A new high-speed rail line carrying double deck trains at 190mph between London and Birmingham could reduce the journey time to 45 minutes and allow direct services between the West Midlands and Paris, according to Greengauge 21, a group of rail industry leaders.

The new line, estimated to cost around £11bn, would connect with the Channel Tunnel Rail link just north of St Pancras station in London.

Passengers from Birmingham could catch Eurostar trains that bypass Central London and arrive in Paris in three hours or Brussels in two hours and 45 minutes.

The line could eventually be extended all the way to Manchester but, to reduce early costs, would initially connect with the existing line about 20 miles north of Birmingham.

Even with part of the journey limited to 125mph on the existing line, the journey time between London and Manchester would fall from two hours and 10 minutes to just 90 minutes.
Jim Steer, director of Greengauge 21 and former head of strategy at the Strategic Rail Authority, said the line would eliminate the need to continue the 30 flights a day between Heathrow and Manchester. The line, which would take up to 15 years to plan and build, would be designed to take double-deck trains like those on French high-speed lines. It would have a capacity of 16,000 seats an hour between London and Birmingham and a large proportion of the passengers would previously have driven between the two cities.