East Coast Pendolino could be faster than HS2 to Edinburgh

摘要

HS2 plans will see trains off the highspeed route joining the'classic'West and East Coast lines for journeys to destinations in the North. However, non-tilt HS2 trains will be restricted to current operating speeds of between 110 and 125mph on the historic routes. Virgin Trains COO Chris Gibb suggests that many of the benefits of using HS2 will be lost on these longer services. Chris Gibb told Modern Railways: 'Alstom has modelled the journey time between London and Edinburgh via the existing East Coast main line for a Pendolino set running at 140mph with European Train Control System and tilt north of Darlington, and come up with a journey time of 3hr 37min.