The main reason is that high speed trains require new, dedicated train lines as there's not the capacity to run them with slower traffic. There's been a lack of investment and political will to build the rail infrastructure required until now.

Even though we dont have dedicated bullet trains across our network, we have plenty of intercity routes that regularly operate over 100mph. For example: The west coast mainline, East coast mainline and so on. The only problem is that our intercity high speed trains have to operate with slower commuter trains

There's much more to it than this video makes out. A lack of Government will is part of it, but only because they felt alternative solutions could be used. Examples include electrification of the West Coast Main Line in the 60s, development of the InterCity 125 in the 70s (which greatly reduced intercity journey times), the Advanced Passenger Train project of the 70s and 80s which employed tilting technology to increase the speed a train can travel around bends, as well as major weight saving techniques (The project was cancelled in the mid 1980s, but much of its technology lives on in modern British trains) and more. As for why High Speed 2 has finally been chosen over other methods such as Maglev, Hyperloop etc, there's many different reasons for that. Firstly, since High Speed 2 uses the same track gauge as our existing railway lines, trains that run along High Speed 2 can continue onto the existing railway lines to serve more destinations, such as Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Furthermore, since it's being built in stages, destinations that are planned to be added to the HS2 network later on can still be served by HS2 trains before the later stages are completed. Finally, there's a bit of debate whether or not Maglev trains would actually be faster, since High Speed 2 is being built with passive provision for 400km/h operation, which is only 30km/h slower than the Shanghai Maglev system, currently the only operational high speed maglev in the world. As for Hyperloop, there are major concerns about whether or not it will be able to carry anywhere near the number of people needed. As you say in your video, the UK's intercity railways are operating at near capacity. Yet Hyperloop has a lower capacity than many of those existing railways. Most Hyperloop companies quote a capacity of around 800-1200 passengers per hour in each direction, whilst HS2 is designed to carry around 18,000 passengers per hour per direction

You can tell you don't know the UK rail system well at all...

HS2 isn't about saving time it's intended to free up valuable space on the rails and roads. Increasing capacity for more passenges and future freight. Building a hyperloop is out of the question! There's a valid reason why there aren't any in the world because they are largely untested and exstremley expensive to construct. Same principles for maglev systems HS2 is designed to be integrated with everyday services which would not work with maglev trains as they aren't compatible with standard tracks. HS2 is extremely controversial but it's been a long time coming it's what the country really needs if it wants to keep moving and functioning normally in the future. The astronomical cost puts a lot of people off but what large scale construction project is ever cheap? Especially one on the scale of HS2.

Britain has the second largest number of passenger journeys in Europe. The rolling stock is generally modern and, importantly, the non high speed rail system has not been left to rot as in many parts of Europe. It's also has a trend of increasing passenger numbers over the last five years.

Erm, it does.

Britain's high speed trains regularly run at 125mph on conventional tracks in comparison to the E3 and E6 shinkansen in Japan that also run on conventional track but only manage 80mph! Oh and to anyone complaining about why it's taking so long to build HS2 please consider that it took 50 years for Japan to plan, argue over and build the Nagasaki shinkansen and even then they have only built half of the route originally planned! Britain isn't the only master at red tape!

The UK does have Bullet Trains, they run on HS1 called Eurostar from London to Paris and Brussels and Javelin Trains from Kent Coast to London St Pancaras, 300 KPH for Eurostar trains and 230 KPH for the Javelin Trains, plus normal trains on the UK's rail network regularly travel at 125 MPH

2:23 that train is actually an older generation Eurostar, not a TGV. The eurostar line runs under the English channel from London to Paris to transport British people to Europe. The Eurostar is a joint project between France and England. The TGV runs around France and some neighbouring nations, and these two trains sometimes operate on the same route.

2:20 that is a Eurostar train, a high speed train that goes in the UK. France and the UK are similar in size too

By the way in the late 90s/early 00s Virgin Trains and First Great Western submitted proposals for new high-speed lines to supplement the main corridors of the UK. Virgin Trains planned a line along the flat east coast of England and First Great Western a line from London to Bristol, South Wales and South West England. If these were built the UK rail network in its current guise may look different. Plus the UK's first high-speed line was the Selby Diversion. It was built for 200km/h diesel trains and has passive provision for 270km/h, and is now electrified.

What's HS1 and Eurostar then?

The UK does have high speed. The line is even called High Speed 1. With max speed of 300kph it's one of the fastest lines in the world. It's run by the Eurostar and Southern Rail High Speed brands It's also building 100s of miles of high speed track (HS2)which is 350kph rated. I'm not sure what else it could be doing. !

OP: uses the word "England" instead of UK Me: *Cringes in Scottish*

You only have to go a certain countries and come back to UK and you will realise we have one of the best railway services in the world regardless of the 95% punctuality. Japan, France, Germany and now China have some of the top railways infrastructure. I pretty sure that there are other European railways who are on top of the list. But very sad to say that USA, with the biggest gas polluter innovators in the world has the worst railway services in the world

hyperloop would be a great fit for britain, they don't actually want to build new infrastructure so investing into a PR scam would be perfect.

That advert for HS2 is why we don't have a better rail network

'leaving the future of high speed rail to the giants of the East' 💯 😂😂 Nice way to conclude.

Currently on hs2 track a train from London to Birmingham distance 200 km takes 2 hrs 6 min whereas as for a similar distance from Tokyo to Ueda, Nagano takes 1 hours 16 min. The speed difference is evident..

Your 1k Subscriber... Congratulations Man..! Your So Good.. Deserved It Man

Bruh you call the creater of the rocket stepson

The UK has multiple bullet trains.

what about HS1 that runs from london st pancras to ashford and the trains that run on that route are bullet trains so we do have bullet trains its just that they werent mentioned.

Lot's of nations around the world don't have bullet trains. Only a few in Europe due to their geography. The UK has a well connected railway line with several high speed links that link the country up perfectly. I'd argue the UK has Europe's best regional trains. But the UK does have high speed railways and does have high speed trains. Only a few nations in Europe have massive high speed routes like France or Germany and their trains are quite poor outside of then. Not sure why you are attacking the UK here. What about Canada, Australia, USA, etc? Northern Europe? Not many have them.

2:25 you just showed the Eurostar which goes to London St. Pancras which runs on the UK HS1. HS2 is a project in the making and Crossrail and the Thameslink programme has been completed.

Actually the uk does have bullet trains its the azuma japenese design class 800 bullet train😬

You should do some videos about SpaceX, your virgin galactic video did really well. So I think that a SpaceX video would be popular

The UK does have bullet trains between London and the Kent coast. That's not much at all, compared to other european countries, but enough for the UK to count as a country that has bullet trains.

Idk if he meant HSTS or Actual Japanese bullet trains (A reason not hard to figure out why Britain doesn't have bullet trains) but to prove that there is HST in the UK, Reality Check since they are BR Class 43: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_43_(HST) (Personal Favourite) (InterCity 125) BR Class 91 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_91 (InterCity 225) BR Class 180 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_180 BR Class 220 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_220 BR Class 221 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_221 BR Class 222 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_222 BR Class 390 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_390 BR Class 295 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_395 BR Class 397 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_397 BR Class 800 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_800 BR Class 801 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_801 BR Class 802 : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_802 I almost forgot! Here is some footage of HSTS! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r82cfN2J293IZWw.html

Do your research mate. The total human habituated - urban conurbations in the UK consume Less than 3% of the land. The reason there is no HSR in UK is because because of Government refusal to approve and build HSR. All because they can not personally get their fingers in the money pots of HSR construction projects. HS2 will be 33 years from inception to first train on rails - phase one. Highways, Motorways, Freeways, Autobahns, etc have substantial tax payer funding in construction and maintenance. The idea a Railway of any variety has to have a fully self sufficient funding model is a very 19th century mentality. Estonia has all public transport in Tallinn - 100% tax payer funded. Fewer vehicles on roads with less congestion and pollution. Hyperloop... PACS (from 1960s and 70s television and films) is pointless because a 400m long High Speed Train travelling at 450kph can if / when the 'infrastructure' is built will make no two cities in the UK and Ireland less than Two Hours maximum travel time. Trains are currently possible of 450 to 500+ kph with distributed traction. Do your research before making wide brush stroke bizarre opinions not based in facts.

1: After ww2 you guys all had big strait areas but we dont 2: 2:21 that is in Britain and that in on Hs1 which IS a high Speed line, so we do kinda have one. YOU LITERALLY USED A BRITISH HIGH SPEED RAILWAY TO COMPARE TO HOW BRITAIN "DOESNT HAVE" A HIGH SPEED RAILWAY what

Nick, that is a nice topic about rail transport in the UK. However since you uploaded the video 3 years ago, it's already outdated. The UK is already on investing in rail with upgraded infrastructure, new rolling stock, electrification etc. Well, the recent news is that the Government of Sunak scrapped the north section of HS2 to Manchester after phase 2 to the Midlands was also cutted from the plan, with only focusing between London and Birmingham. 🫤 Oh, AND… Maglev and Hyperloop techno never materialise in the UK 😂

Maybe, just maybe, the main reason is that the new 225 Km. long new high speed line between London and Birmingham has a cost of 48,000M€ while the whole high speed lines in Spain built from scratch since 1990 (3,086 Km. long) have had a total cost 55,888M€. Don't go as far as Japan or China, just take a look of what your european neighbours (France, Spain, Germany and Italy) have done and the cost of it.

You keep on switching between England and the UK when your giving figures I’m not sure if your talking about the UK as a whole or just England.

You see, I always thought the same to the US on why WE don't have any high speed railway cause our country is not an island. We're connected to two other continents ( Mexico and Canada ) and we're a very big country. But you know how it is on us Americans: we need our freedom to go whereever we wanted to go in our gas -guzzling, lead toxic ICE automobiles. I mean yeah, we got Acela from Amtrak but c'mon, just one?

2:25 pretty sure thats a UK Eurostar, not a french TGV

We may be getting HS2 🚄 probably one of the fastest types of trains in the world

Reason 6: the UK already has extensive high speed rail. High-speed rail starts at 125mph/200kph which is what many of the intercity lines run at. One of the reasons why adding high-speed rail to the UK is uncompetitive is because it's regular rail already goes very fast by international standards.

You make good videos! Great work

Japan’s regular trains are not interoperable with any of their fast trains as the gauge of regular trains in Japan are narrow gauge Shinkansen regardless had to be standard gauge anyway. In china their slow trains just got dropped for the high speed trains and most of their lines slow routes were given to freight. So passenger trains can be separated with metro and regional rail trains being on new lines

What do you think HS1 is? Didn’t really do much research did you.

For the UK a good developed high speed passenger and freight system serving major cities, with links to regular rail and road infrastructure and with lines serving major ports- could bring many massive economic and environmental benefits, as well as just enabling people and goods to move more easily and quickly. We should also be investing in metro lines, trolley cars and protected lanes and tracks for bikes and low-powered personal EVs, like e-bikes, e-scooters, mobility buggies, etc. Making it possible to get almost anywhere you need to- quickly- without a car should be a future goal if we really want to stop climate change and reduce fossil fuel dependency. Run our transport network on nuclear and renewables, new highspeed rail, electrify existing rail, put up overhead wires on main roads and busy bus routes trolley buses with battery backups could be used to go anywhere buses currently go, with much smaller batteries than a fully electric vehicle. They can connect and disconnect themselves from the wires as needed, the system could be used for local delivery vehicles like trucks and vans servicing businesses too. Very costly, but the economic and environmental benefits long-term would be huge. Cars will still serve a function, but you'd see far fewer people driving out of neccessity, making the roads better for those who do need or wish to drive. Making our country more bikeable and walkable and accessible by good public transport would benefit everyone.

Er hello we have got 225kmh 395 and the 300kmh 373 and the 320kmh 374 and we will get HS2 soon (🤞) and a lot of our trains are 125mph

As fast as steam trains? They didn't do 125mph (and indeed 135-140mph before limiters on many occasions) as standard. Further, Hyperloop would need direct alignments - that will never be possible in the UK for several reasons. HS2 is as fast as the UK will ever be able to go on land. We will not be drilling through cities nor carving up protected lands for Hyperloop with far higher costs than HS2 for little time saving when applied only to England. Scotland has two cities with a combined population of circa 3.7 million - the costs for the extra 100 miles is not only pointless but would never happen die to first said reason anyway.

Th3 fleet consists of boring yellow coloured diesel locos which needs an upgrade !

4:23 so do Japan and China. And why did he talk about HS2 and then proceed to say that Britain had no high speed rail future.

There are 3 high speed bullet trains. Class 373, 374 and 395. There are also significant modern higher speed traction on almost all mainlines from GWR to LNER to EMR, to Avanti to Lump to Hull Trains etc. The list goes on.

Another awesome video 👌

One other factor not mentioned here is that most people would rather have high efficiency rail that costs less than save a few minutes on a journey and end up paying more. High speed rail would only make financial sense if you traveled from London to Edinburough for instance which is 400 miles so you would save a lot of time and that would be worth the extra cost, but traveling from city to city it makes no sense because you'd save 10 to 20 minutes but end up paying a LOT more for the journey. This isn't just the case in the UK, all European nations have the same "problem" when it comes to rail travel, which is why high speed lines like Eurostar and TGV only travel between capital cities and there are no high speed trains connecting large cities within borders, since economically that wouldn't be viable and the time you save is marginal at best.

Very good video. You have really explained to me why britain does not have high speed rail, and why it probably will not in the future, except for the hs2 which is already going to take some time to build.

The economic argument makes no sense, the U.K. is the 5th richest country in the world, 2nd in Europe. Countries like Spain have among the best railways in Europe, and the city of London alone produces more money than the entire Spanish economy.

Class 390: *AM I A JOKE TO YOU*

Doesn’t the Uk use Pendolinos?

economic decline ? isn't UK projected to grow faster than Japan and some of major European countries?

He pronounced Trevithick, Stephenson, Birmingham, and Edinburgh wrong. Also this is an Australian criticising Britain's lack of high speed rail...

5:15

5:46 , Edinburgh . You can either say " Ee-deen-bur-ra " , the way a lot of scots say it , or " Ed-in-bruh " the way english people say it .

ทำภาพยนตร์ได้น่าสนใจมาก น่าเสียดายที่สหราชอาณาจักรต้องล้าหลงเรื่องการพัฒนารถไฟความเร็วสูงเพราะรัฐบาลไม่จริงจัง. เผลอ ๆ เส้นทางรถไฟความเร็วสูงในไทย 2 สายแรกอาจเสร็จก่อนโครงการ H2.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, typical Aussie interchanging England with UK by the way. The UK has the world’s fastest average network speed, due to our upgrading of ECML, WCML, GWR etc you can travel from London to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds etc in no more than 41/2 hours for the longest distances…

like the update thank's very much

England is not the UK

you really don't know the uk railways well

In the USA most areas don't have the population density to support high speed rail lines traveling over about 150 mph (about 240 kph) as traveling faster requires significantly more maintenance. Due to the short distances in the UK and the lack of a significant time savings; I suspect that your budget conscious government may want to restrict the speed of the trains to a similar speed. In fact, in the USA Amtrak, our national passenger train service, survives on small package delivery plus whatever passengers that will ride on it and only the Eastern sea board line (Boston to Washington DC) travels at about 150 mph. We could do much better throughout the rest of the continent.

clip at 0:07 is actually korea

Nice video although being from the country which has built the longest and one of the most expansive tunnels in the world with high speed tracks. We built as well another high speed rail even though Swiss cities are really close to each other and we already have rails everywhere (basically you can find some trains even in some small villages in the mountains). Regarding the Japanese, they don’t have loads of constructible space. Indeed they also have lots of mountains and building infrastructure is crazy expansive. But with big cities you can load the trains. There is basically no reason to he UK couldn’t do it. Go the UK I believe in you 😉👍 It will make more room for more trains, in order to move more people and provide a plan to divert if there is a problem on one of the lines.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, typical Aussie interchanging England with UK by the way. The UK has the world’s fastest average network speed, due to our upgrading of ECML, WCML, GWR etc you can travel from London to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds etc in. I more than 41/2 hours for the longest distances…

They already have bullet trains including HS2 (currently under construction)

*HS2 WILL NEVER GET BUILT.* *But at least Britain will always have that little section called "HS1" in southeast england.*

The Eurostar is in the UK. Isn’t that considered a bullet train. The Eurostar has a cruising speed near 200mph.

There is another reason , remember when the Iron Lady (Margaret Tatcher) decided to privatize the UK railroad system back when she was PM ?

That a friend of thomas

The GWR used to have high speed trains

The problem with high speed Shinkansen style trains is they are much bigger than the trains in the UK. To run faster trains here would require the tracks to be widened and the height of tunnels and bridges to be enlarged. As many of these date back to the early days of rail there are many pieces of infrastructure which are historically listed, meaning the track would need to be rerouted to allow a high speed train. It is actually this which has caused such a slow roll out of high speed trains in the UK and not any of the reasons you state in your video. The HS2 has been used as a political football and, not surprisingly if you live in the parts of the country scheduled for demolition, you are going to be against the idea. Incidentally, it would also help if your narrator made it clear what he means by a bullet train. Japanese will tell you that their trains are called the Shinkansen. The train which they consider to be the "bullet" was the Shinkansen model which ran in the 50's and is now in the Shinkansen museum.

Main issue I have with hs2 is that it isn’t fast enough

Hello, can you notice the 390 Pelondino? It’s waiting.

I also think it's due to the amount of money invested in highways. This then means fewer people take the train and therefore less money for investment. However, I think that is starting to change now with talk about CO2 emissions, noise, and pollution the car is definitely falling out of favor.

Simple. They don't need them, they have plenty of domestic flights and plenty of road networks, Europe isn't a modern continent as they like their history so bullet trains would look odd af

Bullet train is just a generic name for a high speed train. It's jumpity pang kiddy speak. Try to use the term stream liner. Think the LNER A4 or the LMS Coronation pacifics. Then think the HST 125, Intercity trains. They are all stream liners notbs bullet shape bullets have a rounded shape.

No hyperloops dont invest in them

we should be using rail that is totally underground barring any stations, for the highest speeds possible in uk. with far more lines, has a means to expand. not destroying habitats above ground.

England is a small country already well connected by railways and trains. English trains have seen record levels of investment as well. There's no need for such a small island to have bullet trains.

Funny the only high-speed train is used to get out of the country! 😄

UK should build mag-lev trains

What about Eurostar and hs1...

Hi bro I'm Dani from india in Chennai

So? UK has the best trains, Class 390 and Class 802 are amazaing

Ask the US the same question 😳

This trainific

After the $100 plus billion plus Commiefornia high speed rail to nowhere fiasco, think long and hard before letting the gooberment go down that path. They want a total of SEVENTY BILLION DOLLARS to complete only about 1/3 of the tracks, and that excludes obtaining the property in the San Franfeces and SmelLA areas....

This video completely missed out the APT and HST projects. Which were the real end to all innovation in the UK. As they both relied on making trains faster rather than upgrading tracks. HS2 is going to be a disaster as the UK just isn't big enough for High Speed rail. It will only be 20 minutes faster, and will cause serious destruction to the countryside

I’m from the U.S. and I visited the UK last year. I was surprised to see how outdated the trains in London were; they also weren’t particularly fast. This video explains a lot though.

Now another major reason has come true - the Brexit.

Has anyone else realised he said the Eurostar was a TGV

All reasons except the lack of finances are ridiculous. Aren't continental Europe and Japan having short-distance bullet trains between cities? A few examples: Le Mans - Rennes; Rome - Naples. It's less than London-Manchester. Path dependencies - OK. By your logic, Spain and France were empty desserts before they introduced bullet trains. Economic decline after WWII? UK is one of few European countries that weren't direct battlefields. Not saying about the devastated Japan that decided to START the revival with a bullet train built on (figuratively) ruins - and it worked out. Aren't Chinese and Japanese bullet trains going through the continuous extremely dense areas? Let me remind you that a train isn't obliged to stop at each stop just because the area of this stop is dense. Some trains to farther popular destinations *must* be non-stop to unload airplanes as much as possible - like to Manchester. But we don't even have a non-stop train to Scotland which is ridiculous. Btw a bullet from London to the Scottish Central Belt would connect 10 million people with 6 million people - purely, even if there are no stops in between. Now google how many people the abovementioned Le Mans - Rennes bullet connects. No wonder Scotland wants to detach. So the only thing left is wrong decisions due to a lack of care for citizens. But you can't make a whole vid out of this boring truth can you?

I didn’t know that Eurostar was a train well that’s what this video made me think

But aren't class 43s, 180s, 220s, 221s, 222s, 390s, 395s, 397s, 800s, 801s, 802s & 803s technically UKs bullet trains?

But UK has Eurostar e320 and Eurostar 300

Japan really isn't all that much bigger than the UK land wise. And comparing Japan as a giant with China is really off key as China without dispute dwarfs Japan. But Japan does have a much larger Population than the UK, Just falling a little short of twice the UK's population. But I do understand the other differences structurally and economically pointed out in the video.

Great video !