High speed UK rail to be approved in 2010

Thursday, 31st December 2009

<p>The proposal for a new fast rail network between Scotland and London could be agreed by March next year, according to Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.</p>

<p>The move would go after the approval of a government-supported research on a 200mph rail route that would reduce travel times by half to just over two hours. However, the rail network would cost about £34 billion and would take several years to build.</p>

<p>The proposal will be outlined after Adonis obtained the report yesterday from High Speed 2 (HS2), a company that the UK government established earlier this year to draft detailed plans for the high speed rail link.</p>

<p>Adonis informed Reuters that the study is the most comprehensive assessment on high speed rail network ever undertaken in Britain. He further added that the UK’s fast rail system is still behind that of other European countries and it does not link any of the UK’s main cities.</p>

<p>The HS2 study outlines the London-West Midlands route for the first phase of the high speed rail line. It also includes options for extending the network further to East Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland.</p>

<p>A public meeting on the route would next follow later in 2010. However with the UK elections scheduled in May, the anticipated change of government could cancel the plans.</p>

<p>Britain only has a 68-mile fast rail network, connecting London to the Channel Tunnel. Adonis told that the rest of Europe currently has 3,600 miles of high speed rail, with a further 2,000 miles under construction. Meanwhile, China plans to open in 2012 a 6,000-mile rail line.</p>

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