| Europe’s existing high-speed rail network is impressive and set to treble in size, says Gillian Thomas Europe’s 5,000 km of high-speed railway track will swell by a factor of three by 2020, making it the most impressive cross-border railway system in the world. As early as 2010, it is expected to be carrying at least 25 million passengers a year. With trains reaching speeds of up to 350 km/h, the expanded network is expected to attract many passengers who would otherwise go by road or fly. In addition it is estimated that around 15% will be “induced traffic”, meaning people whose journey would not have been made in the absence of a high-speed service. The EU has been an active participant in spurring the growth. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty opened borders to trade, facilitating the dream of a future, seamlessly integrated pan-European railway system. The first cross-border high-speed service was the Thalys, opened in 1997 between Paris/Brussels and Cologne, linking up with Eurostar, which had begun in 1994. The final stretch of Thalys, to Amsterdam from Brussels via Rotterdam, will be completed next year, making it a competitive four-hour journey from London and reducing the Paris–Amsterdam time from four hours, 11 minutes to three hours. This route is presently dominated by air travel. Maastricht also kicked off the key TGV Est project from Paris to Frankfurt and Zürich via Strasbourg. Opened in June this year, it will be extended to Munich early in 2008, cutting the journey time from Paris to Munich to just over six hours. Already there are high-speed Paris to Madrid and Paris to Barcelona overnight services, but daytime journeys will be made possible when a new link opens between Perpignan and Figueres within the next two years. In Austria, lines are being upgraded to increase speeds to up to 250 km/h on routes west from Vienna. A new generation of high-speed trains, Railjets, will be introduced next year, followed later by services to Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. High speed has never been a feature of Switzerland’s highly regarded rail network because of the country’s mountainous terrain and the short distances between its major cities. The new 34 km Lötschberg Tunnel, which opened for freight in June, will also carry passenger trains from next month, significantly speeding up travel times through the Alps. Zurich to Zermatt will then take three hours, 12 minutes, shortening the journey by 72 minutes. Two further Alpine tunnels are planned: the 63 km Brenner Tunnel (the world’s longest), scheduled to open in 2018–20, and the 15 km Ceneri Base Tunnel, due for 2019. By then, extensions to France’s TGV network southwest from Tours should be a reality. In addition, an eastward route from Lyon to Turin would link up with Italy’s high-speed route to Naples and Venice. Arguably, the final proof that railways are set to compete head-to-head with airlines is the planned roll-out by operators of cross-border frequent traveller schemes offering “train miles”. EB EUROPE’S BIGGEST EMBARRASSMENT The map says it all – western Europe is plastered with high-speed rail links, but the UK isn’t. The reasons are historical. The rot set in during the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government consciously decided to pursue roads instead of rails. In 1993 her successor John Major hastily privatised British Rail, splitting a hitherto unified rail network into over 100 different companies in order to maximise revenue, mostly in the face of enormous public opposition. In fairness to Major, he was partly acting on the EU’s open access Directive 91/440, which required all EU member states to separate “the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the provision of railway transport services”; the idea was that trains belonging to different companies should be able to compete on the same track. Germany is grappling with this issue now. Small train operators don’t tend to nurture large projects, however, and that might explain why the UK has failed to build any high-speed track (with the exception of the politically strategic High Speed 1). In a railway policy document published earlier this year the UK government rejected the case for High Speed 2, the blueprint for a north–south high-speed link, directly contradicting its pledge to improve public transport and reduce road traffic congestion. BORDER CROSSING The LGV Perpignan–Figueres is an international high-speed rail line that opens in 2009. The 44.4 km line will cross the French–Spanish border through an 8.3 km tunnel bored under the col du Perthus. This section will be joined to two future high-speed lines: Barcelona–Figueres (under construction) and Montpellier– Perpignan (in the early planning stages). The contract to build the line was awarded in February, 2004 to the TP Ferro consortium, a combination of Eiffage (France) and Actividades de Construcción y Servicios/Dragados (Spain). The group will construct the line for an estimated €1.1bn and operate the line for 50 years. It will receive a public subsidy of €540m from the EU, France and Spain. Passenger journey times will drop to five hours, 35 minutes for Paris to Barcelona and three hours, 50 minutes for Perpignan to Madrid. NACH BERLIN Europe’s largest two-level railway station opened last May after construction dating back to 1992. Designed by Hamburg architects Gerkan, Marg + Partners, the station forms the hub of a complex, fully integrated regional rail system including international high-speed links. The main concourse provides roughly 44,000 m2 of retail space, while the glass roof incorporates photovoltaic panels, emphasizing the environmentally friendly nature of rail travel. NEARER TO REMBRANDT Combined with the UK’s first high-speed link, the final stretch of high-speed track to Amsterdam from Brussels via Rotterdam will soon make it a four-hour journey from London and a three-hour journey from Paris. This will surely generate keen interest given that Schiphol Airport processes 46 million passengers a year and is reviled almost as much as Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle by business travellers. HAPPY KOHL Germany’s former chancellor will be pleased that his country is embedded in Europe like never before. First there was the single currency and now there’s TGV Est, which connects Paris to Frankfurt and Zürich via Strasbourg. A QUICK BEER Munich will connect to TGV Est next year, reducing the journey time to Paris to six hours. By 2020 it will connect south to the Brenner Tunnel and on to Italy’s own high-speed network. 
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