It seems Britain may finally be poised to enter the European high-speed rail infrastructure IF (and a big IF) ambitious plans for an all-new high-speed rail line between London and Scotland, announced by Transport Secretary Lord Adonis last week, are realized. Speeds of up to 200 mph would be amongst the fastest in Europe and indeed the world - mimicking speeds now almost routine in Germany, Spain, France and even Italy - slashing travel times by about half:

London - Glasgow or Edinburgh in 2 1/4 hours
London- Birmingham 45 mins

Lord Adonis plans to establish a company, "High Speed 2" that will plan and coordinate building of the line. Adonis eschewed the East Coast area of York and Newcastle instead running it pretty much along the West Coast, servicing Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh

It will be High Speed 2 because Britain has one in operation true high-speed line - the line from St Pancras to the Chunnel and France/Belgium.

Well this much anticipated High Speed 2 line has been kicked around a lot for years - we'll see if it gets off the ground.

I for one hope it does - one could base themselves in London and easily day trip to places like Liverpool or even Edinburgh.

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BBC NEWS | Business | New high-speed rail plan unveiled
Aug 26, 2009 ... Skip to content; Skip to bbc.co.uk search; Low graphics ... Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told the BBC that high-speed links were ... "While it is good news that Network Rail has set out its agenda for High Speed 2, ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8221540.stm - Cached - Similar
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High-speed rail line could link London to Glasgow in two hours ...
Aug 26, 2009 ... The transport secretary, Lord Adonis, has established a company to draft ..... Adonis: High-speed rail is possible in the UK. 4 Aug 2009: ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/au...ed-rail-report

Almost the right stick. Wrong ends. Probably wrong conclusion.

National Rail submitted a proposal for the line called HS2, asking for billions of government money. The economics of it are absurd, and there's currently a TON of rail projects (with far better economics) soaking up cash at a time there's a real shortage of government money. We're in danger of having a government as indebted as America's

HS2 Limited (a different organisation altogether) is due to present ITS report later this year on whether there's a case for high-speed trains at all. There almost certainly isn't, unless someone's invented a version of maths in which 1+1=737,528,145.213.

Britain's badly short of rail capacity. The economic case for building a faster train to Scotland (rather than adequate subsonic capacity around England) is as crap as the case for building complicated steam engines was in 18th century France. The French didn't stand back from the British obsession with steam engines because the French were old-fashioned: wages in Britain were high and energy was cheap, so the innovation made sense in Britain but not in France. When steam engines got cheaper and more energy-efficient (100 years later) they made sense in France just as much as in England.

There's no sign high-speed train technology IS evolving to make sense in England. There's always going to be higher priorities (like electrifying the line from Southampton to Birmingham, or doubling capacity on the main London-Manchester line). Worse, the ecological case for high speed trains is even worse than the business case - and any new high speed line needs planning permission from DOZENS of local authorities.

Each of which, when a highly polluting self-indulgence is proposed to be built through the Chipping Woldmere nature reserve, with its exclusive habitat for Great Crested Woldebeest, will be torn apart by its ecowarriors if they accept such an environmentally destructive proposal.

Interesting times ahead, since Cameron's committed the Tories to building the West Coast high speed line, but Cameron's pratting on about short of money Brown's made us. Wee Dave's going to have to make a tough decision.

interesting take, as usual.

But - "Worse, the ecological case for high speed trains is even worse than the business case - and any new high speed line needs planning permission from DOZENS of local authorities."

But this is where you show glaring wrong thinking - the ecological case would also include taking many vehicle miles off the roads and onto trains and also planes out of the air as no one in their right mind would fly between London and Glasgow and Edinburgh than take the 2.25 hr train ride. Ecologically it will be a boon, despite local concerns over routes, etc. Wondering how the motorways could have ever been built with such sundry concerns

I do agree that perhaps money could be better spend on really fixing up the really decrepit, in European standards, present over congested rail system first.

Sounds great to me.

Current option is:

30 minutes to get from city center to airport.
1 hour at airport before takeoff
1 hour 30 minute on plane
30 minutes airport to city center

That's 3-1/2 hours city center to city center via air(possibly more)

2-1/2 hours on high speed rail between these city centers would be a blessing.

YOU seem just not to understand environmental issues.

1. A train going at 200 mph is about five times as polluting as a train going at 60 mph. Per passenger-mile, a fullish 200 mph train, running on hydrocarbon electricity (the only serious option in Britain) emits more carbon into the atmosphere than a British car with 2 people going at 56 mph.

2. The ONLY environmental argument for a fast train is that it moves the Scots off planes if they want to come to London (practically no-one flies to London from the north of England, and no-one's going to change their plans because the train's 20 minutes faster to Liverpool). So we're building 300 miles of four-track railway, and moving millions on English people onto an environmentally destructive system for a handful of Scots? Do you have any idea how polluting building a new railway is?

<b> Britain doesn't need phoney "encouragement" to use trains. We use them more than anyone else in the world </b> We need decent roads (cars pollute less driving at 70 mph than at the 10 mph that's standard between the M6 Toll and J23 of the M6), since we've got fewer than any major economy. We need double-decker intercity trains. We need new signalling. We don't need to get to Liverpool in 90 minutes.

High Speed trains are an environmental nightmare (they make ecological sense in France because they use nuclear energy), dishonestly presented by train hobbyists and by construction companies who want fat, government-funded, contracts.

High Speed trains are an environmental nightmare (they make ecological sense in France because they use nuclear energy),>

then why not buy the needed electricity from France, the French probably own the British electric company too

are your figures taking into consideration the new TGV model trains Althsom is rolling out on a test track in La Rochelle - much lighter and much more energy efficient than the current TGV trains?

Seems as though Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany don't realize how environmentally destructive their high-speed rail lines are? Should they close the railways down and encourage folks to drive. That would need multiple more autoroutes, which more land purchases, etc.

And high-speed rail routes often see mega development around the stations in cities served. Businesses could locate in say Manchester and have workers commute there from both Scotland and London, for example.

Off hand i'd say you are a rail Luddite or a modern-day Beeching.

Yes - someone's walking in Beeching's footsteps!

don't agree with the take on pollution or environment, as it takes from both air and road transport.
Financially roads have been the main reciever of subsidies in UK since Beeching's day. It's about time rail got a look-in.
I think you might confuse the local government issues of pollution and environment with the "NIMBYs" and their objections which will surely complicate matters.
As for your take on the history of steam, surely it was the French who finally developed the steam engine into a practical vehicle. They also have a love of great national engineering projects that the British never have shared, which is why projects like high speed lines, tilting trains, tunnels, supersonic aircraft always find the British dragging their heels.

then why not buy the needed electricity from France,>>

We do.

The thing about Britain you have to remember is we don't have the centralised control that the French Government has.

If the frogs want to build a railway line or road it gets built. Objections are simply ignored.

Ours requires local approval and there are always objections that have to be heard. It took over 20 years for my home town to get a bypass built. This is by no means unusual.

As Flanneur says there's plenty of things that the money would be better spent on.

Also Britain is a fair bit smaller than France or Germany so doesn't have the pressing need.

ps Supersonic aircraft? The first Supersonic plane in Europe was British and we built all the difficult bits of Concorde - the frogs made the ashtrays and catering trolleys. We did the rest.

"Should they close the railways down and encourage folks to drive."

They already encourage people to drive.

"Italy, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany" all have the same, or slightly fewer, miles of railway per head of the population as we do. They all have <b> at least twice as many miles of motorway per head than us </b>. ALL drive more miles per head per year than us: all use trains less.

Our roads aren't overcrowded because we're obsessive drivers: we leave that to our neighbours. They're overcrowded because we're the most under-motorwayed major country on earth.

One of the reasons we're undermotorwayed is that we're peculiarly intolerant of the YOBY (Yes - on YOUR backyard) brigade: a process known as democracy (you should have seen the Winchester bypass proposals before the local people imposed sense on them).

We'll be just as intolerant of innumerate environmentalists and rail contractors wanting to build their pet projects somewhere it causes them no pain as we've been with every other sloppily thought-out scheme.

Like the Heathrow runway extension, HS2 simply won't get built.

(you should have seen the Winchester bypass proposals before the local people imposed sense on them). >>>

This is the bypass that I mentioned above.

It took about 25 years of innumerable planning enquiries, public enquiries and soap-dodging protests before the bypass got built. In France they'd just have built the thing.

As an aside; I wonder how they do Morning Hills now (a tradition from my old school where we would get up at dawn and walk up St Catherine's Hill for no real reason other than we were very very bored).

We use them more than anyone else in the world

Oh, please..get your butt back to Tokyo and tell us this whopper again...

High speed trains are nice - but really only advantage the people doing long haul trips - mostly the UK needs increased capacity on commuter routes

It took about 25 years of innumerable planning enquiries, public enquiries and soap-dodging protests before the bypass got built. In France they'd just have built the thing.>

Well not always the controversial A86 Road Tunnel in the Paris suburbs will open in 2010 - finally completing the Parisian Ring Road but only after countless complaints and protests - about 20 years in the making so is not always so easy

And farmers in So France have vigorously protested and delayed a proposed Marseilles-Nice high speed line.

Flanner: "YOU seem just not to understand environmental issues.

1. A train going at 200 mph is about five times as polluting as a train going at 60 mph. Per passenger-mile, a fullish 200 mph train, running on hydrocarbon electricity (the only serious option in Britain) emits more carbon into the atmosphere than a British car with 2 people going at 56 mph.>

Well flanneur ole chap i'd like to see any evidence you have for continually claiming this

A real economic/environmental expert here flatly calls what you just said nonsense.

Again, upon what do you base your seemingly outlandish claims and with what types of trains (old 80s TGVs or new 2010 TGVs like Alsthom is rolling out in La Rochelle?)


http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...gh-speed-rail/


How big is the reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions associated with switching from cars to rail?

Cars average 22 miles a gallon, and contain an average of 1.63 people. Each gallon of gas is associated with 19.56 pounds of carbon dioxide. That comes to 0.545 pounds of carbon dioxide for each passenger mile, but I’ll increase that by 20 percent to reflect emissions from refining and delivering the gas.

All told, a 240-mile car trip produces 157 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Domestic air flights in the United States average 0.022 gallons of fuel for each passenger mile, and using a gallon of jet fuel is associated with 21.095 pounds of carbon dioxide. I’ll again increase that by 20 percent to reflect refining, and that comes to a total of 133.7 pounds of carbon dioxide on a 240-mile plane trip. This number is close to a Center for Clean Air Study figure based on flying a regional jet.

A classic study pegged high-speed rail in Europe as using from 6.1 to 11.1 kilowatt hours for every 100 passenger miles. The Center for Clear Air Policy also gives electricity use figures for a number of high-speed rail lines that run from 5.6 kilowatt hours for every 100 passenger miles for German intercity trains to 15.6 kilowatt hours for every 100 passenger miles for a Japanese bullet train.

Taking a middle figure of 8.6 kilowatt hours for every 100 passenger miles, and using the North American Electric Reliability Corporation estimate of 1.555 pounds of carbon dioxide for each kilowatt in Texas means 13.37 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 100 passenger miles, or 32.1 pounds of carbon dioxide for a 240-mile trip.

If I assume, relatively arbitrarily, that one-half of the rail riders used to take cars and one-half used to take planes, and that there is no extra travel generated by the rail line, then each 240-mile train trip eliminates 113 pounds of carbon dioxide for each passenger in our atmosphere. These estimates suggest that trains are green, which differs from the studies, which include the emissions from building the rail system, cited by Eric Morris at Freakonomics.

Trains reduce carbon emissions and the world should reduce its carbon

Flanner: "YOU seem just not to understand environmental issues.

1. A train going at 200 mph is about five times as polluting as a train going at 60 mph. Per passenger-mile, a fullish 200 mph train, running on hydrocarbon electricity (the only serious option in Britain) emits more carbon into the atmosphere than a British car with 2 people going at 56 mph.>

Well flanneur ole chap i'd like to see any evidence you have for continually claiming this

flanner - please did you just make that up or is there any evidence you can point out that would document what you say - again the facts i present from the NYTimes blog simply says you are wrong - but if i see your evidence i could reconsider.

So what do you base your figures on?

I am a train fan, but we don't need this new line. Britain is small, crowded, with lots of big/medium sized towns and cities pretty close to each other. Already you can hop on at Euston and be in Manchester 2 hours later, with services every half hour at least. I get this train often and they are not always packed to the gills, let me tell you.
Better off to use the money increasing our present services, perhaps extending trains and platforms if necessary and educating the public, encouraging them to use train services and not motorways or planes.

Do you people realise the carbon imprint that your discussion is making around the world with the electricity that we are using to read it?

kerouac - does it make a CF diff if one is a high-speed reader?