Re: High Speed 2 company to be formed

Garden6089@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Jan 15, 5:45 pm, Tony Polson <docnews2...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There's a good bit here which appears to rule out Maglev:

58.  If a new line is to be built, it must demonstrate value for money
and be underpinned by a robust business case. Work for the 2007 White
Paper suggested that the cost of building a new high-speed line capable
of accommodating high speed services is not significantly greater than
that of a new conventional line but a maglev would be some three times
more expensive than the ?rail? options. The costs of the only
operational maglev system in the world (the Shanghai airport link) are
about three times greater than those of equivalent high speed lines.

59.  Furthermore, a maglev line would not be able to be integrated with
the existing rail network in the UK, or with high speed rail and
Europe?s existing high speed lines. An integrated system provides much
more operational flexibility, and benefits a far wider range of
destinations which can be served by high-speed trains using new and
existing routes (as will be the case with the domestic services on High
Speed 1, which will use the high-speed line from London to Ashford and
then transfer to conventional lines).

60.  The high energy consumption of maglev also suggests that the
environmental cost would be disproportionate in relation to the benefits
of incremental speed and reduced journey times.

Praise be - an outbreak of common sense at the DafT!


There's plenty of common sense among DfT Rail civil servants. However,
until now, common sense is a quality that doesn't seem to have to have
blessed DfT's Ministers, who have been a spectacularly bad lot. The
trouble was, no-one wanted to be a DfT Minister until now.

Now, there seems to have been an injection of sense, and even talent,
with the appointment of Lord Adonis, who apparently wanted the job.

.

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