We are on the cusp of one of the most exciting developments in the history of Britain’s railways since George Stephenson drove Locomotionon one of the first passenger trains in the world on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825.
On November 14, a 20-coach Eurostar train will snake out of St Pancras station on its way to Paris cutting the regular journey time to two hours 15 minutes. It will run on the first new main line to be built in Britain for more than 100 years and, via the Channel Tunnel, will link the UK into Europe’s rapidly expanding high-speed network, which extends on dedicated new tracks for 2,330 miles into Germany, Belgium the Netherlands and Spain. It will be faster to get from London to Paris, than to Preston. Brussels will be almost as close as Birmingham.
But it is not just the geography that is changing. The new lines are engines for regeneration – derelict land around Kings Cross and Stratford are being transformed, and new fast commuter trains to north Kent will deliver a powerful economic boost. The environmental benefits are huge – travelling on the new lines delivers ten times less greenhouse emissions per passenger mile than flying. In this special issue we look at the rail revolution and its implications.
But the news is not all so upbeat, writes Christian Wolmar, as ministers seek to transfer costs from the taxpayer to the passenger through higher fares, while, Anthony Lambert shows, our European partners continue to invest in faster and greener new railways.
Juliette Jowit examines their claims to be green, while Barrie Clement looks at the benefits high-speed trains bring to the 2012 Olympics. Roger Ford and David Begg show how investment in railways can benefit all of us, as Rupert Brennan-Brown and Simon Calder assess the PR battle. Why do the airlines seem to be so so much better at it than rail?
Finally, we take a thrilling ride on the fastest train in Europe and buy a platform ticket to St Pancras, once threatened with demolition, now a cathedral to the new era of speed. What does rail minister Tom Harris think of all this? Christian Wolmar asks him the tough questions.
