The simultaneous publication of reports by Transport Scotland and HS2 Limited on high-speed rail options for Scotland was marked during a ceremony at Edinburgh Waverley station today (March 21).
The event was attended by Keith Brown, the Scottish Government’s Infrastructure Secretary, and Robert Goodwill, UK minister with responsibility for high-speed rail.
Keith Brown advised that “these two publications constitute a significant contribution to realise our goal for Scotland’s inclusion in a UK-wide high-speed network” and announced that the next steps were a public conversation as a decision had yet to be taken on a high-speed route to Scotland.
He said that Network Rail would be asked to do development work on the preferred option next year and expected that construction work could start in 2019.
Robert Goodwill confirmed that UK Government shared the Scottish Government’ ambition for a sub three-hour journey time between Edinburgh/Glasgow to London.
He noted that these reports showed this was possible although they illustrated the considerable engineering and cost challenges of high-speed rail through the demanding terrain between northern England and the central Scottish belt.
The HS2 report “Broad options for upgraded and high speed railways to the North of England and Scotland” and the Transport Scotland (TS) report “High speed rail Scotland” are both consistent although the TS report is also concerned with high-speed rail within Scotland.
Some of the high-speed route options from England incorporate a high-speed route between Edinburgh and Glasgow. However, the TS report concludes that the benefits of such a route are not sufficient to justify it as a free standing scheme.
The two reports are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/
http://www.transport.gov.scot/
Report by David Shirres
