Now Network Rail belatedly looks like advocating building five new TGV-style high speed rail links, to deal with the lack of capacity on the rail network.

This illustrates the maddening inability of the UK government to make a serious effort at economic planning. According the Telegraph:

“Network Rail chiefs say the case for expanding the railways has been bolstered by the need to cut dependency on oil and environmental demands to reduce domestic air travel.”

Good grief! Exactly how many transport experts would not have said that over the last 20 years (perhaps substituting road traffic for planes as the major climate criminal)?

What the Network Rail chiefs mean is that the political case for new lines has been made by the political and economic damage caused by high oil prices and concern over global warming. And the less high profile case for bolstering local trains is still not being made as loudly as it should.

Infrastructure takes a along time to get agreed, funded and finally built. So Network Rail’s report, when it comes out, might be some help for travellers in 2025.

In the meantime, though, high oil prices will make building new rail lines economically more difficult even though their need is more clearly seen. Which brings us back to the need to do the serious work when you can, in the good times before problems emerge.

As global warming and oil prices create more difficult choices, it seems to me that it is even more urgent for the Green Party to be making the case, in councils, regional and national government, to invest in the ways out, like renewable energy and public transport.

The voices of ‘economic rationalism’ are likely to soon be saying the opposite, especially in the Tory Party, on the grounds of ‘balancing the books’ as tax receipts fall. They will be wrong, and we need to say so very clearly now.