HS4Air – “An M25 for high speed trains”

[Class 170101]

Presumably it required some public money so its now dead. That being said I can see an advantage of avoiding Central London. Not everyone wants to go to London.

 

[camflyer]

Transatlantic licenses went ages ago. Any airlines is free to fly to any airport n the UK from across the pond. they just choose not to.

There are transatlantic flights from Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. There was a New York to Birmingham service but it was dropped in recently. Nobody wants to fly to Prestwick.

 

[Bald Rick]

Another project kicked into touch by DfT, according to New Civil Engineer:

It was, indeed, another project filed under “Three stops past Plaistow”.

It's absolutely barking - unless you are a plane nut or inside the industry and unable to see the downsides.
Give the transatlantic licenses back to Manchester and Prestwick (that were confiscated a decade or two ago to boost Heathrow) and lots of the UK population that want to go west won't need to go to the south-east anyway. Saves on shuttle flights and makes slots available for London-land travellers without enlarging either Gatwick or Heathrow.
Hasn't anyone read the warnings about how important and urgent it is to use less fossil fuel? Air travel is about the most energy-wasteful mode there is over short and medium distances - apart from helicopters and rocket transfers of course!

Transatlantic licenses went ages ago. Any airlines is free to fly to any airport n the UK from across the pond. they just choose not to.

From Manchester tomorrow there are transatlantic flights to New York (JFK and Newark), Jamaica, Philadelphia, Barbados & Orlando. Personally I’m surprised there aren’t direct flights to LA, Vegas, Toronto or Chicago, but no doubt someone is thinking about them.

 

[swt_passenger]

It was, indeed, another project filed under “Three stops past Plaistow”...

Might even have been Dagenham?

 

[Bald Rick]

Might even have been Dagenham?

No it didn’t get that far

 

[si404]

Depends on the funding arrangement. If it had been largely private with an element of DfT funding then no good reason why it shouldn't happen.

If these private companies wanted to build a line and then be unable to run trains beyond Heathrow as the GWML mains and HS2 have no spare paths for non-London trains, then they should go for it.

But I wouldn't want to be a shareholder - it wasn't a good idea with the through trains and becomes even less useful without them.

They'd be far better off building a local line, as it would be cheaper (as lower speed/able to use some existing infrastructure) and have more demand for it. But sexy-over-sensible means we get stuff like HS4Air.