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Gordon Brown, transport secretary Lord Adonis and Olympic gold medal winner Dame Kelly Holmes helped launch the UK^s first domestic high-speed rail service today at London St Pancras station.

High Speed 1 now allows passengers to travel between Ashford and London in just 37 minutes (previously 83 minutes) and from London to Canterbury in 59 minutes, a huge reduction from the previous 102 minutes.

Kelly Holmes who travelled on the one of the first trains, described the journey as ^really smooth^ and said ^It^s a great honour that SouthEastern has named a train after me^ before adding ^and to be 001, I have to say, is even better!^

Gordon Brown told the waiting press ^I hope this will be a blueprint for high-speed rail travel in the UK. Today^s event is a great example of the investment we need. Trains on time, trains of high standard and trains able to go faster.^

Lord Adonis said ^It is inconceivable that a generation from now that work will not have started on a north-south high-speed line.^

In 2012 HS 1 will speed passengers from London to the Olympic village at Stratford in just 7 minutes.

It only benefits the rich.

Also the ticket barriers at St Pancras, both on the tube exit and on the South Eastern platforms, haven't quite worked out that St Pancras is now a legitimate route to travel to Canterbury, though I was told that 'this is being looked into'!

They keep saying that x minutes will be cut off the journey, but how about the y minutes added on to allow for a Tube journey from St Pancras?

And how will people afford it, esp during the credit crunch!

As I have said all along - and what is backed up by the comments - many people are being disadvantaged by this new timetable as services are being cut and slowed down. It only benefits the rich.

I'm sure if they are not all needed in Kent then a few could be transferred to the East Coast or West Coast and enable a useful cascade to begin. eg, How many units would be needed to replace the Birmingham to Scotland Voyagers? Would need a bit of a reconfiguration internally though.

...........the service hasn't been reduced, as no trains have been cancelled. Putting on a single 6 car unit instead of two is a capacity change, but it isn't actually a service reduction...............

Paul

The Javelin service from Kent to London, which started last year, was described by its operator, Southeastern Trains, as "one of the most significant milestones in the history of Britain's railways". The then transport secretary, Lord Adonis, said it would "transform the journeys of large numbers of rail passengers".

That, at least, is true. At a cost ^ to them, and to the public purse ^ of billions of pounds, large numbers of rail passengers in Kent have seen their service transformed into the worst they have ever known. One local MP says that the service on his route is the slowest it has been since 1927. People's fury has been manifest in demonstrations, petitions, Commons debates, and an unprecedented "rail summit" by the county council ^ whose Cabinet member for transport, Nick Chard, says Kent's rail service needs to be "put back on track".

Fares on the new service are between 10 and 80 per cent higher than on the old one. From some of the stations they serve, the "high-speed" Javelins are actually slower than the previous trains. And even where they are faster, they bring Kent commuters to places they do not want to go.

The vast majority of people there work in the City or West End. The old trains went to Victoria, Cannon Street or Charing Cross ^ on the doorstep. The high-speed line goes to St Pancras, requiring tedious transfers by Tube or bus.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, just 15 per cent of commuters from north Kent and the Thanet coast have switched to the new service, according to the watchdog Passenger Focus. Even in the rush hour, some of the high-speed trains on this route run more than half-empty. The brave new world has been such a flop that Southeastern has been forced to cut the number of coaches on each train by half.

So, in a desperate attempt to drive people on to its white elephant, Southeastern has sabotaged the trains that passengers actually use. The fastest off-peak service on the "old" line from Ashford to London used to take exactly an hour. At one stage, it was non-stop. It now takes an hour and 20 minutes, and stops seven times.

Some other Kentish stations have seen their peak services on the "old" lines cut by as much as 60 per cent. And every passenger on the existing service has had their fares raised above inflation to pay for the high-speed train, even if they live nowhere near it.