The rail industry was asked nearly 20 years ago what would best increase capacity in our existing infrastructure and this is what they cam up with. Faster, more frequent services on a high speed line that frees up paths on old mainlines for more local services and more rail freight, as these are at capacity right now
Sure, you can argue that it wasn’t a perfect plan, but it’s what we have. Framing it as “high speed travel to London” is what the press have been doing for 15 years and is disingenuous.
Of course it doesn’t matter because even before this latest idiocy the plan had been gutted down enough that a lot of that extra capacity wouldn’t have appeared, and we instead have spent billions extra tunnelling under fields near rich people’s homes so they wouldn’t have to hear trains every now and then
The rail industry was asked nearly 20 years ago what would best increase capacity in our existing infrastructure and this is what they cam up with. Faster, more frequent services on a high speed line that frees up paths on old mainlines for more local services and more rail freight, as these are at capacity right now
Sure, you can argue that it wasn’t a perfect plan, but it’s what we have. Framing it as “high speed travel to London” is what the press have been doing for 15 years and is disingenuous.
Of course it doesn’t matter because even before this latest idiocy the plan had been gutted down enough that a lot of that extra capacity wouldn’t have appeared, and we instead have spent billions extra tunnelling under fields near rich people’s homes so they wouldn’t have to hear trains every now and then