Are high-speed trains the future?

By 2030 you may be able to get to between Scotland and London a lot faster than you currently can now. Network Rail have proposed a new GBP£34 billion high-speed railway link, where the trains would travel as fast as 200mph.

The train will get passengers from Glasgow to London in just two hours and 16 minutes, while also serving Manchester and Birmingham.

Network Rail said it had rejected routes that would have taken the new line via Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne, as well as a route that included Leicester and Sheffield and another option through Bristol and Cardiff.

The proposed new High Speed 2 line will still need to be approved by the government, which is conducting its own rail network review. It would become the country's second high-speed rail link after the line that runs from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel, which is run by the Eurostar service and connecting to high-speed lines in continental Europe.

Network Rail, the company that runs Britain's rail infrastructure, have said that the new line would require more than 1,500 miles of rail, sleepers and ballast, as well as 138 bridges over roads and current railway lines. They also said that the new line is required to ease the pressure on Britain's railways. It says passenger numbers have rocketed by 40 percent over the past decade, and that by 2024, many existing lines will be at full capacity.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis told the BBC that high-speed links were vital for the future. "This report makes a powerful case for high-speed rail in Britain," he said. Lord Adonis said that the company set up by the government to prepare a high-speed rail plan will take "full account" of the proposals and deliver a report by the end of the year.

The Conservatives' shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, welcomed the announcement.

"Today's announcement provides further evidence that we need to take high speed rail to the north," she said. "Unlike Labour, our high speed rail ambitions go north of Birmingham and we call on the Government to match our commitment."

The firm based its decision on a 12-month study involving 20,000 hours of work and more than 1,500 pages of analysis. They said that the line would account for 43.7 million journeys per year by 2030, which would result in 3.8 million fewer vehicle journeys and fewer carbon dioxide emissions.

"If, as research suggests, up to three times as many passengers will be travelling on our railways by 2020, then it is important that we move quickly in planning today for the rail network of tomorrow," said Scotland's Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson.

JOURNEY TIMES FROM LONDON
Birmingham: 45mins, down from 1h 22mins
Liverpool: 1hr 23mins, down from 2hrs 8mins
Manchester: 1hr 6mins, down from 2hrs 7mins
Edinburgh: 2hrs 9mins, down from 4hrs 23mins
Glasgow: 2hrs 16mins, down from 4hrs 10 mins
Source: Network Rail

Spending less time on a train is always a good thing. As someone who has probably lost hours waiting for trains, a high-speed service sounds pretty perfect to me. We'll just have to hope that this line works, so that it spreads across the country.

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