Learning from those who have blazed the high-speed rail trail

Whilst the UK may have comparatively little direct experience of high-speed rail services, across the Channel in France the development of an extensive network of HSR lines can teach us a great deal about what we should, and should not, do to successfully extend the concept over here.

Andrew Boagey, business director northern Europe for the international railway consultancy SYSTRA, acknowledges that the development of high-speed rail to date has not been a story of unbroken success. “There have been both successes and failures around the world,” he says. But Boagey suggests that the development of HSR by the French has, overall, been a success story.

In France the network of dedicated high-speed TGV lines currently comprises 2,000km of track but there are also...

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