TODAY is the dawn of a new age of the railway as Boris Johnson gives the go-ahead for HS2 as well as new tracks across the Pennines. At last we have a vision in the spirit of Stephenson and Brunel, shedding our image as a nation that can't get it together with  big infrastructure projects. Disappointing, though, that the first trains may not run on the London to Birmingham route until 2018-2021.The second phase to Manchester and Leeds was due to ...more