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Originally Posted by Osem
And maybe that's exactly what's wrong Damien - we've missed the boat and what should have been done when financial and other conditions were far better than they are now simply wasn't.
Furthermore, the French network has never suffered from the huge legal and other problems that getting planning permission requires in the UK so, mile for mile, their network was built far quicker and cheaper than ours will be and has had the benefit of vast sums of govt. aid over decades. What we know is that in Holland, the nearest equivalent of what's being proposed here, completed only a couple of years ago (as opposed to decades ago as in the case of much of the French network) is failing and already requiring lots more taxpayers money just to keep it running full of empty seats. That seems to be a far more realistic comparison.
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OK, I've had a rummage around, and a couple of things need saying. First, as far as I can tell the Fyra, uses the same tracks used for the Thalys which runs from Amsterdam to Paris. To quote 7 Billion for the Fyra seems unfair. Second, from what I can tell, there certainly are problems with Fyra, and these are due to high cost, low frequency (Fyra runs just once an hour). There also is the fact that Amsterdam-Rotterdam isn't that far (normal travelling time 1 hour vs. 40 minutes on a high speed train). The 20 minutes saved does make for a more feasible commute though.
The main thing however (and one would hope this would ultimately happen in the UK), is that it is part of a wider network of high speed trains on the Continent, linking up to Brussels, and Paris, and in the future to London and Germany, and high speed trains make far more sense over longer distances where they can replace air travel.
I'm still surprised by the price tag of 32 Billion for London-Birmingham though. The 7 Billion quoted for the Dutch line (~100 miles, but only partly high speed) is a fraction of the price tag of London-Birmingham, and I'm struggling to see why it should be so much more expensive in the UK.
Oh. One more thing: this is still work in progress, and the current trains can't use the track to its full potential. With new trains, it's expected that the journey time from Amsterdam to Antwerp will be reduced from 2 hours and 6 minutes on standard tracks to 1 hour and 9 minutes, which is quite substantial (but also achieved by having fewer stops).