On Oct 12, 12:26�pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
On Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:28:31 +0100, "John Rowland"

wrote:
This is rubbish. Britain is much smaller in area but is slightly longer from
end to end, which is what matters for discussing viability of rail lines.. It
also has its capital at one end, unlike Spain. No French journey from Paris
or Spanish journey from Madrid is as long as London to Aberdeen.

Perhaps not, but there isn't a huge demand for Aberdeen to London
either. �It might actually be possible that this market is actually
best served by air, and that the money that might have gone on a HSL
is better spent on improving capacity for shorter journeys on the rail
network.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

The main rail flows from London to Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester
are much shorter than Paris-Marseilles (410 miles) and Madrid -
Barcelona (370 miles). Therefore you could argue that a new 140mph
railway would suffice.

Passenger flows to Edinburgh and Glasgow probably can't justify a new
high speed line on economic grounds (although they might do for
political reasons).