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From January 2009, a Pendolino journey from Oxenholme in the Lake District to London Euston will take 2 hours 34 minutes. The French TGV speeds may be very impressive, but if Branson can squeeze that sort of journey time out of the existing UK network then it makes a dedicated high-speed network for the UK look pretty dubious beside small measures to further chip away at journey times. Maybe a concensus on rail is beginning to form around a viewpoint expressed by Tom Riordan of Yorkshire Forward talking about the Eddington Report published in December 2006: "We can already get to London from Leeds in two hours ten, and making better use of the existing system seems sensible."