Demand forecasts carried out for the Department for Transport illustrate the scale of the capacity challenge. Without intervention, there will be significant crowding problems on:

• The West Coast Main Line from Euston to Birmingham
• The Great Western Main Line out of Paddington
• The Midland Main Line from St Pancras to Bedford
• The East Coast Main Line, over much of its length from Kings Cross to Edinburgh.

Even with the short-term schemes planned in the Rail White Paper, it is likely that new rail capacity will be needed in the near future, if rail is to fulfil its potential as an alternative to other transport modes.

A new high speed rail line could provide substantial additional rail capacity:

• Frequent long distance high speed trains could provide up to (say) 15,000 seats per hour in each direction into London and other major cities
• This could be expanded easily in future by the operation of duplex (double deck) trains on the high speed line
• Capacity on the existing network could be freed up for more freight services or local/regional passenger services
• The existing network would be able to operate in a more capacity-efficient manner, with greater harmonisation of operating speeds and stopping patterns.

Loading levels on Inter-urban services
AM 3-hour peak, 2006

Loading levels on Inter-urban services
AM 3-hour peak, 2030 baseline

Extracted from ‘Delivering a Sustainable Railway: Summary of Key research and Analysis, LEK/DfT’.