It”s finally here.After what has seemed like an age - but actually on time - and more incredibly - on budget - we Brits have finally got something to shout about in terms of our railways.
Last week saw Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II formally open the new £800m St Pancras railway station, in a glittering ceremony in front of 1,000 guests. It was a busy week for the British Monarch, having hosted a State visit replete with golden carriages of state, inaugurating the State Opening of Parliament and then hotfooting it to north London to St Pancras.
Even UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Her Majesty”s Loyal Opposition Leader, David Cameron, managed to stop shouting at each other across the despatch box to join in the festivities, which apparently promised a ”train ballet,” although it was hard to detect any of those shenanigans from the television pictures.
It”s not often that the British establishment turns out en masse to celebrate the UK railway system, but this time there really is a reason to puff the chest out in pride.
The speedy new journey times to Paris and Brussels ” 2h15min and 1h51min ” have been well documented ” but it is rather their statement of intent that is so important ” a new mindset that apparently led the boss of SNCF ” no stranger to grands projets himself ” to sing St Pancras” praises as one of the world”s finest stations.
It”s not just Eurostar of course. Six underground lines as well as numerous links to the midlands and north, make St Pancras a powerhouse of a hub, comparable even to the great European airports such as Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
There is a legitimate question to ask here about at just what stage does the cut-off point come with our creaking rail system, whereby it ceases to be effective against air. SNCF powers its passengers from Paris to Toulouse in a breathtaking three hours ” the UK is by some distance, not even close to that ” but St Pancras is a start.
Perhaps with the opening of the West Coast Main Line, journeys from say Birmingham or Manchester to Paris, via St Pancras, will now start to look attractive and give airlines a run for their money.
And to that end, the UK government has been making noises this week about the re-emergence of a high-speed north-south rail line on a par with France and Germany, although frankly, the Brits are light years away from that.
But it”s a start and moves us away from the extraordinarily intransigent position expressed only a few months ago whereby any new funding was not only firmly ruled out, but also the philosophical concept of travelling at high speed by rail, was amazingly squashed on environmental grounds.
That really is the way to madness, but it appears that the ribbon cutting in north London last week, has rekindled not only a sense of national engineering backslapping of which Isambard Kingdom Brunel would have been proud, but also that this is a viable, no, make that utterly essential, step forward.
It may be only a precursor but last week”s opening might signal a step change in UK rail thinking. The government has been completely open in saying that it wants to see its subsidy to the myriad train operating companies reduce ” and quickly ” but is there now scope for State funding for long-distance trunk routes?
This is a situation that will need some urgent head-scratching. Partly as a result of incessant government drum-banging concerning the green benefits of rail travel and partly combined with the absurdly high cost of motoring - not to mention virtual gridlock that snarls up most UK cities - trains are now bursting at the seams.
High-speed lines would open up greater capacity, obviously, but also free regional routes to potter about their business as they know best and not have to share the same lines with the shiny, new fast boys.
It is too much I suppose, to expect that these routes might attract sufficient subsidy to make them a viable alternative ” and genuine incentive ” to travel by rail ” but recent experience of UK domestic passengers is that they would embrace any new system with enormous gusto.
Simon Warburton - editor - ABTN