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high speed rail bandwagon
There's a danger that High Speed 2, the proposed rail line from London to Scotland, is becoming so glamorous that any politician speaking against it is going to be called a killjoy. There's some space-age video doing the rounds in support of Network Rail's route announcement last week, and of course the average punter will say, Sure, sounds like a great idea. But it's an unfathomably big step into the unknown with a price tag which is really just speculation. There remain cheap fixes in the network which can move north south rail towards the same goal, and transport experts and politicians in the north-east are right to point these out. It would apparently cost just £70m to re-open the Leamside Line and get some slow freight off the East Coast Main Line, and with new faster trains on the way anyway on the East Coast, strategic line doubling could bring the journey time from the North East to London by 15 minutes. By that stage, High Speed rail's time saving don't look very good value.
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