Crossrail is just another addition the the London commuter system. I'd much rather see high-speed rail across the country. The wikipedia page lists the following metropolitan areas of more than 1M inhabitants: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham, Tyne-Wear. And they're all within 352 miles/566 km of each other (the distance between London and Glasgow), which would give a travel time of 100 minutes (!) according to DoDo's rule of thumb (25mi in 10 minutes at either end and the rest at 220mph).

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

The EU has defined strategic corridors, and earmarked fixed percent support for projects in those corridors, but indeed it doesn't seem enough.

It's taken nearly 25 years to get CTRL I+II built.

After Maggie Thatcher's insistence on a private-financed project (wqhich the Major government at least turned into a PPP scheme). I submit that if a new high-speed line would be built in the West Coast corridor, there would be a lot of protests, but I would bet it would cause delays of significantly less than 25 years. (Also, with the use of some tunnels, maybe the bulk of potential protests could be avoided.)

The Tories are raring to go, and even talking about Maglev.

Heh, I missed that :-) My personal opinion is that when non-German politicians talk about Maglev, they aren't really serious (and the German ones only want it as prestige).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

After putting the (top of the) list of largest metropolitan areas on a map, and finding the distances and estimated travel times, this bit takes on a whole new meaning:

One problem for the UK is population density. The technology is straightforward enough - providing it's not Maglev - but the local politics are extremely complicated. You can be sure that whatever route is chosen there will be protests, court actions, and other legal issues which will create huge delays.

I suspect other parts of Europe may have similar issues.

The 10 largest metropolitan areas in Europe form a connected network except for Moscow and Istanbul. However, the list of metropolitan areas largest than 2M people includes Kiev, Bucharest and Krakow, and that is enough to connect the whole network.

Now, the issue of right of way is important. Basically, the 3h leg limit corresponds to roughly 900km, and it's hard to find 900 km in Europe without a largish city in the middle that will demand that the HST stop in them. Many European Countries are not even 900km across, so one could even find a national capital in between two nearest neighbours of the network.

Many Spanish regional governments insisted that the AVE had to go through some of their provincial capitals in order to collaborate with the Madrid-Valencia, Madrid-Sevilla or Madrid-Barcelona lines. In building a pan-European network, the national and regional governments would probably bargain similarly.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

In that case,

Has connection:

1. Paris 10.1M
   
2. Madrid 5.56M
   
3. Berlin 3.68M
   
4. Naples 2.91M
   
5. Cologne-Bonn 2.48M
   
6. Brussels 1.98M

Will have direct connection with some certainty:

1. London 8.51M
   
2. Barcelona 5.08M
   
3. Milan 4.28M
   
4. Rotterdam-The Hague 3.35M (By the end of the year)
   
5. Lisbon 2.76M
   
6. Hamburg 2.29M
   
7. Vienna 2.17M (Well, for 250 km/h)
   
8. Porto 1.80M
   
9. Munich 1.66M

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}