Ross Clark Ross Clark

The train to nowhere

HS2 has been quietly dropped – but who is going to tell the Prime Minister?

issue 16 June 2012

The fact that you cannot perform a U-turn in a train is one of the limitations of that form of transport. When the line ahead is blocked, locomotives form long queues, unable to go anywhere until the problem is solved. It is scarcely any easier performing a U-turn with a high-speed rail project, especially after you have spent several million pounds compensating people who live in blighted properties along its route, and several years promoting it as central to your vision for a modern Britain.

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