Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Oh no they won't!

Really fascinating series of Newsnight items on the high speed rail issue ..... your excellent report from a ploughed field in England
was followed up by an unusually good studio discusssion with Kirsty
(herself a Glasgow-London commuter) and then the Scottish Newsnicht
opt-out carried a fabulous report from Derek Bateman (which deserves
to be on the UK Newsnight podcast) and a remarkably non-partisan studio discussion with Tom Harris MP and Friends of The Earth on the issues ..

Newsnight at its very best ..... followed here in Scotland by an item about the launch of s Welsh National Theatre also breaking the mould!
Must now abandon Andrew Graham-Dixon and Scorsese for Abbot & Portillo
whose series on an earlier railway era deserves a BAFTA too .........!

as usual the nimbys will say its the end of civilisation if the trains runs through there.

cars planes and trains can chop up the wildlife by the thousand but mention a windmiill...

Although I can appreciate the economic gains, and the forward motion in terms of connectivity pointing away from London, it gauls me to hear that trains, in their current social standing, are still in creation.

There is a community shrouded in a dark mist that provides the foundation for our national rail system and it is not something that ought to spread. If this new line is to go through, I wonder if employment tactics might change to remove the "grumpy bugger" aspect of staff.

I use a train daily, and it would be a highlight of the day if it were as simple as getting on a train without fuss, sitting a seat without being turfed out because 'Mr Smith' had booked the seat you'd arrived at (without any knowledge of the seat he was originally booking) despite the 30 or so free places also containing "Sit here at your own risk, there will be someone to challenge you along shortly" all around.

I understand booking ahead, I understand right of way, but there is a blet around those of us that use the rail network on a daily basis without the time or knowledge of the days work to know which particular service to book.

I put my thoughts into easy-to-digest stanzas .

If the experience of farmers where there are now new or expanded old towns and villages in the Chilterns, around Aylesbury, Brackley and Banbury they will become millionaires. I know a few of them. For some it will be like winning the lottery.

I am relieved the line goes out so far west as it leaves my ancestral part of the Chilterns untouched but I do enjoy the gentle simplicity of a drive to Brackley and Banbury. This will now be chewed up for the rest of my life.

the words 'high speed train' and 'never gonna happen' seem to go together in our fair and pleasant land. This is not France with 'straight' lines, massive investment because they have responsible tax regime, or Italy and Germany where excellence and national pride menas something....this is England, land of nimbayism, the nation of curtain twitchers, we hate our neighbours, just about suffer our relatives at Christmas and yet here we are planning a new fantastic railway that will cut seventeen minutes off a journey to Birmingham New Street...it is a pipedream, not that I wouldn't want it to happen, it would be a leap into the future but also a leap in the dark as we do not do modernity....it scares the horses and that would never do.....

The sad thing about this proposal is that high-speed rail only makes sense over a long distance. The hundred mile distance between The Great Wen and Brum does not justify this initial cost. However extend the line to Edinburgh or even Aberdeen and Inverness we suddenly have an excellent asset.

If rail freight is then included within that arrangement - this will require signalling and some alternative track - then this all begins to add up into something worthwhile. As it stands the current proposal is just a piece of whimsey.