Friends of the Rail Forum

High speed rail plans are ‘too slow’

18 June 2009 | By Ed Owen
New Civil Engineer

New high speed railway lines must be designed to run trains at up to 300km/h if they are to take traffic from the roads, supporters of the proposed High Speed 2 link between London and the north said this week.

Speaking at a Mace transportation briefing last week, high speed rail pressure group Greengauge21 founder Jim Steer said reducing journey times between London and Manchester by half an hour would not be enough.

“We have to do more,” said Steer. “Saving half an hour will not encourage enough transference from road to rail.”

The Department for Transport is working on plans to place capacity ahead of speed, with trains speeds limited to 250km/h. Britain’s only existing high speed line, High Speed 1, runs trains at a maximum 300km/h.

High Speed 2 rail director Andrew McNaughton even suggested that the new high speed line be called “High Capacity One’” (NCE 12 February). However, Steer said he would be surprised if maximum operating speeds for the new line were less than 300km/h.

Mace director Dean Benson agreed: “Engineers need to bring ideas to the public and engage with them.” Transport secretary Lord Adonis set up High Speed 2 to investigate high speed rail options between London, and the north earlier this year.

I read last week that a spokesman for the R.A.C. in London, wants all money destined for railway development to be transferred to road works. According to him the railways are yesterdays transport system. With attitudes like that what hope is there of a proper high speed rail service as can be found throughout Europe? To my mind the DfT is already heavily biased towards the road lobby.

I recently made a journey on a main line service in Scotland where the speed was down to 20 mph for long stretches of the line, at one time I wondered where the man with the red flag was! Just to show that I am still on my old hobby horse, there was NO restaurant coach!

I never cease to be amazed by the Spanish AVE system, developed and built in a different gauge to the normal broad gauge in very quick time. Do you think the UK could borrow their planners?

Malcolm

Do you think the UK could borrow their planners?

No, because the UK will never learn another language, and certainly not Spanish! Nor will they entirely adopt the metric system either:

the speed was down to 20 mph for long stretches