> "High Speed 2" has been suggested as the magic bullet to solve
> congestion at airports and to bridge the North-South divide. Some
> people think that copying countries like Japan and France will "propel
> our rail system into the 21st century". But what works well in France
> may not work well in Britain.
>
> High speed rail can certainly have great benefits if built in the
> right place, but Britain's geography isn't well-suited for it. In
> particular:
>
> 1. In the UK, major cities are only about 50-150 km apart. By the time
> a train reaches its maximum speed of 350 km/h it has to start slowing
> down again, otherwise it will just race past its destination. A 350 km/
> h train might be ideal for routes like Paris-Lyon (400km) or Madrid-
> Barcelona (600km), but for London-Birmingham or Birmingham-Manchester
> it's not necessary. A 250 km/h train would only be a few minutes
> slower, and existing lines can be upgraded to 250 km/h at a much lower
> cost. The only route that may be worth 350 km/h is London-Edinburgh, ...

> 1. In the UK, major cities are only about 50-150 km apart. By the time
> a train reaches its maximum speed of 350 km/h it has to start slowing
> down again, otherwise it will just race past its destination. A 350 km/

> h train might be ideal for routes like Paris-Lyon (400km) or Madrid-

> cost. The only route that may be worth 350 km/h is London-Edinburgh,
> but ridership would be too low to warrant the investment.

> and bridges, and an investment per km several times higher. High speed
> rail has had only limited success in hilly Germany for the same
> reason.

> "High Speed 2" has been suggested as the magic bullet to solve
> congestion at airports and to bridge the North-South divide. Some
> people think that copying countries like Japan and France will "propel
> our rail system into the 21st century". But what works well in France
> may not work well in Britain.
>
> High speed rail can certainly have great benefits if built in the
> right place, but Britain's geography isn't well-suited for it. In
> particular:
>
> 1. In the UK, major cities are only about 50-150 km apart. By the time
> a train reaches its maximum speed of 350 km/h it has to start slowing
> down again, otherwise it will just race past its destination. A 350 km/
> h train might be ideal for routes like Paris-Lyon (400km) or Madrid-
> Barcelona (600km), but for London-Birmingham or Birmingham-Manchester
> it's not necessary. A 250 km/h train would only be a few minutes
> slower, and existing lines can be upgraded to 250 km/h at a much lower
> cost. The only route that may be worth 350 km/h is London-Edinburgh,
> but ridership would be too low to warrant the investment. ...

> Bollocks. A TGV can reach its max speed in under 5 minutes. Oh , and
> they have these things called "brakes" which are quite useful in
> stopping.

> What about Paris - Lille or Brussels - Lille then?

> Well, exaclty. for the journey London-Brimingham, for instance, a
> 350km/h train would spend 10 minutes speeding up and slowing down,
> compared to 20 minutes travelling at Vmax. This means that the
> _average_ speed would not be vastly more impressive than for a 250km/h
> train.

> Yes, but not enough. You need 20+ million passengers a year to make
> high speed rail viable. I doubt you would get that much for a city
> with just 1m inhabitants.

> "High Speed 2" has been suggested as the magic bullet to solve
> congestion at airports and to bridge the North-South divide. Some
> people think that copying countries like Japan and France will "propel...

>
> Instead of building High Speed 2, it would be a much better idea to
> upgrade the existing network. Much of it could be widened to allow
> double-decker trains, for instance, which would also solve the
> overcrowding problem. Connecting Heathrow to the West Coast Mainline
> would take most passengers away from planes, even if trains "only" ran
> at 250 km/h. What is your opinion?