The Shinkansen station at Kobe is on the edge of the city, but is integrated into the local public transport system.
Shin-Kobe station is a different thing altogether. It's not a terminal station, so there are benefits in having the train avoid the city centre, allowing it to run at high speed for a longer period of time and maintaining a good end-end journey time whilst still serving Kobe. By contrast, a high speed Glasgow-Edinburgh railway is going to be using a terminal station at both ends regardless of where that terminal is.
Shin-Kobe is not a station I'm overly familiar with, but it seems to be a good idea for what its trying to achieve. However, a telling quote on the wikipedia page demonstrates that it's not a perfect solution. "Many Shinkansen passengers from central Kobe, however, use Shin-Ōsaka Station to the east instead of the closer Shin-Kobe Station, because Shin-Ōsaka Station is easily accessible by JR Kobe Line and more trains leave at Shin-Ōsaka for Tokyo, the capital of the country."
Bristol Parkway station is not in Somerset/Avon, nor within the city of Bristol. it is actually in Stoke Gifford, which is in Gloucestershire. It provides an interchange between the Midland Railway and Great Western Railway destinations.
True. But it runs to London Paddington, Reading and Cardiff Central, to name but three major stations served. It doesn't run to "somewhere near London", "somewhere near Reading" and "somewhere near Cardiff". Of course, there will be lots of onward journeys via public transport at these stations, but it's taking people to the city centre in all cases. And besides, Bristol Parkway hasn't replaced the Temple Meads, which is the station that you'd most likely choose for travelling London to Bristol.
Parkway stations have their role. Serving a city centre is not their role. Your plan links two parkway stations, probably with no intermediate stops. I cannot see that being viable.
The reason why the Glasgow and Edinburgh HS stations in my view should be constructed in the vicinity of Bellgrove and with your suggestion of Ingliston which I take on board, is to provide integration with local public transport systems. By having a dedicated HS station, it would allow an increase in capacity for regional and local services owing to the geological conditions of both cities.
...But a City Centre station would still be integrated into local transport. In fact, it'd be better integrated into local transport than would a station out in Bellgrove. In both Edinburgh and Glasgow, you'd have significantly better public transport links to the city centre stations. This is particularly true for Bellgrove, where users of the North Clyde Line are already benefitting from a direct link to Edinburgh.
On a final point regarding the phrase "nobody wants to go", I've never bought into that at all, as we all start and finish our journeys on public transport by being a pedestrian. Also, every year in the centre of Glasgow, I most certainly do not want to be there in the centre on the Saturday before the 12th July due to the various troublemakers that crawl out of the woodwork.
I don't like going to Glasgow on those days either. Indeed, I usually exile myself at that time. But I'm not sure what this has to do with high speed rail linking Bellgrove to a car park near Edinburgh Airport - and yes, it sounds insane but that's what you're proposing!
Parkway stations work by attracting people to an out-of-town station which then takes them to where they want to go. Neither Bellgrove nor Newbridge/Ingleston is where people want to go. The rail option is much less attractive when you've got a significant local journey at both ends, which the vast majority of people would have.
The reality is that, with this proposal, the trains are not going to be attractive to anyone. Your journey time city centre-city centre is quicker via Queen Street and Falkirk to Waverley. It's probably even quicker to go via Shotts or Carstairs. These routes also offer better transport connections to just about everywhere in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The local transport at each end of your proposed route is so slow that even people boarding at Edinburgh Park would probably be just as well off catching a train via Airdrie and Bathgate. Please remember that Glasgow and Edinburgh are just 50 miles apart; it is not a huge distance. To be honest, if the 37 minutes promised by EGIP are delivered, I think that's an acceptable end-end journey time.
I cannot see who this would appeal to. There are already much better transport options for just about every journey I can think of that would use this service. This would be a criminal waste of money if it went ahead. It is a poorly thought out plan.
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OA minimal scheme could run with just a single city centre station at Glasgow Central and something like 3 miles of tunnel from Cowlairs to Shields Road. That would probably come in at the bottom of that £1.3 - £3bn sort of range.
If it were me though I'd go for a more ambitious scheme with 7 miles of tunnel from Hillington - Springburn and 5 intermediate stations:
South Glasgow University Hospital
Govan (change for Subway)
Clydeside (for SECC & Digital Media Quarter)
Glasgow Central
High Street or Cathedral
That would be more like £4bn on my very rough cost estimates but given some of the proposed station sites are fairly open locations you could probably save a fair bit of money to get it down towards £3bn.
It's a big scheme but something of this nature is probably needed to address Glasgow's transport needs long term. Better to spend £3bn on that than £1bn on patch and mend.
THIS is the kind of Crossrail I can get onboard with. It's expensive, but it works. It delivers everything Glasgow Crossrail hopes to do, whilst also being sensitive to existing travel demands and providing little to no inconvenience to existing journeys. North Clyde services could potentially be diverted to this new line, with the pre-proposed Crossrail also happening to divert some south side services into Queen Street Low Level.
I think you could argue for having a City Centre station at Buchanan Street with an underground travelator link between the three stations (Central, Buchanan Street, including Subway, Queen Street). This may sound like fantasy, but they are close together, and much longer links exist elsewhere in the world (I'm thinking Times Square 42nd Street in New York, and even at Heathrow Terminal 123 stations). I'd also suggest free travel on the Fastlink bus as an option for those less able to walk this distance.
So, you'd have interchanges at Crossmyloof/other South Side station (as described above, to maintain links to Central), ? at Glasgow Cross to the Argyle Line, High Street (North Clyde-Existing Crossrail Proposal), Buchanan Street (to City Centre Stations and Buchanan Street Subway), Govan (to Subway) and Paisley (to the West Coast).
Maybe we're getting just a bit carried away here, but I think these plans have legs. Now, we just all need to win Euromillions.
