btw I once worked on promotional material for UKultraspeed a maglev solution slightly quieter no rail friction, one of the many variations on this high speed train theme, these projects are old ideas, statistics can be easily manipulated, what you have to remember is the public is now ultra cynical because of the number overpriced disasters theyve been lumbered into paying for, london tube improvements for instance ?! between now and eternity that have gone horribly over budget and delivered not enough value, hence national debt. True airplanes are more polluting and generally less efficient, putting anything in the air usually uses more energy, but planes can be repurposed to fly anywhere its a relatively unfixed infrastructure ? the question is how many business flights within england will it replace per day, and how much will it cost per ride relative to a flight ? once the build cost needs to be recouped ? admitedly people do like trains more, I don’t deny that, and in my opinion the train is superior for a sense of civility, due to getting to airports and passing through them being a nightmare, not aided by current security law.

“it has to be a brand new fuel efficient model with at least 4 occupants”
hmm i debate that statement about car versus train efficiency ? if one works the trains website well in advance for advance tickets its possible to get train travel costs below fuel costs in a fuel efficient car, but if one purchases on the day without discount, driving in a fuel efficient car is often allot cheaper, 43mpg fully feasible today in a small car, and a gallon of fuel costs £5.00 so were talking a ratio of around £5 per 40miles, trains should be many times more price efficient than cars and because of this many times cheaper, because road infrastructure is mainly unmanned and rail structure more heavily manned, for instance a journey from north london to chichester on the south coast lets say 71.4 miles would cost roughly £10.00 each way in a yaris with good fuel efficiency with a lone driver ie £20.00 return, by train without discounting or vast booking in advance it will cost you off peak return within 1 month £31.50, already £11.50 more expensive than a car, I’m not a lobbyist for the road network … truthfully, but numbers in this day and age now have to add up, if you book the journey in advance and decide what day your coming back in advance by another month also without any flexibility or transport at the destination you might get if you were really lucky two advance single tickets at £5.00 ie £10.00 return but they sell out very quickly so its unlikely and allot of work, and not door to door. and in the next 5 years cars are going to get cleaner and more fuel efficient again if they reach 80mpg, which a blue motion polo already achieves, the case for trains and plains is going to look worse again, its not just a matter of trains being around the same price being acceptable, its a matter of train travel needing to be allot cheaper ! lets face it a driver less rail network looks more and more needed ? so new trin projects have to be equally thrifty and cost effective. admiteadly with enough use rail infrastructure can pay back over the long period.

I personally just don’t think most people can get their heads round the exhorbitant costs of public outsourced projects 160million a mile sounds like quite allot but only adds up to 1.9 billion for the 120 miles between london and birmingham ? whats the other 15 billion of costs for in the quoted 17 billion total cost ? but it also sounds like all public projects in the UK, it will end up being double or triple whatever the marketing people in suits driving non fuel efficient sports cars say the price will be before the go ahead is given. At a price of 17 billion your asking every one of the 29 million working population of britain to pay £586.21 towards this project ? and if we measure it compared to the cars current efficiency 40miles for £5.00 ie £585 / £5 = 117 x 40mile car journeys or 4680 miles of travel by car for each person that conributes to the cost of the project which happens to equal 39 trips to birmingham from london per working person at current car train efficiency ratios, probably double once this rail project is finished, this publics works projects might better be built by corporate tax write off at no cost or subscription from private investors and let them take the risk of getting their money back ? as even from the publics perspective it would take quite allot of free rides to get just their £586.21 back, and to some poor taxpayers thats allot of money. also noise pollution wise what will it be like ? at 225mph theres is allot of air resistance and you spent 50% of the journey speeding up only then to start slowing down to stop and stations arent that far apart in britain ? so unless its literally servicing only london to birmingham 120miles apart how advantageous will the headline 225mph speed be ? 35 mins journey time without stopping in between each stop will reduce the efficiency of the top headline speed due to smooth acceleration time , and station stopping ? 225mph soon becomes ameliorated ?, in larger less densely populated countrys it makes sense, less sensitive to noise pollution ? with larger distances between a larger number of regional citys. what would be the speed advantage of more cost effectively uprating current train track ?

also explain to us the claimed economic benefits, of having idiots in suits being able to get birmingham quicker and talk to the other idiots in suits there ? why they could just skype conference ? the other people on the train cant see the reason to spend 17 billion to get to birmingham in half an hour ?