500kmh.com - the archive site for the UK Ultraspeed project.
UK Ultraspeed was a major project, operational between 2002 and 2010. It developed detailed, and fully costed plans to use the German-developed Transrapid magnetic levitation (maglev) system to provide a 500km/h (311 mph) very high speed transport network linking all of the major city region economies between the Scottish Central Belt and London. Although DfT elected to progress the technically inferior and massively more costly HS2 scheme instead, the experience gained during the UK Ultraspeed very high speed project is now a key element in the Expert Alliance knowledge base. Expert Alliance Founding Partner, Dr Alan James, served as CEO of UK Ultraspeed.
Real time comparison of maglev travelling at 267mph (431 km/h) in commercial service in Shanghai, alongside a 70mph (112 km/h) motorway, with the 125mph (200 km/h) UK East Coast Mainline railway in the middle. Both the maglev and the train approach from the same distance. The time taken for them to arrive illustrates the relative speeds. The comparative noise levels are also noteworthy.
The UK Ultraspeed project received strong support from the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair. However, despite backing from No 10, a competitor proposal was preferred by the Department for Transport. That proposal mutated over the following years to become HS2.
UK Ultraspeed would have delivered a full 800 km (500 mile) North – South network, and included an East West trans-Pennine connection, as shown on the map at an average cost of approximately £30 million per km. First sections could have entered service in the early 2010s, with full network completion by around 2015.
HS2 by contrast will not be in service until the 2040s, and has now been reduced to a 216 km (135 mile) 'rump' between Wormwood Scrubs (the site of Old Oak Common station in Outer London) and Birmingham. For comparision, in the time it has taken HS2 to develop its proposals and reach the 2026 stage of construction, China has built around 40,000 km of high speed rail.
The 2026 official cost estimate for HS2, a truly underwhelming and short railway, is now £81 billion. That's at staggering £600 million (!) per km, means that HS2 is by far the most expensive railway that the human species has ever constructed. This short briefing document provides more detail on comparative costs of HS2 and other European high speed rail projects.