Scottish High Speed Network

Response To The Transport Infrastructure And Climate Change Committee (TICCC) Consultation About High Speed Rail Provision

Friends of the Far North Line (FoFNL) is the rail user group seeking to protect and promote the rail line from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. It was formed in 1994 and has around 150 members, including several Community Councils along the line of route.

Our vision for a Scottish High Speed (HS) network has three components:

1. A new HS line connecting Edinburgh and Glasgow
2. A planned "either/or" choice of routes connecting this to possible HS lines in England
3. Wholesale upgrading to 160kph of the conventional lines from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Perth, from Perth to Dundee, and from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The terrain of the Highland Main Line from Perth to Inverness does not lead to 160kph running throughout, nor does the line between Aberdeen and Inverness, but these should be upgraded to as high a speed (at least 120kph) as possible.

In responding to the Committee's work FoFNL acknowledges that a HS link to Caithness is hardly likely to command major support; however we do have views, based on many years' collective experience of the GB rail system, and our response will look at the whole GB HS network potential. This response will not address the environmental and oil-price related arguments in any detail - others better qualified to set out the arguments have done so elsewhere.

The Committee will doubtless be aware of other groups pressing for new HS build, not least Greengauge 21 and Arup. Each has developed plans and outline routes for HS rail within England and "to Scotland". It was announced at the Conservative Party Conference in September 2008 that if they form the next Government they will build HS lines. While this is of course no guarantee that a future Conservative Government will actually carry this through, it is at least a plain acknowledgement that thinking across a wide range of bodies is turning towards HS rail as the logical development in longer-distance transport within GB.

It is clear from the work of the three bodies above that new HS build will be seen as going from London to elsewhere in GB. Were this process actually followed it would mean that Scotland would be the last part of GB to be connected to the English cities, and we believe that this is neither necessary nor desirable.

We would point to the analogy of the Motorway network (still not complete over 50 years after its inception as work to raise to Motorway standard the 6 miles in Cumbria between the M6 and the M74 is still ongoing). This started as the Preston by-pass in the late 1950s and was added to piecemeal, but logically. Initially motorists enjoyed whizzing along the by-pass, but little end-to-end journey time saving was possible as the A6 at either end of the new Motorway remained heavily congested and twisty. Useful journey time reductions (from Scotland to England) only came when a great part of the M6/M1 was complete many years later. However the economic justification for building a Motorway network was clear from the outset. So it must be with HS rail.

The analogy is not perfect, however, as vehicles can cruise on the Motorway and use A-roads with almost equal ease and efficiency. HS trains do not perform particularly efficiently on conventional line, but (subject to clearance) can do so, albeit at lower than optimum speed. This points to a piecemeal build of HS lines on agreed routes which will eventually be completed, joining up the new network.

The next HS route to be built in England seems likely to run from the present terminus at St Pancras towards Heathrow and then north-westwards to Birmingham, extending perhaps to the Leeds/Manchester area. The logic is the same as that which caused the M1 and M6 to be built along broadly the same route. It is unclear at present whether a West Coast or East Coast route would be preferred between England and Scotland, and any Scottish decision should allow for either option to connect into any Scottish HS build. FoFNL believes that any English build will be started at several points along the chosen route (as was the Motorway once the idea of a network had caught hold), and that therefore the time taken to complete the first section on which trains could usefully run is likely to be only 3 to 5 years or so from cutting the first sod. Planning and land acquisition will be time-consuming however, and could mean that actual construction would not start for several years.

We believe that there is sufficient pressure from the rail industry (not least Network Rail) and consultants that, in the current high fuel price and environmentally-aware climate, a decision to build more HS lines will be taken in principle within 3 to 4 years. The strongest argument in favour will be the ability, once the network is approaching completion, to compete on time with short-haul air traffic. (Air has lost heavily in carrying figures between London and Paris/Brussels since HS1 was opened, and this effect is likely to extend to other HS lines.) HS rail is much "greener" than short-haul air, providing a double win for rail: it's both quicker and cleaner. Provided the rail cost isn't excessive it will be hard to see any argument for air travel within GB in 40 years. These are very long timescales, but major transport infrastructure change cannot be achieved in much under two generations.

We now focus on the Scottish part of a new HS network. Clearly Edinburgh and Glasgow have to be joined, and joined in such a way that the English link could be made from either city (ie either East Coast if Newcastle/Leeds were the preferred route, or West Coast if Manchester/Birmingham). It is not clear whether there is an economic case for extending HS further north than a new E/G HS line - the terrain is hostile to high-speed running and it is likely that it would be considerably less expensive to carry out large-scale upgrading to the existing conventional network linking Edinburgh and Glasgow to Aberdeen and Inverness. If line speeds on these routes were raised to 160kph as a rule, the great majority of the theoretical benefits of truly HS rail (300kph) would be obtained at a fraction of the cost. Scotland is a small country with a significant proportion of the population living in towns (small, medium and large) which would be impossible to serve by HS rail - the constant slowing and accelerating would obviate any benefit from running at 300kph for a few minutes. HS links cities, and fast (160kph) conventional rail brings passengers into those cities for onwards HS travel. This ought to be the model in Scotland.

In summary then, our vision for a Scottish HS network has three components:

1. A new HS line connecting Edinburgh and Glasgow
2. A planned "either/or" choice of routes connecting this to HS lines in England
3. Wholesale upgrading to 160kph of the conventional lines from Glasgow and Edinburgh to Perth, from Perth to Dundee, and from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The terrain of the Highland Main Line from Perth to Inverness does not lead to 160kph running throughout, nor does the line between Aberdeen and Inverness, but these should be upgraded to as high a speed (at least 120kph) as possible.

The devil inhabits his usual place, however. What is meant by "Edinburgh" and "Glasgow"? It is not at all clear that Waverley could accommodate another two (at least) platforms suitable for HS rolling stock. Nor is it clear that either of the Glasgow termini is suitable for HS lines - Queen Street is too constricted and Central, while big enough, would present major problems in linking with anywhere other than England. A better solution might be to create new termini which are close to existing railway lines, using these as the new HS linking stations. Provided that conventional lines to and from these new termini are fast and services are reasonably frequent the apparent advantage of being in the city centre is greatly reduced - after all, not many people have Glasgow Central as their nearest railway station. Since the Scottish Government already has plans to electrify, and raise the speed of, the conventional line from Waverley to Queen Street via Falkirk, reducing city to city journey times to a little over 30 minutes, there is no need for a HS link between these two city centres. The point of HS is to enable travellers from Edinburgh and Glasgow to journey south at greater speed. So the Edinburgh and Glasgow HS terminals could be in the outskirts, and closer to each other than the city centres. Rutherglen and somewhere in the South Gyle/Edinburgh Park area would seem possible sites. The connecting line south would probably follow the general line of the West Coast Main Line but could, if English policymakers so decided, run south from the Edinburgh area.

Thus we do not see a proposed initial HS build within Scotland as doing anything to reduce journey times between Edinburgh and Glasgow. It would be theoretically possible to reduce the end-to-end journey time to around 20 minutes were HS trains to run between Waverley and a Glasgow terminus, but a substantial proportion of the journey would be at greatly reduced speeds on conventional lines with competition for paths from much slower-moving services. This is not how HS rail works to best advantage - it must be, for as much of its length as possible, on dedicated and segregated tracks. The French TGV uses main line termini but proceeds along dedicated track after a few kilometres; the Japanese Shinkansen has dedicated track throughout.

We now proceed to answer the questions posed by the Committee.

What do you think could be the potential economic and environmental benefits from the development of a high-speed rail link network?

We have dealt with this in our general remarks above - the simple answer is "huge and varied". Air travel from Scottish cities to elsewhere in GB would be greatly reduced, eliminating a major source of CO2 emission. Rail-based surface travel within Scotland would be faster as a result of the parallel necessary upgrading of the Scottish inter-city network without which the HS benefits would be confined to travel between the Central Belt and England.

What would be the costs of any new links and how would they be funded?

The costs would be high, probably in excess of £50 billion for a serious GB network. The Scottish component would be likely to fall in the £3 to £5 billion range. High though these numbers are, they are comparable (at 2008 prices) with the cost of building the Motorway network. Furthermore, as with the Motorways, the cost will be spread over many years. As a HS rail network is a national good, it should be paid for by the nation as a whole - in other words from Treasury sources. Under current political arrangements this is not possible; however, current political arrangements are not set in stone and are likely to alter (in one of various possible directions) well within the timescale for planning a HS rail network. The taxpayer benefits (as passenger, as ultimate user of freight carried by rail, and as individual living in a less polluted Scotland): the taxpayer pays.

What would be the likely timescale for delivering a new network?

For completion (ie GB-wide), probably 30 years or more (a comparable time to that taken to build the great part of the Motorway network still, as has been pointed out, not complete after over 50 years). For useful benefits, probably a little over 10 years from Ministerial decision to first train.

What would be the most appropriate technology and type of train required for use in the UK?

Conventional electric-powered. The maglev option being put forward has too many uncertainties, not least in connection with passenger evacuation from an elevated track in the middle of nowhere. Diesel haulage is not efficient at high speeds, and is not (as far as we aware) used anywhere on HS trains. With electric haulage the deceleration will generate power; acceleration is much swifter; the necessary fuel is not transported as dead weight on the train; the necessary pollution required in generating the power is produced away from populations. The great unmentionable in all discussions about wholesale rail electrification, whether conventional or HS, is that there is an implicit requirement to build more nuclear power stations. This is certainly true south of the Border: how strong a force it is likely to be in Scotland is not something on which FoFNL has a view.

Whether a HS train is loco-hauled or is formed of new electric multiple units is not important at this stage. Each will have its proponents and deciding which ought to be left to the provider of the service, operating on a pan-GB basis.

How could the existing rail links with Scotland be improved to ensure that all rail users are able to take advantage of improved high-speed connections?

We have dealt with this above - it is essential that parallel upgrades are made to the inter-city conventional routes in Scotland. Without this there will be no benefit to anyone living outwith the Central Belt. Even without a HS link to England - which is unlikely to be complete much before 2035 - these upgrades will deliver substantial benefits to travellers within Scotland. The Scottish Government has recently announced its intention to reduce journey times between Inverness and Edinburgh/Glasgow - properly drawn-up HS plans should build on this and carry it forward to all the inter-city lines (detailed earlier) within the likely timescale of delivering the Scottish part of a GB-wide HS rail network - say by 2020. We do not believe that there is a case for HS rail north of the Central Belt; there is a good case for much higher speed running on large parts of the existing conventional network. Providing this will be expensive, but much less expensive than new HS build, and conveying the great majority of the theoretical benefits HS could provide north of the Central Belt. The Scottish Government should not feel obliged to copy the French TGV network - for the most part France is flat, and its centres of population are relatively spread out. Scotland is small and mountainous, requiring a different solution to transport questions.