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CountScrofula @
calicuz Many people in England live without any public-transport services, and not necessarily in remote rural areas, either. It becomes a bit of vicious circle though: the private car is more convenient in such places, so use of any train or bus service that did exist drops to the services dwindle, so more people drive instead.....
I've friends who live in a village some 6 miles from the nearest town, in fact a row of towns up to about 10 miles away. One bus a week: it comes through the village in the morning, makes an afternoon return trip. Next one, next week.
..... Politics and astronomical costs?
Seen News reports about Britain's much-vaunted "High-Speed Two" railway line?
This is / was a brand-new railway to run from London to Birmingham (<200 miles away) then on to major Northern English cities. It was not quite as heavily politicised as a USA scheme might be, but still at the mercy of governments baffled by the spiralling costs, That was due in part to governments insisting on changes that then meant back to the planning-offices, the estimators and quantity-surveyors, the land-purchasing people, and the drawing-boards (well, all right CAD on computers).
So now they've axed the more critical Northern half, making it extremely unlikely it can ever be built!
To be fair the idea is to spend the money instead on improving the existing lines in the North of England, which has a cluster of major cities; but we shall see. The biggest problem governments of all parties seem to have is not lack of financial acumen, or even of will; but lack of even basic science and engineering nous!
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"High-Speed Two"?
Was there a "One"? Oh yes - and it was very successful! It did not need new lines, for one thing.
Introduced by the State-owned British Rail, its specially-built Diesel trains called HS125s, were rated for cruising at up to 125mph maximum on
existing main railways improved to appropriately higher standards.
Most trunk-route trains now in the UK are Diesel or electric descendants of the HS125s; and some sections of line are cleared for up to 140mph. Not fast by French TGV let alone Japanese "Bullet Train" speeds, but those run much longer distances than in Britain. It means the fastest trains from London to Edinburgh, with only two or three intermediate stops, take only about 4 hours for the 400 miles. In steam days the fastest took about 8 hours, and that non-stop: the locomotives had special tenders with corridor connections, for mid-run crew changes without stopping.
(Yes you can fly: about 1 hour in the air; but when you add the long, compulsory airport booking-in time and the cities-to-airports journeys, it might cost less but is not very competitive in time and convenience.)
