I’m watching BBC News 24’s coverage of the inaugural journey of the Eurostar along the high speed line to St Pancras – and I’m more excited than I really ought to be. We had vague plans to use the new service to Brussels later this year, but I suspect that will have to be put back til next year.

It is a bit of a national embarrassment that the only high speed rail in this country runs from London to the Channel Tunnel. I remember reading, but can’t now source, a factoid along the lines of 5,000kms of high speed track have been built in continental Europe in the time it’s taken us to get around 150kms from London to Dover. So, I’m very glad to hear that there are Lib Dem proposals to build more high speed track in this country, and look forward to hearing more about it.

UPDATE: Just heard on the hourly news they plan to drop the Bxl service.  That’s disappointing – don’t really want to go back to Paris right now, but haven’t been to Brussels since 2001.