The Conservative Party have announced plans for two further high speed rail links apparently coming to the Kings Cross area. One a new high speed line to the North, presumably from St Pancras or Kings Cross and another a high speed Eurostar connection to Heathrow.

We covered the Arup proposals for Eurostar to Heathrow in May on this site here.  There is a good interview with Arup about them here. The central plan for a new high speed line to the North seems to be that it should roughly follow the Midland mainline route – though I notice this is some way off.

‘We will target construction of the new high speed line to begin in 2015, with full completion by 2027.’

The original Midland Main Line had many economic difficulties not least the terrain it passed over (from Wikipedia):

‘the MML passing through some of the hillier areas of the British mainland, such as Sharnbrook (where there is a 1 in 119 gradient from the south taking the line to 340 feet above sea level). This has left a legacy of lower maximum speeds on the line compared to the other main lines.’

Modern engineering of course can overcome this but driving compulsory purchase through the Tory Shires will be a tricky one. 

One of the more puzzling questions is ‘Where will they park the trains?’  St Pancras isn’t very heavily utilised for Eurostar (in terms of trains per hour) but the building isn’t very practical.  Kings Cross is stuffed to bursting underground (as is St Pancras – they share the same station).  Perhaps a new station – Somers Town Halt ?  Or route things into a rebuilt Euston?  Although Euston’s underground station is very poor.  Maybe even an underground number in the City – like the Thameslink.

If anyone has more detail – please comment here.