Re: Why is a North-south railway not being built now?

"allan tracy" <thunderbird57303@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1136052673.220412.56080@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> A TGV style high-speed link from Glasgow and Edinburgh via Newcastle,
> Leeds, Manchester and the West Midlands to London. Existing feeder
> lines from Liverpool, Preston and, who knows, even the East Midlands.

> I doubt there is a high-speed link anywhere in the World that could be
> built linking such major conurbations all on one route, even in Japan.

Looked at on a map, those major cities seem well placed for one LGV line
to serve them all, but that's not the same as saying it would be easy to
link them. Assuming serving existing city centre stations, there would
need to either be substantial tunnelling under urban areas, or use of
existing congested lines which would lose some of the advantage of the
high-speed running. I would imagine Leeds - Manchester would be virtually
all tunnel, too. Then there are important towns such as York, Stoke,
Stafford, etc., which presently have good services by virtue of their
being on major Inter-City routes. Could they expect to lose much of their
train service, or would the LGV route serve them also, with the
consequent extra construction costs, and slowing the TGVs further?

I'm not opposed to the building of an LGV, in fact I'd love to see it.
But I doubt it will ever be justified in purely monetary terms. I think
you're underestimating the costs and, TBH, overestimating the necessity.
The heaviest traffic volumes, I would suggest, are going to be towards
the southern end of the route, for which the gains in shortened journey
times would be minimal. I welcome proof to the contrary.

> Unfortunately, you're probably right, the despised idiots could build
> it at five times higher the cost than anywhere else and relied upon to
> somehow contrive to operate it at a loss.

The cost of any railway-related construction work always seems to be
vastly inflated. I don't know how much that can be directly blamed on
politicians.

Rick.



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