06/06/2008 01:13:00
A new government decision means that high speed trains are unlikely to make an appearance on British railways in the future, due to concerns that they are not energy efficient.
Tom Harris, the UK's Rail Minister, has put the green credentials of a high speed railway line linking London to Scotland in less than three hours in doubt. In a letter to The Times, Mr. Harris stated: "The argument that high-speed rail travel is a 'green option' does not necessarily stand up to close inspection.
"Increasing the maximum speed of a train from 200kph [125mph - the current maximum speed of trains] to 350kph leads to a 90 per cent increase in energy consumption."
According to The Times, Atkins, an engineering consultancy, published a study of the feasibility and costs of constructing two high speed lines between London and Scotland, one along the east coast and one on the west, in March this year.
Its findings were that the lines would cost £31 billion to build, but provide around £63 billion in economic benefits.
Currently, the west coast line between London and Glasgow takes a journey time of around 4.5 hours. The east coast line, on the other hand, takes travellers from London to Edinburgh in up to 5 hours, while it takes over 7 hours to travel from the capital to Aberdeen in the north of Scotland.
Chris Davies, a Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West of England and fervent supporter of high speed rail links, said the government's conclusions were "disappointing".
Other high speed rail network advocates have highlighted that, while high speed rail might lead to an increase in energy consumption, producing 90g of carbon per passenger-kilometre, they are still a more energy efficient alternative to domestic flights, which creates 225g/km.