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AD 2040 the likely conclusion. We’ll be lucky not to be in nursing homes.

Ecologically irreplaceable.

Thinking about your helpful recent comments about Piccadilly, I wondered if it could be rebuilt downwards as a through-flow major station? Look at the engineering obstacles overcome for Crossrail, I think some other cities in the world have done this. At great cost, but seeing that our railway...

HS2 phase one to Brum will likely open in 2033, but we know these things always go wrong. The Manchester section (when Starmer reinstates it December next) 2040. 20 years to build one line to increase capacity. The cost then with inflation, certainly not £100b. I didn’t really take an...

Veteran Guardian journalist Simon Jenkins in a long radio interview, was surprisingly against the entire HS2 project. His rationale made sense. If capacity was the real reason, for a small country why did it have to have TGV/bullet train speeds, at a cost of £100b. It won’t take hardly any...

Both. They started in 1976, got on with it, moving onto the next and next. It’s very imperfect though. A NSC’er who lives in France said the non-TGV railways are in a shockingly bad state, train journeys at a snails pace, I’ve been on them and suffered the tedium. This is confirmed in...

He’s referring to if we; bypassed nimby councils and snapped up private homes/gardens/farmland at will, quickly. The Chinese model.

By Clackett Lane?

France started construction of its high speed network in 1976. Tory and Labour governments here have delivered the sum total of St Pancras to The Tunnel. The EU are fully supportive of brand new high speed networks through national parks and semi wilderness. Currently on the side of France in...

It went over budget by £4b, no surprise. But it is fantastic, we used it in June during yet another rail strike, boarding at Abbey Wood, 20 minutes to the West End.

This.

This government, who'll be kicked in the long grass in 15 months time. Wouldn't it be good to see Starmer announce this and mean action. It would also help his cause in a vast number of parliamentary seats.

in France they rush through new train lines. They’re pretty brutal in dealing with obstinate land owners and environmentalists. There was a R4 doc on the differences about 10 years ago. They said something like we build one new railway bridge per annum, after a very long process. Whilst the...

Isn’t that a London centric view, that the UK world revolves around everyone wanting to go to/from London. Wouldn’t a non HS network of up to 140mph, linking Liverpool to Hull, at the same time Birmingham, Manchester, Birmingham. Sheffield and Leeds with other routes, give huge benefits to a...

On the continent I’ve also witnessed part shelved schemes eg the otherwise excellent Montpellier tram system. TGV built a wonderful station outside the city. The public-private partnership that financed the tram system, abandoned the link line proposal. A separate point, in France and China...

A question - why do France, Germany and Spain build these at a small fraction of the cost per mile? This isn't party political, Labour and Tory build railways projects in the many £10b's a shot. My guesses are: 1. As the first industrial nation our urban areas are rammed. Requiring tunneling...