I sometimes wonder if people in this country think there was some sort of golden age in the 1940s and 1950s. A lot of people seem to be very nostalgic about the past while paying less attention to the future's challenges.
That thought crossed my mind again with the launch of the first steam engine for 50 years. Don't misunderstand me, I am certainly not knocking the determination and achievement ot the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust; they should be congratulated on their achievement. It is just that there seems to be too little attention focused on building a railway fit for the 21st Century.
While countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been steadily been building their high speed railway networks, we are stuck with a mere branch line from Calais to St Pancras. The original plan to have Eurostar trains run through to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow were quietly dropped. It took 3 decades to come to a decision on CrossRail in London while Paris has already got 4 RER lines and German cities have their cross-city S-Bahn lines.
Similarly Heathrow airport is served by the branch line for the Heathrow Express. Heathrow is close to the Paddington to Reading line and to the Staines line from Waterloo. Heathrow ought to be a railway hub for trains coming from Paddington, Reading, Waterloo and Basingstoke.
Our visionary Victorian railway engineers like Robert Stevenson and Isambard Kingdon Brunel must be turning in their graves! We should value our history but not at the expense of our future.
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