Hampton Court Station - Past (1912) and Present

The Station in 1912

I love Hampton Court Station - I must do, I live up the road from it. Opened in 1849, it was designed by William Tite in a style to match the royal palace it served. Nowadays though, I just wish someone would just do it up! No railway of the past would have allowed such wonderful architecture to fall into such disrepair.

The station a few years back.

The Genesis of High Speed 2

With High Speed 2 being given the going ahead, I thought I would see if I could find when the policy started to germinate within government. After a bit of digging, I found a BBC report from 13 December 2005 that detailed a study by the Institute of Civil Engineers named "The Missing Link." This advocated a high speed line between London and Scotland with trains travelling at speeds of up to 215 miles per hour. While The Independent reported in December 2006 that hopes for such a line were dashed after a report by the former Chief Executive of British Airways, Sir Rod Eddington, clearly the idea remained floating around in government.