Originally Posted by
jabird
Actually, England must already have a higher rail-to-capital market share than France if you look at LPL, LBA, MME where there are no air routes (although LBA due to regain LHR), and even on MAN & NCL, air is in retreat already, long before any new HSR gets built.
It is a popular misapprehension among amateur transport planners that air and rail are somehow alternatives that can jockey for an inter-city market. The fact is that they tend to serve different markets. London to Manchester is an example, with heavy flows on both air and rail, but there is limited scope to transfer between them. Few O&D pax on the air route are actually heading for Central London. In contrast air serves Surrey and the Thames Valley, both generators of much commerce in offices and also higher-income residential traffic, so much better than the fag into London and across to Euston before you even start. This can be discerned by conversation with your seatmate on both services. The Euston trains abandoned their stops at Watford, which suited the Berks/Bucks market well, for technical reasons that a train stopping absorbed the slots of two that didn't. That's all very well for the financial well-being of the monopoly franchise train operator, but does nothing for a national transport policy. It also puts two fingers up to any argument about railways being the "green" option.
I used to be a regular on the VLM London City to Manchester air route, which was lost around the time the rail service was improved, and a number of commentators made the incorrect conclusion that one led to the other. The fact was that loads on the aircraft were always marginal, and progressive hikes in APD and LCY fees pushed the costs over the edge. Few of those I sat next to (in the lounge - there were always plenty of free seats on the aircraft) would have found rail an alternative - people used to drive down from Cambridgeshire to LCY, for example, to get the flight. They probably drive throughout now, or arrange their meetings quite differently.