Great Western Coffee Shop

This is interesting - taken from Twitter but you should be able to see it even if you don't Tweet!

https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1373198175121637377?s=20

I've seen a few of these graphical presentations. Some of them are amusing, others quite thought-provoking, but this one is does rather make one wonder which parallel universe they are referring to in which the UK has 1997 km of high speed lines, all constructed since 1990.

HS1 - the only 225 km/h-plus line in the UK - is about 108 km. If you add in the 200 km/h routes to Bristol, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle, plus Birmingham to Sheffield (which were all quite well-established by 1990) you can get somewhere near 1350 km, but 200 km/h is setting rather a low bar...

Obviously his needs to be referred to Professor Joad - it all depends on what you mean by (in this case) "high speed" and "construction".

The definition of high-speed lines in (for example) TSIs is having a maximum speed of 190 km/hr or above. This flattered the UK situation initially, though it also implied the applicability of the high-speed TSI (and successors) which some found irksome

All the UK lines meeting that definition acquired it by upgrade, which you might argue isn't really construction. Or you might not.