Johnson was as committed to Northern Powerhouse Rail as he had been to Crossrail

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Land size of Netherlands - 42,000 sq kms. High speed rail 2.9%

Land size of UK - 240,000 sq kms. High speed rail 0.7%

It‘s also about capacity and affordability.

Dutch trains go and come a lot further than the Netherlands. I've caught an InterCity in Eindhoven and I'm sure it came from the depths of Germany. We're a bit stuck! Dutch trains are often double deckers, and probably haven't anything like a Victorian tunnel to pass through!

 

[Vic]

You need to make a fair comparison here because did the services in Finland or Sweden already exist albeit on antiquated old lines? If they had an old line already performing those services then there's no chance that they'd build a separate competing line purely for speed or even capacity.

It's worth noting that the trains that we do have aren't slow, the Virgin trains for example get up to 130mph. There is just no need for an alternative service on a completely separate line that just so happens to go a bit faster, that is the idiocy of HS2.

The reality is that people will choose the cheaper option over the faster option and I'll bet my house that once HS2 opens it's trains will be empty and the Virgin type trains will continue to be packed to the rafters. For other countries there aren't two options so it's not a fair comparison.

Anyone referring to Virgin trains obviously is not "up to soeed" on these matters.

The faster that express trains go on existing lines, the harder it is to mix them with slower commuter trains and freight.

And uprating existing lines means years of disruption on those lines.