Certainly. I don't think anyone is saying it will be without inconvenience. Although by he time they could get anything like this through - 2020 maybe? - you'd have to assume comms technology would have advanced quite a lot, so maybe there'd be much less need to come down from the Orkneys to London very often.

I think it'd be fair to say you'd maintain some flights over significant bodies of water - so Belfast - London would still be primarily by air - but I think a lot of 'over land' flights could be mitigated by other means of transport. I recently (for example) got an intercity train from Preston to Edinburgh. It took two & a half hours and cost 30 quid. It was out of peak but the peak fare was only 60 quid. I can't honestly see how a flight is obviously better than that - given travel to/from the airports it wouldn't take much less time and it'd probably cost more.

Jon

Trains make a lot of sense, but not in this country. Our network is crap, our rolling stock is old and the speeds are paltry.

If we're talking about trains/ferries taking over from planes, it's the intercity we're talking about. I've been on intercity a few times recently and the example I gave was pretty valid - they were on time, relatively comfortable and took no more time than a flight would. So I think they're a viable alternative.
Once you get off the intercity lines, you're dead right. In that case, the rail network is likely to let you down almost immediately.

Jon

If by "Intercity" you mean the 125s introduced in the 80s, they're old hat. The track from here to Temple Meads and on towards Swindon doesn't allow for anything more than about 80mph, which is a joke. Even IF you could get a 125 up to speed, that would be something.

The investment just hasn't been made, and why should it? The network's profitable as it is.

But with planes, you've got to factor in all the time it takes to check-in and get checked out at security etc. When you add this to the fact that airports are usually out of town and you've got to spend time travelling to them then perhaps they're not as much quicker than the trains which you can literally just walk onto, and they will take you into the centre of the city you are travelling to.

Travelling from here to England is a 45 minute flight. I takes just under 4 hours - excluding to and from the airport.

A 125 will do 125mph between Paddington and Bristol/Taunton, but any further West than that and it's limited by speed limits, due to the bendy nature of the track. Beyond Plymouth you'll be lucky if a 125 hits 60mph.

That's a great theory, but I never been on one past 90 tops til towards Didcot. Up to Temple Meads it's usually 80ish all the way.

Well it's 60mph up to Plymouth, perhaps because of the stop/start nature of the journey or the fact it's uphill, who knows. Either way it's still faster to do it in the car, in fact you can beat the train up 'til Taunton.

The last train I caught back from London made very good time, given the time it took us to get to Taunton from Paddington, it can't have been far off 120mph. However, it deteriorated from Exeter onwards. From Plymouth, the journey is pretty dire, especially between Liskeard and Bodmin where much of the line is single track.

The Virgin Express from Manchester to London is bloody quick. No idea what it's made of, but it goes "Woooosh".

I love those trains! They're nice and comfy and when you are in them they're nice and quiet, it hardly feels as if you are moving!

Are these Voyagers or Pendolinos?

Do I look like a train buff??

All I know is they're 'aerodynamic' at the front, and bloody noisy when they're in the station.

Do they look like this:



Or this: