Good old British engineering

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link opened today. It links St.Pancras station in London with the UK side of the tunnel.

A marvel of engineering you might think, to allow a train to travel at 186mph, with short bursts of speed over 200mph.

I'm not so excited. The French have had their High-Speed Rail link in place between Paris and the coast since the tunnel opened in 1994, so this "good old British engineering" is only 13 years late. At a cost of almost £6 billion its nett effect is to shave 20 minutes off the journey time between London and Paris.

Is that all? Well worth it. Ah, but, you see you're not looking at the whole picture. Those twenty minutes mean the rail option is now competitive with the flight option, so from the rail company's perspective it really is worth it, since they expect passenger numbers to grow significantly.

Tell that to the commuters in Kent. The HS1 lines pass through the lovely Kent countryside, but they don't actually stop to pick anyone up, so those locals get all the noise and none of the benefit. Well, stopping would reduce the average speed wouldn't it, and defeat the object?