Why doesn’t Britain have high speed trains?
I’ve just got back from Germany and i went on an ICE train and it was brilliant and having done a little research we seem to be the only country without a proper high-speed rail network (although I don’t think the US has one?). Plus all the trains arrive on time in Germany apparently (kind of predictable). I don’t know much about the rail network or the “benefits” of privatisation but it seems to me that we have a crap network compared with Europe – even the French can do it for god sake.
Is it just down to cost or are there other factors i.e. no demand for it.
Britain’s Inter City services do travel at speeds of up to 125 m.p.h. as opposed to the 186 mph of French TGVs and German ICEs. British governments have never invested money on the scale of those European countries with higher speed networks, but I don’t think our network is “crap” at all. Firstly the British railway network is one of the densest of any country except perhaps the Netherlands, with many rural lines as well as commuter and Inter City main lines. Our services also tend to be very high frequency compared with most countries. Manchester to London every half hour in 2 hours
10 minutes isn’t bad at all when you think that most airlines ask you to check in two hours before their flights; there are 6 trains per hour between Brighton and London, 3 trains per hour between Leicester and London; many of our railway lines are running at urban metro type frequencies. If you take a close look at the French railway system off the brilliant TGV network, you’ll see closed rural lines and services between
various provincial cities running at 3 to 4 hour frequencies where the equivalent services in the U.K. run every 30 minutes. The questioner states that all the trains arrive on time in Germany; well of course they don’t but they are a few percentage points above our 90% national average punctuality rate. We do need some higher speed main lines
and more investment in our rail system through longer franchises, but as someone who several times per week, uses and depends on it to get me all over the U.K. I’m broadly satisfied; most of my journeys are punctual and I am able to get to some very rural and out of the way places by train too.
Future of High Speed Rail – Passenger Growth and Freight Challenges
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