Slowcoaches …

Speeding up Edinburghlondon rail journeys to four hours has been delayed because upgrading of the East Coast main line has not been completed.

From the God-given data retrieval system in my head, the Mallard was doing the journey in around 4 hours 20 (give or take a wee tolerance) around 60 years ago, was it not? The HS projects are just a vanity in a country as small as ours anyway.

Henry Hood Interesting reason for the day: “increasing the power capacity to meet the demands of the faster accelerating trains”. Basic Newtonian physics clearly not understood by the politicians and bureaucrats who approved these changes. Second question: where is this extra electricity to be supplied from?

Oldyun Like others in the A4 class, there was a problem with overheating in the big end bearing for the middle cylinder on the Mallard, meaning that it couldn’t run flat-out indefinitely. In practice the A4s could only run comfortably at 80mph for just over an hour.

Lux (Not Ron) Simples... Numeric Derek has it all worked out! Every train will have a windmill on each carriage.

Localnumberfife Pointless when passport checks at Berwick will take an hour. FREEDOM! upholstery and suburban train doors like the old Glasgow blue trains. Now we find that these efficient trains draw more power than existing ones so need upgrades.

Alex Moir

As HS2 may well be abandoned, how about just making sure trains run on time?

rabigyin Scrap HS2 and sort out the rubbish existing lines!

Jackie Irvine