Ideally you would want to do this all over Europe.
Ideally you would want to do this all over Europe.
I think bridge heights are the bigger problem here
At almost every election before this version of Labour got in, the Tories would promise all sorts of rail projects then immediately cancel them after the election.
One project was a goods "spine" (all projects were "spines" at this point), that invovled improving the loading guage from Southampton upwards.
For routes where this happened I don't see why we couldn't upgrade the stations to a bigger loading guage and have double decker trains.
I've noticed all the bridges we get on stations these days are much higher.
I don't know if detailed guage maps exist - it would be interesting to know how many bridges and tunnels stand in the way of reguaging on various routes.
Sounds like a classic case of "let's not make a future upgrade impossible". The material cost itself is only a small part of the total, so making the new bridges slightly higher is a rounding error in your budget. However, you're saving many millions if there were ever a full-line upgrade in the future, as you no longer need to do a full bridge replacement during that upgrade.
As long as there is even the vaguest plan of an upgrade at some point in the future it makes sense to adhere to the new standard, just in case. It's the no-regret option.