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‘High Speed Rail from a Scottish Perspective’

I read with interest the contribution in the Dec/Jan issue, ‘High Speed Rail from a Scottish Perspective’ from a member of Railfuture Scotland. I need to emphasise that this was the personal view of the author, and not that of Railfuture UK.

We have yet to publish our national view on the ideal route for HS2 to be extended to Scottish destinations. Now that the Secretary of State for Transport has set out his initial preferences for stage 2 of HS2 we will be able to engage in internal discussion about the suitability of those routes/branches as they relate to the first stage and press for a proper route on to Scottish cities rather than using existing lines indefinitely.

As far as logical high-speed rail capacity within Scotland, we would probably, after internal discussion, support much of the article's content.

However, we have a problem with the apparent definite lines shown on the attached map, especially in England. The straight line shown from London to Nottingham neither reflects the formal Government proposed route through Old Oak Common and the Chilterns, nor our well-established proposal for a route broadly following the existing M1/M6 corridor from the start, to both Birmingham and Leicester, before considering ideal routes north thereof, and could be taken incorrectly as our present view on the southern sections of the route. (Editor’s note: This map was supplied to us by the article’s author.)

Full details of our present views and detailed submission to the DfT on HS2 Stage 1 can be found on Railfuture's website www.railfuture.org.uk under ‘Campaigns’ and High Speed. It may well be that Railfuture, after consulting its members, will come to different conclusions about ideal routeings and extensions to Scotland.

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