Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

Summary

Start with the timetableSo, let’s imagine the UK had done this in 2008. What might the planners have noticed?Well, first up, they'd have spotted that our major cities need more frequent and faster rail connections from suburbs to centres and that these are prevented at the moment by insufficient platform capacity in stations like Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street. So we need more station capacity in our city centres. They'd have identified that many suburban lines into city centres have drastically inadequate services due to slow trains having to share tracks with fast trains: for example, Coventry to Birmingham or Stoke to Manchester through stations like Poynton. So there needs to be new suburban capacity for fast trains so that places like Poynton can have more trains.They'd have identified core intercity links that are far too slow: typically not to/from London, but some of the second-tier city connections that are extraordinarily slow: e.g. Birmingham to Manchester, Leeds to Nottingham or Sheffield to Birmingham. So there needs to be new faster connections between these cities, missing out many of the smaller stations. Given wider Government priorities, they'd identify the need for more housing in the Oxford to Cambridge arc, and identify that this requires faster, more frequent stopping trains on the West Coast mainline to places like Milton Keynes, which means the fast tracks need to be used by slower trains, so the fastest trains need to run somewhere else. Our carbon commitments mean they'd identify the need for more freight capacity, which means our existing mainlines need to have core speeds slower than they are at the moment so freight trains can be fitted amongst passenger trains. And they'd identify that we just need more capacity on the core West Coast mainline, which connects almost all the UK's major cities. Now, the Swiss wouldn’t stop there. They’d take all of those needs, and build a proper timetable — an actual train-by-trai...