High Speed Rail ‘Totally Sane’
Hold the phone — this is the most exciting piece of high-speed rail news since California vowed to build a high-speed rail system of its own. Britain’s Lord Adonis, their transportation secretary, “said the government hoped to ‘progressively replace’ short-haul flights with a 250mph train network in the UK.”
250 miles per hour — take that Amtrak!
Scene from a fast-moving train in England.
Of course, British airlines such as British Airways and Ryanair were dismissive of the idea. Michael O’Leary of Ryanair called the idea “insane” while a spokesman for British Airways was relatively sober about the idea:
“High-speed rail cannot be a complete substitute for flying,” the company said. “There are relatively few destinations in continental Europe to which it would be practical to travel and return by rail in a day. Therefore flying will always remain the preferred form of transport for millions of travellers.”
A British Airways plane. An airplane passenger requires roughly 1 gallon of fuel per 1 mile.
Comments on the Guardian’s site ranged from ecstatic and encouraging to sarcastic. As one commenter noted, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Indeed. It’s kind of hard to imagine that you could get a 250mph train from London to Madrid . Which, according to Mapcrow is about 785 miles (only a three-hour train ride!). But what if it did work — what if countries worked together to create this enormous network of extremely fast rail? After numerous reports that short-haul flights are the absolute worst for the environment, this might be a tremendous help in the fight against climate change. And selfishly, it makes me think that the United States would be shamed into improving its own sad train network.
What do you think — doable or fantasy?
Diana Lind is editor in chief of Next American City.
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B on Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 3:39am
Instead of having an abstract discussion, we should just go see what has been happening in the countries where high-speed trains do exist. Like in France, which has built a remarkable network covering the country over the last 30 years. Well, trains do run at that speed there, and for example air traffic between Paris and Lyons, the country’s two biggest cities (distance: 430 km, or 270 miles) has been virtually wiped out by fast trains. Spain is building similar fast lines, and it will be interesting to watch what may happen there.
Geoffrey in London, UK on Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 4:45am
Indeed. The Barcelona-Madrid link has already almost wiped out the Iberia shuttle. That route was once the busiest IN THE WORLD with over 900 flights per week.
In Canada, a Windsor-Quebec City link would allow the closure of 6 superfluous airports and eliminate over 55,000 flights per year of under 2 hours.
The key to getting airlines on board is to link up strategic airports to the network, and allow code sharing. This would allow, for instance, someone living in Albany, NY to board a train to Newark or JFK to get to Europe or wherever, saving the unnecessary emissions of a short haul flight. This has already been partially done in Germany, with great success, and to a smaller extent with Air France-KLM & Swiss running a coach from Ottawa to Montreal, coding the ride as a flight integrated into booking.
In short, make the airlines part of the solution by retooling their role as long distance and cross-oceanic transportation providers. These routes are generally more profitable anyway.