They pay these idiots on Quangos a fortune- they then feel obliged to produce 'new' ideas that invariably end up being idiotic. Trains to Madrid don't work too well. People will have the answer THEY dictate by putting their hands in their pockets and paying for what THEY want, and they don't want these fools producing the equivalent of aviation 'speed bumps'. The thinking is 'inconvenience the traveller to get him to travel as theorists decide he should'- a line of thought Ken Livingstone and Road Traffic Authorities have enthusiastically taken up! Are trains so 'environmentally clean'? Electricity generation, friction, heat, noise (the French TGV is not exactly quiet)- taking up thousands of acres of countryside in the levels envisaged, and eyesore with electricity pylons, eternal noise over large swathes of countryside, killing wild animals in large numbers, falling apart on leaves, snow, flooding, vandalism. And they pay these twerps to come up with these ideas!