High Speed Rail

Recently Network Rail proposed a plan to build a new High speed line from scratch; it would be 200+mph, travel from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London via Birmingham and have a Journey time of around 2hrs 30 mins. Now, I think this is a fantastic idea, think about it, that is faster than flying. Some will say that the flight to London is under an hour, however neither Glasgow, Prestwick or Edinburgh airports are in the city centres, and factoring in check in times and all the interminable waiting that airlines seem to want you to do, and your City Centre to City Centre time is closer to 3-4 Hours flying. This link would be on a train in Glasgow, and 2.5 hrs later you’re in the centre of London. It’s cleaner than flying or driving, ok so electric trains are only as clean as the power station available, but it’s better than burning aviation fuel or diesel and way more sustainable. In fact not much of this project doesn’t make sense.

However I’m sceptical if it will ever get built. Its price tag is around the £34 billion. It’s a shame that the government won’t commit to such a high spend, considering the millions it will quite readily spend for motorway enhancements and a 3^rd runway at Heathrow which seems to be wanted only by BAA and airlines. This is not all this project has stacking up against it. I can see the air travel lobby being pretty vocal in its objections to this project, after all, if it is faster than flying, and if the tickets aren’t extortionate, then it will take passengers from domestic flights, environmentally this is a good thing but airlines tend not to see loss of custom that way. It may also be scrapped by an incoming Tory government, which looks most likely. The Tories have generally shown a dislike for public transport (“This is the age of the Car”) and anything north of Birmingham. Until recently I would have said that the Scottish government would at least fund its side but after the scrapping of GARL I’m not so sure. Finally it is possible that the city of London may try to derail this project (Pardon my pun)

There was an article about a year or so ago, suggesting that regeneration doesn’t work and that we should all move to the south east. It was interpreted as a sign of fear from London that it may be loosing its importance to business. Back in the day you had to have a major office in London; it was how you did business. Problem is that London is expensive, and now many businesses are moving the bulk of their operations to regenerated areas like Manchester and Newcastle and leaving a shadow presence in London (Usually a few desks rented in a building) as modern transport and communications means that the city is only a few hours away. 2.5 hours from the central belt of Scotland to London would further erode any necessity to actually be based there. Hell, we could probably remove the second home allowance for many Scottish MPs because 2.5 hours is a commutable distance. Not an ideal one but definitely an option.

Of course, for everywhere else this is a great thing. And this is who should be getting behind the project, Local governments and big business should all welcome the chance to move away from the capitol, it means lower rents for business, and more interest for abandoned industrial towns. It means reduced overcrowding in the south and hopefully removing the need to build on flood plains. Basically, spend the 36bn, do it properly (No bloody PFI) have reasonable fares and this could be a massive boon to the whole UK.