September 2, 2009

High Speed Train on track for cancellation

Hmmm - did anyone else out there get a sense of déjà-vu when the announcements were made about a high speed rail link between London and Glasgow? Apparently in less than two decades, if no intervening government cancels the project, I will be able to travel up to 200 miles per hour and get to Glasgow in around two hours. It all smells to me like the false dawn that brought in the sad demise of Concorde.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for progress. But as progress goes, this step seems one of the most pointless ones I can think of. For starters, our rail service is a national disgrace. Trains are hopelessly overcrowded on commuter runs, hopelessly unreliable and ludicrously overpriced. And the ticketing arrangements are so complex I get the impression that even the station staff doesn’t understand them.

I used to travel by train to work and back every day. So every day I spent over two hours on the train – and frequently a great deal longer. Not to mention the fruitless hours wasted at stations waiting for trains to appear late for all manner of spurious reasons. Or because I was 3 minutes too late – and had to wait an hour for the next one.

And there is the rub. It is fine to hurtle across Europe on a speedy train. Europe is a big place – and the trains probably have more chance of running on time because they are more spread out. But Britain is a tiny, crowded country. And our rail network is creaking and groaning so much that the vast proportion of people doesn’t even consider using it.

It seems obvious to me that given a choice, all rail passengers would make the same decision that plane passengers made. Would you rather go somewhere fast at ludicrous cost (remembering that you will be held up at both ends of your journey). Or would you rather travel a bit slower and a lot more cheaply. Millions of people the world over have already made that decision. And I suspect rail passengers will too.

High Speed Train on track for cancellation

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