As a complement to the previous post, I have developed a map of high speed rail in the United Kingdom. It is a combination of existing lines, lines under construction, projects canceled by the Johnson and Sunak governments, and my suggestions for lines the UK should build in the future. Those categories are available as separate layers in the map. A few notes on my suggestions:
1) It is a fantasy map. A previous version of the map was somewhat more realistic, but I see no point attempting to be serious when the actual UK government has demonstrated it has no interest in a national system. The Sunak government has even taken a scorched earth approach to the canceled segments of HS2 by authorizing the sale of previously purchased properties. It has no interest in any future HSR projects, and any Labour government will find restarting the previous program difficult for practical and financial reasons.
2) My system nonetheless could probably built, though not economically. A few of the lines might be close to economic viability if construction costs are reasonable. "Reasonable" in this case would be £100M/mile and £1,000M per station. HS2 has blown way past those numbers to £396M/mile and £4-6B for stations in London and Manchester (now canceled).
3) I have chosen to tunnel the lines into city centers in order to maximize train speed. Long approaches to existing stations on existing lines would reduce the average speed along those lines. Building new approaches would be very expensive in dense urban areas, and very disruptive to the existing urban fabric. I have chosen tunnels for those reasons and because, as stated above, I don't have to be serious here.
4) A lot of England is basically suburban or exurban, similar to New Jersey, especially in the Midlands. Cities and towns all connect, with very little actual countryside between them. That is part of the reason the per-mile cost of HS2 exploded.
5) Stoke-on-Trent is a polycentric mess. The existing station isn't near the center of the biggest constituent city, Hanley. I have chosen to put a tunneled station under the center of Hanley because more bus routes run through there, but either location might work.
6) I've spaced out most of the stations, but Sunderland is an odd case. It is very close to Newcastle, and the two are connected by existing rail and a joint metro system that partially runs in the rail right-of-way. However, as it is near the end of branch, adding one stop wouldn't impact as many passengers as adding a stop between, say Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester at Stockport. And I feel the benefits of having a station in economically depressed area would be significant.
7) I have not included a station at Heathrow or any other airport (apart from the under-construction station near Birmingham Airport). The French TGV system does include stops at some airports, but they are generally ones that are outside of built-up areas, such as CDG, making routing to them easy. Heathrow was well away from built-up areas when it was first constructed, but it has been swallowed by London's sprawl, and constructing a HSR link to it today would be very expensive. Nor is there a need to build one. HSR systems are replacements for short-haul flights, not glorified airport shuttles. With a fully-built UK HSR system, nearly all major English cities would be within two hours of London. Even the Scottish cities would be well under four hours away, making city center-to-city center times competitive with airlines.
8) I have included some projects such as a second Severn tunnel and a second Chunnel that aren't technically high-speed lines, but which I think will be needed as part of the overall rail system in the future. The existing Severn Tunnel is already 137 years old, and a replacement will be necessary at some point.
9) The HS1-HS2 link - which was initially proposed as part of HS2 but rejected early on - won't be needed until there is more capacity across the Channel. Then the limiting factor would be HS1. The link might be technically impossible depending on how HS2 is constructed.
10) The 2100+ routes are pretty speculative. Who knows what the state of the world will be by then, and there's a good chance that anything planned now will need radical changes.
That's enough scattered thoughts. Enjoy the map.
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