Fantasy European high-speed rail network

[Simon]

Check out this potential European high-speed rail network that connects all the major European cities and offer Europeans a fast, comfortable and eco-friendly mode of transportation. It's just too bad that with the current politics this is just a fantasy. But it's a fantasy that could become a reality if we just set our minds to it (just like the >DESERTEC project).

 

How would you design this high-speed rail network? Which cities would you connect?

 

[Mark Piazzalunga]

It would be a wonderful project, unfortunately we're still waiting the new commission. The TEN-T project failed and the most unsuccessful was Corridor 5 which should have connect Lisbon to Kiev but Portugal and Spain governments had the economical crisis to handle. Italy had no connection with Slovenia and Hungary wanted to invest money in highways. Here's the link for a complete article about that:

 

http://www.voxeurop.eu/en/content/article/2126661-lisbon-kiev-departure-delayed

 

It will be wonderful to restart everything from zero. The idea of Paneuropean Corridors is interesting but with the current situation in Ukraine...

[Mark Piazzalunga]

On the old traces of TEN-T project a new high speed rail system could be built basing on the "European corridors". Some high spped rails already exists but are unfinished and non-linear. The main corridors should be five: three verticals, two horizontal.
 
The vertical corridors:
 
1. Blue. Lisbon-Edimburgh. Lisbon-Madrid-Bordeaux-Paris-through Eurochannel-London-Birminghan-Manchester-Edimburgh-Glasgow. Also another line wich connects Dublin to Belfast. Let's not forget Ireland.
 
2. Red. Rome-Stockholm with extentions from Naples to Oslo. Naples-Rome-Florence-Bologna-Milan.
    - The first branch is Bern-Munich-Lipsia-Berlin-Hamburg-Copenhagen-Stockholm-Oslo.
    - The second is Strasborug-Luxembourg-Bruxelles-Amsterdam. There are some extensions to Prague, Frankfurt, Liechtestein and Lyon.
 
3. Yellow. Athens-Helsinki. Athens-Skopje.
    - The first branch is Sofia-Bucarest-Chisinau-Lviv-Minsk-Vilnius-Riga-Tallinn-Helsinki with extensions to Istanbul.
    - The second is Sarajevo-Zagreb-Ljubijana-Wien-Prague with extensions to Belgrade and Bratislava
 
The horizontal corridors:
 
1. Green. Lisbon-Kiev (also known as Corridor 5). Lisbon-Madrid-Valencia-Barcelona-Marseille-Lyon-Turin-Milan-Venice-Trieste-Ljubijana-Budapest-Lviv-Kiev with extensions to Bratislava and Genoa.
 
2. Light-blue. Paris-Moscow. Paris-Bruxelles-Amsterdam-Berlin-Poznan-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow with extensions to Prague.

[Simon]

Nice!

Check out the 8 million city project that aims to connect three major Scandinavian cities - Oslo, Gothenburg and Copenhagen - with high-speed railway. 

 

 

"The Scandinavian countries are too small in a global context to use their energy to compete internally. Better/greener communications are crucial in order to shrink the distance between the Scandinavian cities, and unfold the potentials regarding cross border collaboration and a fully integrated Scandinavian labor marked.

 

High Speed Rail (HSR) is not just another transport project; It provides a means of supporting long- term economic development in Scandinavia and doing so in a sustainable way. For the Copenhagen-Oslo corridor the service is estimated to attract 9,4million passenger per year."

 

It will be wonderful to restart everything from zero. The idea of Paneuropean Corridors is interesting but with the current situation in Ukraine...

I believe that the way to peace is further integration between nations and people. And a Pan-European high-speed rail network could help do just that!

[Mark Piazzalunga]

Wonderful project! The idea is very illuminating, to condensate and unite the energies to be competitive in a global scenario. I'm sure they'll complete it in a few years. But that's the North of Europe, another reality, much more efficient than the South. Think to the bridge of Øresund is a massive project. Here in Italy we have many unfinished projects, especially we have a 500 km highway started fifty years ago and it's not finished yet.

Returning to high-speed rails we have Turin-Lyon, started a few years ago but on the French side there are no problems, on ours there's the police 24 hours a day and Beppe Grillo and his entire movement against the project. Lucky us!