A week or so ago, we had the announcement from network rail that they believed a new high speed rail link should be built linking London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Giving planning enquiries, submissions, objections and construction, it might appear before I fade into oblivion. Look how long it took to construct the high speed link from the Channel tunnel to St Pancras International in London and that is only about 60 miles.

So I was a little surprised to learn that a contract has been let to link New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport to the main railway station in the middle of New Delhi. It is only 45 kilometres long so it should take decades but maybe a couple of years would do it.

No, it has to be completed in 5 months. It has to be ready for when the Commonwealth Games open in February 2010. There will be 6 stations and trains will travel at about 160km per hour. Given our governments desire for more high speed trains maybe our transport minister, Lord Adonis, should appoint Patil Rail to this country and tell them to get on with it. And we’d like it all done by the 2012 Olympics please.