Are new rail lines right for Britain?

Abstract

A great deal of investment is currently going into the railway industry across Europe, including into new lines. The British Channel Tunnel Rail Link is under construction, and a number of other high-speed lines in Britain have been discussed. This paper considers whether high-speed lines are the best solution in the British context. It challenges those involved in decision-making to determine more clearly the reasons for such high-speed lines, where capacity increases are often more important than achieving end-to-end journey time reductions. A number of other strategies for railway investment are also discussed, with the paper concluding that (after operational improvements), a targeted investment in bottlenecks in the existing system may be the most cost-effective solution in general. However, this response is made more difficult by the performance regime on Britain's privatised railway.