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Let us consider two versions of Britain.
The first is a country that invented the railways but then turned its attention to other things like shopping, reading Heat magazine and generally mucking about.
After much agony and delay and a great deal of mickey-taking from the French, it did finally build a high-speed rail connection for its end of the Eurostar trains.
It made rather a good job of this, so that a passenger boarding at the stylish new St Pancras Inter–national, with a cup of coffee in his hand, has barely drained the dregs by the time he is hurtling into the Channel Tunnel.
This new line is called High Speed One, so as to give the idea that there might one day be a High Speed Two, or indeed a high-speed network as exists over much of the Continent.
But this is a con job because, even though high-speed rail is more beautiful, quieter, quicker and greener than air travel, the Government remains committed to the most environmentally damaging form of transport, namely aviation.
When the Opposition announces that it will not build a new runway at Heathrow but instead a high-speed railway line from London to the North, the Government dismisses this as absurdly impractical.
But then, seeing the idea is popular, it institutes a feasibility study into a high-speed North-South line of its own, to be constructed in tandem with a new runway at Heathrow.
This, however, is another con job: a fig leaf to cover the granting of approval for the runway.
The contention by the pressure group Hacan ClearSkies that there is no need to make millions of people's lives hell by building a third runway at Heathrow because one-fifth of flights out of the airport could be transferred to a British high-speed rail network and the existing Eurostar lines is dismissed as Utopian.
Yet the Government does throw High Speed One open to domestic commuters, by allowing Southeastern Trains to operate its new Javelin trains from Ashford to St Pancras.
The 140mph service was launched yesterday and begins regular operations on 29 June.
But it makes Southeastern's passengers foot part of the bill in the form of fare increases, thus (a) making people cross rather than pleased at the introduction of the new service and (b) taxing those travellers who choose to use one of the greenest forms of transport (trains) while those who use the most un-green (planes) continue to be subsidised by various tax breaks.
All of which sordid muddle is presided over by a Prime Minister in desperate lack of green credentials, decisiveness and visionary inspiration.
In the second version of Britain, the light breaks through, although we must unfortunately go into the realms of fantasy to describe it...
At a stroke, the beleaguered Prime Minister steals the Opposition's thunder, delights his own party, aligns himself with the environmental consensus and reconnects the country with its industrial glory days by announcing that High Speed One will genuinely be the start of a high-speed rail network.
The stream–lining of the planning laws that paved the way for the third runway will instead be used to facilitate this new network.
Yes, it will be expensive but it will be paid for by road charging, which is bound to be introduced anyway, and by taxing aviation fuel, which is presently, and for no reason that anyone quite understands, untaxed.
Yes, the carbon emissions from building the network will be high.
But it will be built only once and its construction will generate many jobs at a time of high unemployment.
The executives of the aviation industry are made very cross indeed.
But this is a source of pleasure to many, since these creeps have had things all their own way for a long time, and the expansion of their industry has been founded on one lie after another, starting with the original plan for Heathrow, which said that it would be for military use only.
It seems to me that this railway revolution would be a sufficient legacy for any prime minister and would eclipse the dubious achievements of Tony Blair.
Upon completion of the network, the most carbon-efficient, beautiful, silent form of mass transit would be established as the dominant one in the country.
Of course, it must not be built at the expense of the humbler rail services but I don't see how that could happen.
A high-speed project would reignite our latent love of railways, which is now forced to seek crabbed, curious outlets such as preserved steam lines, where trains are restricted to 25mph.
But “high speed” — a late Victorian coinage — was always at the heart of railway glamour.
There was a darkness to this originally. The Victorians were entranced and slightly appalled at the speed of trains.
In Charles Dickens's ghost story The Signalman, the protagonist has a premonition of his own death in a railway accident.
It has been said that this character “sees the accident before it happens”.
Rail travel seemed to have undermined time itself. But later on the appreciation of speed became more celebratory.
There were the “railway races”: companies competing to set the fastest time between London and Scotland.
It was the appeal of high speed that sustained the railway magazines with which any Victorian bookstall was bedecked. (In those days, there was something weird about the young boy who wasn't interested in trains.)
Today's railway companies try to lure us with “customer service”, compete over the most profuse apologies for lateness, the most nannyish injunctions: “Take care when alighting the train since the platform surfaces may be slippery,” for God's sake. But this only earns our secret contempt.
Certainly my own sons think that trains are for losers. For all our sakes, we must wean the rising generation off Jeremy Clarkson and make them excited about railways again.
Only high speed can do that.
Andrew Martin's latest novel is The Last Train to Scarborough (Faber)
Reader views (5)
Over the next two years oil producing nations will drive up the price of oil upwards to counter the new Eco cars being brought online. Will people leave the car at home, no because of two major factors?
1. The cost of public transport
2. Location; few people live on top of station or work next to one.
I personally would vote for any party who promised to renationalise the Utilities and Public Transport and offer reasonable price points rather than the scandal of the current complicated expensive illogical anti-commuter pricing offered by the rail companies which makes air travel cheaper then taking a crowded smelly train.
- Gary, brentwood, 22/06/2009 08:08
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For me there are two big motivations for greatly increasing capacity in our rail system. 1 The many deaths in traffic accidents each year affect a large number of families and friends. 2 For the sake of motorists - some motorists have to cope daily with bad congestion etc. - people who have no option but to drive need as many people as can to take the train - leaving the roads for those journeys where only road is suitable.
- Rob A, North London, England, 20/06/2009 21:15
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Britain is a very small country, England on its own is even smaller.
Yes we should be building a hi-speed railway. But a real high speed railway, with broad gauge (7ft) tracks so in future we could possibly reach speeds in excess of 500mph. This would really compete with flying.
In a network from Dover to Glasgow via London/Birmingham/Manchester.
From Southampton to Edinburgh via Swindon/Birmingham/Carlisle/Doncaster.
I am sure others could think of more and improved routes.
We should also consider hovertrains etc.
Whether atomic powered trains are yet viable I have no idea, I am not an engineer.
One early improvement we could make to the present system, is to introduce a network of Channel Tunnel style trains across UK. So you could drive on to the train in say London and drive off at Birmingham/Leeds etc. Getting your car to destinations at 120+mph at a cheaper cost in fuel and less traffic on our jam packed motorways.
When it comes to internal transport and travel within UK we need new radical thinking. And more than a little Victorian style investment in new ideas.
- Rosieinlondon, London UK, 20/06/2009 16:26
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Rather like most cars that have 3/4 of their seats empty most of the time, and only last 150k miles compared to 10 million for a train?
I rather think you should check your facts George, even with those emptier off peak trains it still works out much more efficient.
- Rob, Swanage, 19/06/2009 11:45
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Trains are not 'green'. For most of the time they run mostly empty serving customers who do not need them, and are only full during rush hours.
A 40 ton carriage with one or two passengers is far more environmentally destructive than a car weighing 1.5 tons which is only used when needed.
Even aeroplanes have a tendency not to be used until all the seats are taken due to ticketing efficiencies.
The only times that trains are efficient is when they are full. However, the huge amounts of energy to keep them running at 140mph outweigh the lower emissions of cars running at half that speed. To claim that trains are 'the greenest' form of transport is to misunderstand the physics, or to be the mark of someone who has been indoctrinated into the 'Green' faith.
Trains do not run on mango juice, they run on electricity made from coal, and they're highly inefficient, which is why Beeching axed a huge number of lines.
- George, London, 19/06/2009 10:35
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