Route details ready by March
The UK government is planning a spring launch of its plans for a high speed rail network in the country.
Lord Adonis, the British transport secretary said today (December 14) that he hoped to publish "detailed plans for new high-speed rail lines and services, including route proposals, timescales and associated financial, economic, and environmental assessments" next March.
The proposals would be published in a White Paper and followed by a public consultation process starting in August 2010.
Lord Adonis was speaking at the start of the first full service on the UK's only high speed rail line, High Speed One.
The line in Kent serves the Eurostar service to and from the continent but from today commuter train will also be able to use it
Lord Adonis said at the launch of the service: "The potential for high speed rail to regenerate and reinvigorate is now a reality for people in Kent, but the size of Britain's high speed network lags behind that of many of our European neighbours and doesn't connect any of our major cities.
He said he expected to receive later this month the report by High Speed Two, the company set up to advise on the development of a high speed network linking London and Scotland.
He said he expected the report to have the "potential" to change Britain's rails services.
"This will require careful study and scrutiny - which will begin with immediate effect - before we can announce how we plan to take high speed rail forward in the Spring," he said.
The UK Department for Transport (DfT) said the High Speed Two report will be the "most detailed examination ever undertaken of how to take forward high speed rail in Britain"
It will present a detailed route plan for the first stage of a north-south high-speed line, from London to the West Midlands, as well as options for extending high-speed services, and high speed lines, to destinations further north, including the North West, the East Midlands, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland, the DFT said.
www.dft.gov.uk