High Speed Trains and Heathrows Third Runway

One of the few definite Transport Policy Stats to come out of the recent Conservative Party Conference was that if elected to Government at the next general election they would scrap plans for a Third Runway at Heathrow and instead build High Speed Rail links to Manchester and Leeds.

• Heathrow is one of the busiest International Aiports, and the primary International Port of Entry into the UK. Whilst Domestic Flights are important, a large number of passengers use these flights as onward connection on arriving from overseas.
• Even if links to Manchester and Leeds were built, not all connecting passengers would use this facility if a Flight was on offer. This means that if these Links were available today, possible reductions in Heathrow Traffic would be minimal in terms of Flights and at most a couple of percentage points in Passenger throughput. Because of the demand for Heathrow Slots, any slack would be immediately taken up and demand would still exceed supply by a wide margin.
• So providing High Speed Rail Links as a substitute for a third Heahtrow Runway is probably the most stupid tranport policy statement in last decade.

Because of incredibly inept Government Transport Policy (both Labour and Conservative) since the 1970's a Third Runway at Heathrow is now a National necessity, however unpalatable this maybe politically.
A second Runway at Stansted is unfortunately also going to be needed and at some point a second Runway at Gatwick, again these are going to cause difficulties for whatever Party is in power. But as previous Governments from both Parties avoided the hard decisions, these failures to act were bound to eventually come 'home to roost'.

From the above, it might be assumed I am against High Speed Rail Connections. I am certainly not.
As far as I am concerned there should be High Speed (Japanese Bullet Train Speeds) Rail Backbones linking all major population centres from the West Country to at least as far north as Aberdeen, with High Speed Cross links between East and West. Returning for the moment to Airports, the London Cluster of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted should have high-speed, high technology Rail Links (for example MAGLEV) linking them and the same type of links between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Prestwick.

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But surely this ia all a 'pipe dream'! No it should be a 20 Year plan, something British Governments it appears are incpable of carrying through. Also this entire situation could have been avoided.
If Airport Planning has been inept for the last 40 Years, Government Policy on Railways can only be described as totally incompetent for the last 50 Years.

The Beeching Report of 1963 provided an accurate and dismal description of the British Rail Network.
Approximately 50% of Routes didn't cover operating Costs and out of all the Stations on the Network approximately 50%, produced 95% of the revenue from ticket sales!

This led to the Beeching Plan of 1965 and this was basically divided in to two parts:

• The closure of the totally uneconomic parts of the Network. This part of the plan was seized upon by the Politiciians as it saved a lot of money. Which was NOT what Beeching intended.
• The upgrade of 3000 Miles of track and investment in Rolling Stock, Stations and other infrstructure, using the money saved from closures. This was NOT what the politiicians wanted to hear and whilst some major projects covered by the plan were implemented, much of it was quietly shelved.

The failure to implement all the recommendations of Part 2 of the Beeching Plan set the tone for Governments handling of Railway infrastructure projects ever since.
This follows a simple pattern: Commision a Grand Plan, accept the recommendations and then start, or even complete, one, or at most two of the Major Projects and quietly shelve the rest.

How different the situation across the Channel where the French had a plan and in the main stuck with it regardless of changes of Government.

So whilst I regard the Conservative Policy on the Heathrow Runways as idiotcy, I do support their plan to build High Speed Rail Links to Manchester and Leeds, but this element of the policy should be built on, not treated in isolation and should form part of a National Transport Infrastructure Plan with Political Oversight involving not just the Government of the Day, but keeping the Opposition (including the LiB Dems, who have some talented members) fully in the loop. Transport is too important nationally to be a politicial football. We have wasted at least 40 years, please, don't waste the next 40!

See also an Article Posted on th 14 October:
Heathrow Expansion Debate at the RGS