Next stop Perth?

I was interested to hear Simon Calder declaring the new Eurostar high speed line to be an irrelevance – unless you happen to live in the south east of England. He suggested that the money would have been better spent on a high speed line to Manchester. It was he who also suggested last week that short haul flying will ultimately be seen as an aberration of the 20th century. But looking at the historic under-investment in the railways, the cost of the fares and the dreadful train service between Perth and Edinburgh, it’s hard to see how it will be possible to give up flying.