Reply to: 220 MPH Trains in Spain

[expat]

... not sure if its feasible to travel from Scotland to London daily, but if it was taking guaranteed 30 mins to get to central London from Birmingham for reasonable money, then a lot of London problems like congestion and high prices would be solved ...

I am opposed to both of those ideas.
1. being able to live in Birmingham if I want is not my idea of progress.
2. being able to live in the Highlands of Scotland is, but the last thing I want to find there is a population of S.E. commuters.

[AtW]

(Nothing else to do on those long dark cold winter's nights )

What about the Welsh?

[BrilloPad]

Is there Scottish inventions page?

They invented the deep fried mars bar.

[Gonzo]

Is there Scottish inventions page?

I expect that there is.

ISTR the Scottish have been responsible for a large number of inventions.

(Nothing else to do on those long dark cold winter's nights )

[AtW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...ish_inventions

Is there Scottish inventions page?

[DimPrawn]

Weren't trains invented in Britain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...ish_inventions

[NoddY]

Weren't trains invented in Britain?

We don't know. History in British schools only goes as far back as WW2 and something about the Spanish and their boats.

[AtW]

Weren't trains invented in Britain?

[BrilloPad]

Commuters in Kent are getting a super fast link in 2009. Yet more reason to move there - those in WEst LOndon alreasy have alot of plane noise.

[sasguru]

Britain doesn't 'do' infrastructure. Mend and make do old boy.

That's because of an illogical adherence to a supposedly perfect "free market" that doesn't exist.

[NoddY]

Network Rail need to sort the damned rail infrastructure out first.

Anyone on site there?

Britain doesn't 'do' infrastructure. Mend and make do old boy.

[El_Diablo]

Network Rail need to sort the damned rail infrastructure out first.

Anyone on site there?

[AtW]

I think Japan is ideal for comparison with the UK in terms of possibility of effective public transport, ie trains - only there are no earthquakes here so everything should be much much cheaper to build.

Japan has population of 127 mln, territory - 377,835 sq km, GDP per capita: $33,800

UK: population: 61 mln, territory - 244,820 , GDP per capita: $35,300

So, in terms of population density countries are very very close actually, even the way islands look like are close - it is ideal for a couple of high speed trainlines, frankly if they can do it in France and German then something must be really wrong if its not done in the UK.

[VectraMan]

Yes, changes are bad - I once was taken by wrong train in the middle of nowhere, very cold station - wrong directions on new street .

They like you to walk in Brum too. It even says that when you look up the timetables: they count walking from Snow Hill to New Street as one section of the journey you've paid for. Walking FFS.

I don't think France and Japan have the same population density we do. From Birmingham if the next major population centre was London, there'd be no stops and the trains would be a lot faster than they are now. But we have the airport, Coventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes... (I think that's the way they go). Is it really worth having a 220mph train when it has to stop every 20 miles or so?

And if you don't have lots of stops, then it pushes up prices and causes more congestion in the major cities as people go there to make use of the new high speed trains.

[AtW]

Yes, changes are bad - I once was taken by wrong train in the middle of nowhere, very cold station - wrong directions on new street

If France can have good trains, Japan even (given earthquakes), then surely UK should too? It's a question of desire (and getting good contractors to do the job) and investment - last time I heard that getting 250 mph line going through UK would cost maybe £20-30 bln (over a fair few years), not a terribly huge amount of money given how much was put into Northern Crock blackhole (in a few months).