As many of us are aware the first of the Eurostar passenger services to Paris and Brussels are due to roll out of the magnificently refurbished St Pancras International at 11:01 this morning.An undeniably magnificent achievement.
The new high-speed rail link now means that it is possible to go from the heart of London to the heart of Paris in 2 hrs and fifteen minutes. With, it has to be said, considerably less bother than the flying and in greater comfort, but at greater expense by comparison to flying. Even so it is no so great when one takes in the convenience and lack of the sort of problems with check in and security encountered at airports – more civilised.
So that’s the good part. It is fine for those who can get to StPancras/King’s Cross easily. The High Speed line known optimistically as High Speed 1 cost £5.8bn.
Unfortunately there seem to be no plans for a High Speed Link to the North. So what does someone who lives in Manchester or Edinburgh do? Or those in the west? Given the comparatively steep costs of rail travel within the UK, they do what they are already doing - They fly. So that means it is probably of little practical use to the majority of the country.
So how much real utility will the high-speed line actually be, apart from to Euro MPs and the like?
And would the money have been better used on first building a high speed lines from/to the North and West?
