High speed rail for the UK?
A new network of high-speed lines across Britain could speed rail passengers between London and Scotland in two and a half hours.
Top government adviser Professor David Begg, chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport, says ministers should start planning for 200mph trains which would shrink the map of the UK.
The new trains, which would cost £36 billion, would cut journeys between London and Birmingham to under an hour, and London and Newcastle to less than two hours. The report concluded that the economic return would be “very substantial indeed” with the trains carrying nearly 50 per cent more passengers than at present.
A report from the commission warns that existing intercity routes will run out of capacity by 2015, forcing rail companies to price passengers off trains and onto already overcrowded roads.
The commission’s support for a high-speed network will embarrass the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling. Mr Darling has already prevented the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) from publishing its own report in favour of a new fast route between London and Scotland.
A new London to Scotland high-speed line could carry up to 220 trains a day, more than twice the number possible on the upgraded west coast main line. It would have 50% more capacity than the M1 or M6 motorways, and achieve journeys in a third of the time possible by road.
“This isn’t just desirable to shrink journey times, it’s essential if we are to deal with capacity constraints on the existing network…We can’t simply price people off the railways as a way of solving overcrowding ” said Professor Begg.
Britain’s only high-speed line so far is the Channel tunnel rail link, which carries Eurostar trains at up to 186mph.
