UK Ultraspeed
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The UK Ultraspeed line is a proposed magnetic-levitation train line between London and Glasgow and linking most of the major cities, including Birmingham, Manchester, and Newcastle,with a spur going to Liverpool.
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[edit] The Proposal
The proposal is a Transrapid system, the same as is presently used on the line from Longyang Road station in Shanghai to Pudong International Airport, and is currently the fastest in the world. The trains would travel at speeds up to 500 km/h (310 mph), greatly reducing journey times between major cities in the UK. It is the result of a £2million (USD$4 million) feasibility study by the Transrapid group.
The line's route is an 'S' shape that curves through the country. This is so that it services the traditional hubs of the separate East Coast Main Line and West Coast Main Line but in one line.
The following are the expected journey times between some of the major cities in the UK (in minutes), compared with the present journey times by conventional train.
| Between | Present time | Ultraspeed time |
|---|---|---|
| London and Birmingham | 90 | 30 |
| London and Manchester | 140 | 50 |
| London and Newcastle | 190 | 100 |
| London and Glasgow | 300 | 155 |
| Birmingham and Liverpool | 100 | 30 |
| Manchester and Liverpool | 50 | 10 |
| Manchester and Newcastle | 180 | 50 |
| Newcastle and Edinburgh | 90 | 35 |
| Edinburgh and Glasgow | 55 | 15 |
[edit] Benefits
This system would travel at considerably higher speeds (500 km/h) than similar high-speed rail (HSR) schemes which already exist and which are cheaper, like the French TGV (300 km/h). The system claims to use only 50% of the energy needed to power a comparable HSR alternative [1]
Because of the vastly reduced journey times between the some of the UK's cities, there are considerable economic benefits to this proposal. Cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow would be able to function as one economic entity and enable greater cohesion between them. It would also do a lot to balance the traditional north-south England imbalance by encouraging businesses to locate outside London but still have good access to the services like Heathrow Airport.
There are also environmental benefits, because it would reduce the number of journeys taken by car and aeroplane between cities and this would in turn mean fewer greenhouse gas emissions from these modes of transport.
This system is also relatively inexpensive. The estimated cost would be £18 billion, which includes guideway construction and gliding stock. In comparison, an upgrade of the West Coast Main Line is due to cost £13 billion; and this was to enable trains to run at a mere 200 km/h, and doesn't address the problem of the present railway lines reaching their maximum capacity soon. Note however that the estimates of the cost for the Transrapid Ultraspeed project are merely preliminary.
