janisj

>>And yes UK is a large country but population centered in relatively small area<<

The UK is a (relatively) small country with many populations centers scattered all over (this map is just England and Wales). https://medium.com/@briskat/england-...p-26a28a2b6091

PalenQ

That seems like most are centered in relatively smaller area than say France or Germany or Spain or Italy where high-speed trains make sense. If you take the whole UK into consideration. Anyway point is high-speed European style trains would only increase travel times marginally in UK whereas in those other countries it makes a much bigger difference.

flanneruk

There's another issue about TGVs: they can't go fast in England.

Take a journey like Liverpool-Hull: the kind of 100 or so miler that's common in France. It makes no sense at all to run that here without stopping at Manchester and Leeds: scarcely anyone wants to travel from Liverpool to Hull. Stops on TGVs add hugely to the total time: the stop itself plus the acceleration and deceleration have to add at least 5-8 minutes per stop. If you're doing the journey in 90 mins anyway, the extra 10-15 mins make moving from 80 mph to 180 mph almost useless. The incremental time of intermediate stops is actually SHORTER on 80 mph trains than on 180 mph trains.

You're reduced to about 3 city-pairs: (London to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle) where TGV infrastructure would provide a significant time saving and 6 more (London to Liverpool, York, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff) where at best it would shave 20 mins off- and probably wipe out the competition, which would produce the unacceptable result that taxpayer money was destroying cheaper alternatives that poorer people use.

And, of course, divert taxpayer money from links that don't include London. Going TGV would be another nail in the coffin of Britain outside SE England,

PalenQ

Well it seems a high-speed train London-Manchester-Edinburgh/Glasgow would benefit many and knock airlines off routes to Scotland - that one seems viable and French TGVs do not stop always at every town. Paris to Bordeaux may stop once or none -with other TGVs picking up slack. Seems like one up center of England with branches off perhaps to some places could well work.

PalenQ

What about a tie in with high-speed line to Paris going around London - Manchester to Paris/Brussels in say 3-4 hours - maybe before Brexit but that would have been nice. I think they may still have those train set at North Pole that were designed for that but are probably out of date now.

PatrickLondon

Well, that's another issue. The tunnel itself has only do much capacity, and engineering in an additional connecting line in central London would be very tough. When there was talk, under the Cameron government, of a load of new garden cities, I wondered if it would make sense to string them along a high speed line in the East, connecting to Stratford, which might bring some more development to the more depressed areas north of Peterborough, and with improved feeder connections cross country, but the powers that were decided that knocking 20 minutes off London-Birmingham was the alternative to a third runway at Heathrow. And look how well that turned out (still waiting for Boris to find a bulldozer to lie down in front of, as he promised - unless of course Theresa May turns out to be it).

Nigel_UK

In true UK fashion for major infrastructure projects, Crossrail is now delayed and will not open through the central London section until Autumn (Fall) 2019.

Elizabeth line services through central London to start in 2019 - Crossrail