UK to have world's fastest train service by 2021

London, Mar.23 (ANI): Britain will have the fastest and most frequent train service in the world by the year 2021.

According to The Times, the train is expected to run between London and Birmingham.

The double-decker trains will travel at a speed of 225 mph (360km/h) and carry up to 800 passengers. They would depart every four minutes, cutting the journey time from London to Birmingham to 30 minutes and from London to Manchester to just over an hour.

The paper quoted Sir David Rowlands, the chairman of High Speed Two, as saying that the preferred option was for four tracks to double the capacity of the route.

No high-speed line anywhere in the world has more than two tracks but Sir David said that Britain needed to plan ahead for continuing rail growth over several decades.

He said that the initial high-speed trunk line from London to the West Midlands would open soon after 2020 and later be extended with branches to the North East and North West, eventually running to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Britain would copy the French strategy of building a high-speed network gradually.

A site near Wormwood Scrubs in West London is being considered as a giant rail hub where passengers would switch from the high-speed line to Crossrail, the mainline railway being built under Central London to link tracks to the East and West.

The hub, at Old Oak Common rail depot, would also connect with the Heathrow Express and the Great Western Main Line.

Sir David, a former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport, said that the line would allow tens of thousands of homes for long-distance commuters to be built between London and Birmingham. Commuters would travel to work on the existing West Coast Main Line.

Most of the 225mph trains would run non-stop to Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds, but some could stop at a new parkway station 50 miles north of London. (ANI)