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08-26-2009, 06:12 AM
Plan for £34bn high-speed rail link
Plan for £34bn high-speed rail link
With trains travelling at 200mph, journey times to Scotland would be cut to a little over two hours.
The line would run from central London, via Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington, Liverpool and Preston to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Birmingham could be reached from London in just 46 minutes, with London-Manchester times coming down to one hour six minutes and London-Warrington being reduced to one hour six minutes.
The London-Preston time would be one hour 13 minutes and the line would then head further northwards, splitting to go to Glasgow (two hours 16 minutes) and Edinburgh (two hours nine minutes).
NR said such a scheme would generate almost £55 billion of value, thus paying for itself 1.8 times over.
The NR plan does not include a direct link to Heathrow airport in west London, with the company believing that such an increase in costs would outweigh the benefits and revenue. The company said a spur to Heathrow could be possible, but ruled out a connection to Leeds through Manchester.
NR did not give a precise route for the new line but said it could offer up to 16 trains a hour to and from London and provide 9,100 seats per hour into the capital.
There would be eight new stations with 400 metre-long platforms, more than 1,500 miles of track, 34 miles of tunnels and 32 bridges over motorways. New city centre terminal stations in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh would be located close to existing city centre stations.
NR said that it would not build the line but that it could possibly be built by the sort of consortium that came together to build the London to Folkestone High Speed One (formerly known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link)
Plan for £34bn high-speed rail link
With trains travelling at 200mph, journey times to Scotland would be cut to a little over two hours.
The line would run from central London, via Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington, Liverpool and Preston to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Birmingham could be reached from London in just 46 minutes, with London-Manchester times coming down to one hour six minutes and London-Warrington being reduced to one hour six minutes.
The London-Preston time would be one hour 13 minutes and the line would then head further northwards, splitting to go to Glasgow (two hours 16 minutes) and Edinburgh (two hours nine minutes).
NR said such a scheme would generate almost £55 billion of value, thus paying for itself 1.8 times over.
The NR plan does not include a direct link to Heathrow airport in west London, with the company believing that such an increase in costs would outweigh the benefits and revenue. The company said a spur to Heathrow could be possible, but ruled out a connection to Leeds through Manchester.
NR did not give a precise route for the new line but said it could offer up to 16 trains a hour to and from London and provide 9,100 seats per hour into the capital.
There would be eight new stations with 400 metre-long platforms, more than 1,500 miles of track, 34 miles of tunnels and 32 bridges over motorways. New city centre terminal stations in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh would be located close to existing city centre stations.
NR said that it would not build the line but that it could possibly be built by the sort of consortium that came together to build the London to Folkestone High Speed One (formerly known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link)