffield , Leeds and York.
If these denizens really had any imagination they would ractivate the exUSAF bomber base st Bruntingthorpe with it's 10,000 ft runway as a "UK International" airport and run the line under the terminal building. This site is a far more conveniant location for a "third runway for London" for the majority of Britain's population. Then build a new, or upgrade the WCML.
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Post " 35. At 2:36pm on 11 Mar 2010, Jerry Marshall wrote:
The route through Burton Green is crazy. With 14 trains an hour at 250mph at the end of our short garden my house would fall down! This route goes along the back of a line of houses. Given that Burton Green is the highest point in the area the route needs to be further South and tunnel under the Cromwell Lane area. "
Explains why this line will never be built, why our roads are a disgrace and why we are going to be suffering powercuts in 10 years time. People like Jerry (and my Parents) will do everything in their power to stop any new development being built within a time zone of their precious property. The reason France has a great train network (which cost an absolute fortune & is MASSIVELY subsidised by their tax payers) is because they got a pencil and ruler and drew straight lines on a map for the new tracks to be laid. They didn't allow a legion of NIMBY's to sabotage things. Is the same reason why France has cheap, nuclear generated power in such surplus that they sell 10% to us too. Britain is going down the toilet because of selfish Brits not because of any govt.
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"260. At 01:10am on 12 Mar 2010, bpx wrote:
Pity it won't reach Bristol; another big infrastructure project benefitting London without having any impact for the majority of the country."
The greatest engineer Britain has ever had (Brunel) built a railway from London to Bristol.... you might have used it, its still there. Did that only benefit London or did Bristol get some small benefit from the Great Western Line too? As this proposed line will run from London to Birmingham I'd suggest Birmingham might find some small advantage to having it too.
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I notice that the first 50 miles or so from London towards the north mirrors the old Great Central route from Marleybone. I have no idea how much of the old infrastructure is in place, but surely it would make sense to make as much use of this former route (built to European loading gauges), as possible?
Also, hi-speed trains benefits passengers only as, there is little advantage, if any, of goods (coal, steel, ore ) arriving 45 minutes sooner. Although I am in favour of the idea as a whole, I can't think that in these harsh economic times it would be better to use the money to open up some of the Beeching-axed lines (Somerset and Dorset, Matlock to Buxton anyone?)
RTJ
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Surely there should be a link with Eurostar at St Pancras and Heathrow Airport!
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How many people REALLY NEED to get from London city centre to Birmingham city centre in 30 minutes less than now AND currently use a car or a plane? Then ask how much will the high speed line cost? Then ask is it really worth it? It would probably be cheaper to let everyone travel for free on the current network.
Britain is a smaller country so needs high speed trains less than say France which is bigger and has lower population density.
We should look more at a Swiss type model of integration, such as a proper through station at Heathrow and Manchester airports, a kind of train M25 to avoid central London station changes (with heavy luggage!) and more and better placed FREE parkways to make car/train or car/bus combinations possible. And yes we also need to upgrade some roads (as also do the Swiss) such as the M6 from Birmingham to Manchester. Our local council is planning to put double yellow lines on the roads near the station where train users have to park their cars because the station car park is full. Not exactly integrated thinking is it? And would not cost billions to address.
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If this plan takes away investment from other areas, eg improving existing routes and cross-country links, then it would be a bad idea.
Here in Coventry it won't make much difference. We already have an excellent service to Euston. The pendalino takes only 1 hour. This puts my neighbourhood, 5 minutes walk from the station, firmly in London commuter belt already. I can see the advantage for commuters who would be able to cross the country daily to go to work. The ticket price would be considerable though. Would companies or individuals pay for it? Do we need to travel to work so much now? With video conferencing and the other benefits of IT might companies and commuters go for the work from home option? Could high speed rail be a white elephant?
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It will be allright if they do not give the contract to bellfinger-berger they will break contract and treble the price and extend the build time 3 times over and add an extra fee on top
David Edinburgh
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A high speed rail link is long overdue in this country. But I feel that if is extended to Scotland then it should be paid for by their taxpayers.
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Yes it improve the rail links as long as it does not mess up the countryside and as far as the costs go you can multiply the original figure by 4to6 times that figure. Dont forget the fares they have got to get their money back some how the government havent got any.
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Surely HS2 as proposed is only half a line - to make any sense it MUST link with Heathrow and also it MUST offer through routing to Europe via Eurostar - ie it MUST also pass through St Pancras - thus offering a real alternative to flying to Europe from Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool. A route in isolation is next to useless - what about the promised services down the East and West Coast routes which were touted when the Channel Tunnel was being proposed? Is this government totally blind to Europe??
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"Will a decent rail link improve rail transport"
Bit of a non-question really, of course it will!
However, ticket prices and the time scale that this project will take no doubt will be both far too high. 7 years before work even starts?! Wow.
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Yes a great idea. Are we competent to build anything like this any more? The current government certainly isn't having wasted 13 years. They put Prescott in charge which shows their priority for transport. Why delay the work till 2017?
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Call me a cynic but given the governments' own time-scales and the probability of over-runs in both time and cost and the fact that, like the failed upgrades to the line that Virgin run their high speed trains on, this could wind up being yet another British engineering disaster.
On the other hand I do hope that, for once, it can be done properly and that it works out... and that in building this new rail line the fact that our roads are in desperate need of repairs and upgrades isn't ignored with the usual "green" excuses.
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What puzzles me is that it will take 10 years to build the line.
The first railroad linking the coasts of the U.S. required the building of
1100 miles of track, which they did in six years. The rate was 183 miles/year.
London to Birmingham is 121 miles; if it takes 10 years to build it,
that will be at a rate of 12.1 miles/year.
Ain't technology wonderful?
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High speed rail certainly helps in Germany, France and Spain. No reason it couldn't in the UK.
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This is one area where doing some research is actually a great idea. Set up a small research body with a fixed budget and timescale to go and see how the world's more successful rail systems work. Go look at places like Germany and Japan, where trains are clean, regular and reasonably priced. Then come back to the UK, renationalise the whole mess and inplement the findings of the survey. This isn't a very big country. It shouldn't be this hard to maintain a working rail system. Initially we need to concentrate on maintaining punctuality and forget about making trains pretty for a bit. Lets get back to the primary function of the transport system and start again from there.
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Hi-speed, lo-speed whatever it is I have no doubt I still won't be able to afford to use it. Just priced a rail fare from Inverness to Telford return £138 and very long, labourious journey. Flight Inverness-Birmingham £57 + rail link £13 Half the price of train only and quarter of the travel time. In fact in my small car I can drive for the price of a train ticket and have the freedom of my own transport. I'd love to use the trains but far too expensive, and I can't see the hi-speed version changing that.
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YES
ps laura tobin is hot
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The only problem with introducing High-Speed Rail Links is the fact that prior to its introduction there will be lots of delays around the areas where the improvement works will be...then once inplace and running, the HSRL will indeed provide better rail travel times...except all the local services will be pegged back at certain areas to allow them to go first and so local travel in some areas may take extra travel time...well that progress for you...
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Seems a lot of money just to benefit a few high earning rail passengers.
What also worries me is that it is nearly always termed ''from Birmingham to London'' hardly ever from ''London to Birmingham''.
But then again I suppose this is too subtle for BBC moderators and will get removed again...
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Just a tricky technical question. The Planners behind the New HS2 rail line are proposing to run it through the gap in the Chiltern hills presently used by the Metropolitan Railway (as was) to Aylesbury (John Betjeman's beloved Metroland). Does this infer that that the Metroplitan line will be replaced by HS2 or will HS2 follow a new alignment? It is going to be a little overcrowded in certain areas of that gap if another line is built through there.
I have had cause to take refreshment in the valley to the west of Hemel Hempstead through which the West Coast Main Line runs. Those trains make an awfull amount of noise. Are the gentile inhabitants of Metroland aware of what they are in for should HS2 ever run through their back yard?
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The U.K. is decades behind Europe in terms of transport infrastructure.
The taxpayer will end up paying for it, no doubt whilst the train operators will continue to milk it.
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A high speed rail link will be wonderful as long as you live within ten miles of the proposed stations, if not it will take longer to get to the station on our pathetic, under funded existing rail network than you will spend on the high speed line!
Yet more stupid ideas from a government intent on bankrupting the country!
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111, Ash wrote:
"I live in Yorkshire, if I wanted to get a return to London it would cost me nearly £200."
Go on line, mate: an advance purchase ticket there and back will set you back £26.
I do wonder, though why they'd want to dig up the Chilterns when there's a perfectly reasonable, and recently upgraded route through Watford. Are the Directors of the consultancy company set up (and paid) for by the Government all board members of major construction companies who can expect millions in bonuses from the ensuing lucrative government contracts?
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I wasn't aware that the Great British Public were crying out for shorter journey times between Euston and Birmingham - not enough to spend billions of pounds of money we haven't got on it, certsinly...
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Will a high-speed rail help to revive the economy and create jobs?
Yes, the high-speed rail will be able to revived the economic situation & maybe even create jobs in the regions that the proposed rail way work in!
(D)
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At last! A high speed route out of London to somewhere civilised!
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I fail to see the point of faster and faster trains. Most of the journey time is spent getting to and from the station and waiting around at the station. A few minutes faster journey time makes little difference. What would make a significant difference is investment in lots of new local lines, frequency, extended hours, and better access / connections.
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It is estimated that the 'Y' shaped hi-speed links will cost around £30 billion which as it won't start until 2017 (or 2015 if the tories do it) we can guarantee the price will have increased without a finger having been lifted by either of those dates. Bets could be confidently placed now on final figures of anywhere over £80 billion. Every government project is either undercosted, or contracts not tight enough and we are taken for a ride by contractors, or there is no contingency for anything to go wrong, price changes in raw materials etc. No matter the reasons, it will cost probably at least treble the figures currently being quoted, because they know that if they gave the real cost no-one would feel inclined to support it.
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@115
What's wrong with Maglev?
Its been around for years. What about The Shanghai Maglev Train (Shanghai Transrapid) which is in service. We should be innovating and leading the world, instead it feels like we're becoming some 3rd world country. Compulsory purchase land required for direct routes to ALL our major cities and link them ALL together. Then cancel ALL internal air travel in the UK. It's GOT to be done if we're not going to fall behind the rest of the world...................but in my heart of hearts I know we will. Red tape will kill all this.
COME ON GB, GET YOUR FINGER OUT.
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It would help, if it was applied ACROSS THE UK and not just in England like is being proposed at the moment.
It currenctly takes 10 hours to travel via train from Aberdeen to London - why are we focussing UK MONEY on a stretch of rail between London and Birmingham that is already served by the M1, the M45 and the M6? Wouldn't reducing the time to travel greater distances be in the UNITED Kingdoms interest?
No, it wouldn't.
The UK will leave Scotland behind again, leave us with unacceptable transport infrastructure despite continued unionist insistence that we are better off together than apart. I'd argue the point that if the First generation of high speed rail-links doesn't encompass Scotland, then the UK will have sown the seed of it's own destruction.
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This money would be better spent fixing our current rail network, providing a better, reliable service before we start building new high speed lines.
But if we are building high speed, why are we looking at old technology?
Surely we should look at maglev, such as the proposal by UK ultraspeed?
Cost estimates are similar, but with better performance and high reliability.
I just shudder at the seemingly uneducated people who run our country, they have no vision.
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I think it is important to have a high speed rail link. Buit it will not benifit those in the south west and wales, It will benefit those travelling to the north from london or from the north to london from quicker journey times. More than one lines need to be built. E.g from Bristol, leeds, Cardiff, manchester etc .
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The proposed hih-speed railway line will never see the light of day; Colonel Blimp and his friends in Bucks/Oxon will see to that.
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I'm all in favour of this project. Britain invented the rail network, so why have we gone so long letting France, Germany, Switzerland and Japan steal our thunder? I can't believe I'm hearing people oppose this project, and am upset about this nation's lack of ambition at times. Last summer I spent a month touring Japan making full use of their bullet trains which put our network to shame. The bullet trains run on separate, specially built lines which run separately to the rest of country's intercity and local commuter trains network so there's no disruption from other trains slowing them down. The technology DOES exist to silence noise from the trains, and the tracks are elevated the entire length, allowing them to travel in perfectly straight lines without having to cut towns and fields in half (And this is a country littered with natural obstructions such as mountains and wide bodies of water, with regular earthquakes and seasonal typhoons to contend with), and the Japanese are proud to say they own this magnificent feat of rail engineering, while we oppose it?
It makes more sense to make a new line than to upgrade existing ones, as proposed, the track needs to be as straight as possible. Hopefully if they're building a new line they'll consider higher bridges and overhead wires in order to allow for double decker trains. It's a shame we have to wait so long for this to happen, but at least it gives ample time to get the economy sorted first (although Japan's been in an economic crisis for the last 3 decades and still pulled off their great achievement). We should also take note that by the time we've finished building the London-Birmingham line, the Japanese will be beginning construction of a new maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka, with a train which in 2003 reached 581kmh (360mph). OK so some cities will be later than others, but we have to start somewhere, and others have to wait their turn. Birmingham to London does seem most logical, linking our capital city with the main city of the Midlands, acting as a hub to spread out to the rest of the country makes perfect sense to me.
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This is another absurd idea from this present administration. This will shave 20 minutes of the journey time from London to Birmingham. This can be achieved on the present network by better management of the present system. We are going to lose more valuable green belt for no real improvements in the rail service. And what will it cost to travel on this service. As anyone who has enquire on the price to travel on the Gatwick Express will tell you. The cost is prohibitive to most people. It will only be affordable for business people claiming on expenses. And they will still choose to travel by plane. If they put a new high-speed network put it on the motorway system and displace the cars.
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Do these planners has any concept of thought?. Surely the best route out of London must be the GWR from Paddington. Brunel had the foresight to build his track gauge at 7 feet, hence the route through West London is wide, and be far less disruptive, passing Old Oak Common, deviating slightly to Heathrow, then on out through the Goreing gap, avoiding the Chiltens. On approaching Didcot they can hang a right through level open country side and go straight as a die to Birmingham. This also gives the option at Didcot to continue west to Bristol and beyond. But hey, this is using the Old and thinking about the future.
Lets get it built sooner rather than later, and accept Brunel was right to build wide track beds AND USE THEM !!!!
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47. At 3:00pm on 11 Mar 2010, rjaggar
You appear to be on the 'inside' - so here's a question!
You mention 'bringing engineering capacity back to UK - but really it will not be the case will it - I am sure most of the engineering carried out will be won by foreign companies!
Also, Why not be revolutionary and go electro magnetic? The Chinese have got plans to expand their network of EM - in 20 years we will still be using antique railway systems based on 19th century ideas and technology! While countries like China will be whizzing around at over 500mph on electro magnetic super-trains. The fact that it is still possible for 'railway type people' to get excited by a new steam powered engineer built last year, or the fact that most of the industry are steam fanatics says it all - Railways types in the UK always sit looking backwards not forwards on board a train to no where!
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So we will create jobs which will not go to British workers (by law they do not have to, and other EU labour will be cheaper - eg the Olympic sites - excellent example).
We will do lots of harm to the environment so that in the long term we will do good - all very well hoping to get cars off the road but obtaining and shipping raw materials is not green, nor is the work involved in putting the line together. It will not have no impact on the environment when it is up and running - it will need power from somewhere. If anyone actually KNOWS the envonmental cost of building the line from raw materials onwards - I'd love to hear their view on this.
What worries me is satellite images of the UK already show so much of our green and pleasant land as no longer being green at all, and I resent every inch that is now taken. How much land AROUND the line will the construction sites take up? How many roads and lines will they need to build around it so that equipment can arrive on site - roads which no doubt will suddenly remain in place, and then the odd housing estate....
With such sophisticated advances in technology, is travelling to business meetings going to become a thing of the past, and hence the rail line become near to obsolete?
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Or could it be that the government, their cronies in the Railway industry and their buddies at the BBC are conspiring to built a private link for BBC London and BBC Birmingham! Mmmm the plot thickens!
And, the pay off for not developing NEW technology is all those lucrative maintenance contracts for replaying rails,signalling and the continual requirement to fix all this 'shiny new' old antique technology?
Do you have enough antiques experts in the UK rail industry - I am sure the BBC could offer some consultancy!
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This is spin – it will never happen – just pre-election grandstanding just to tick some boxes. The public finances are in such dire straights should, god forbid, labour is still in power, it will be the first thing that will be cut.
So, the moral is don’t believe anything this lot tell you.
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Why are new positive initiatives always started in the south and midlands and all the negative initiatives always rolled out in the North and Scotland? We are way behind on high speed rail, why can't we look at future transport initiatives and leap frog ahead of other world countries instead of playing catch-up all the time?
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The M74 was a two laned donkey track for 40 years it ran from Glasgow to the famous sign post "Welcome To England" at which point it became the 3 laned plus hard shouldered M6 Motorway, the proposal for this new high speed train running at 250mp stopping when it gets to Scotland will again only usher the contempt the Scottish population feel about the English government, who once again are treating the Scots as 2nd class citizens.
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