by Peter Scott

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: July 02, 2009

Since the twentieth century, most engineers have taken two approaches to designing and building high speed rail services. In the first method, existing rail lines are used for upgraded rolling stock, typically by electrifying the line and constructing dedicated high-speed trains. In the second, a new, dedicated high-speed alignment is constructed, using purpose-built rolling stock, exploiting the cheapest route preferences and avoiding disruption to existing services. You might think that it is far cheaper to adapt and electrify an existing route and simply provide new rolling stock, but it is not necessarily the best or most cost-effective way, as I shall shortly explain.

High speed city-to-city rail services have a distinct advantage over other transport methods. They provide fast and reliable point-to-point services, avoiding the need to transfer from an airport into a city center. Additionally, they are more environmentally beneficial than road or flights, and modern electric trains can provide regenerative power to their system. There are disadvantages to high-speed rail, particularly the cost of construction and new infrastructure.

For my two examples of the first method, I take Italian Railway's tilting train and the British upgrade of the West Coast Main Line (WCML), mainly completed by 2009. The Italians began building their Pendolino electric multiple units from 1976, designed to maximize existing lines but able to travel faster due to the train's ability to minimize the effects of line curvature. The various designs since 1976 have been a complete success, enabling frequent and fast city-to-city services. The Italians went one stage further by constructing a series of dedicated high speed lines, the most recent completion being Milan to Bologna; however, some of the early Pendolino sets are still used on conventional lines today, having been cascaded by newer stock.

The WCML upgrade has been a painful and protracted affair, due to the number of agencies involved in its planning and execution. In the UK one public company own and maintains the track, and several others provide and operate the rolling stock. Virgin Rail, for whom the WCML upgrade was mainly built, run Pendolinos over this classic line, but the engineering was massively over budget and delayed. Not only that, but Virgin requested a 140mph-capable rail line, and were presented with a route limited to 125mph by Network Rail.

SNCF, the French National Rail Company, are at the forefront of

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