MP Joins High Speed One for Preview JourneySouth Thanet MP, Stephen Ladyman, was on board High Speed One for its first preview journey from St Pancras to Ashford today. The new Hitachi built train, operated by Southeastern railway did the journey in just 28minutes!"Its a fantastic train" said Dr.Ladyman."I can't wait for December when it starts running from Ramsgate. I hope people who have the chance will try it out"Southeastern is starting a partial 'preview' service for the public from Ashford and Ebbsfleet to London while it gears up to the start of the full Kent Integrated High Speed Service in December.
The peak time service in December will take less than 80minutes from Ramsgate to London compared with 129 minutes now.
"80 minutes to St Pancras will be great, and it will be 7 minutes quicker than that into Stratford for people who work in the City or West London can change to the DLR or Jubilee Lines. But I believe that with some modest investments to the line between Ramsgate and Ashford or perhaps some more tweaks to the timetable that they can get even that journey time down a bit. Today my journey to Ashford was 28 minutes and then on the ordinary slow train it was 40minutes from Ashford to Ramsgate, so that totals just 1hr 8minutes and I'm pressing to see the new service doing that time."Gwyn Prosser MP and Stephen Ladyman MP were onboard the 'stakeholder' preview journey but no Conservative MPs were on board. Stephen said:"I suspect they are embarrassed. The Conservative Government made it clear that they had no intention of investing in a domestic service to use the high speed line. Without a Labour Government we would never have had this golden opportunity for Kent. It could transform the economies of Dover and Thanet, the start of the new service can't come soon enough."
Does he remember 'NET Rail' ?
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