So we’re going to have a new generation of trains:
With Whitehall footing the bill, the three train
operators running the next generation of high-speed trains – Midland
Mainline, First Great Western and GNER – will have to use the same
design.
The new trains are due in 2013 and manufacturers will be invited to bid for the contract next year.
Ho ho ho. The Government’s going to run the program? Contracts bid for in 2007? On the line in 2013? Pull the other one Sonny, it’s got bells on it.
Mr Darling made clear that the rail industry could not be complacent about its environmental credentials.
"Rail is considered to be one of the greener ways to travel," he said. "It is, but only up to a point.
Absolutely, as that report pointed out last year, car travel is often less emittive than rail travel. Yes, that’s right, travelling by train can, and often does, cause more damage to the environment than driving.
"Twenty cars today now produce fewer emissions than one car built in the 1980s.
"Rail, in comparison, has not done as well as it could."
Rolling
stock was getting heavier. Every seat on the Pendolino trains, used on
the West Coast line by Virgin, weighs half as much as a Land Rover
Discovery, he said.
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