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Sure, you could fix this by completely revamping the current network - extending station platforms, replacing bridges and tunnels, lengthening trains, replacing signalling and other infrastructure. But it would take years and years and years of disruption to rail users, cost a fortune and - given the UK's track record for upgrade projects - possibly not even work properly at the end of it.
It could be done. The CFF/SBB upgraded the Simplon line to take double-decker trains to increase capacity. It was a massive job, including increasing the height of the 489m long tunnel at St Maurice, increasing the height of the Simplon tunnel by lowering the rail bed, and raising various bridges, including the one at Vevey. Took 10 years or so, but the disruption was minimal, and the works on the St Maurice tunnel came in 11% under budget and ahead of schedule. I do sometimes wonder whether, if the government is going to out-source the running of the UK's rail network, they wouldn't be better off just sub-contracting the entire thing to the SBB/CFF and letting them get on with it.
Brommers-
It could be done. The CFF/SBB upgraded the Simplon line to take double-decker trains to increase capacity. It was a massive job, including increasing the height of the 489m long tunnel at St Maurice, increasing the height of the Simplon tunnel by lowering the rail bed, and raising various bridges, including the one at Vevey. Took 10 years or so, but the disruption was minimal, and the works on the St Maurice tunnel came in 11% under budget and ahead of schedule. I do sometimes wonder whether, if the government is going to out-source the running of the UK's rail network, they wouldn't be better off just sub-contracting the entire thing to the SBB/CFF and letting them get on with it.
One of the articles I read said that £26Bn of the cost of HS2 was due to the lack of major UK rail infra projects - we'd lost the people who knew how to do things, and had to hire them and/or train them, that state capacity had simply disappeared as people retired and were not replaced.
Continental countries have, in the main, a huge institutional knowledge base to work with embodied in the people who work on these projects.
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That's just about the only way I could see it happening. The track record (no pun intended) of the Swiss rail system is very different to the UK, although is it really as great as everyone says? Because the Swiss seem to constantly add FFS to SBB CFF which I can only presume is an expression of their frustration at the poor service.
Dammit
Fox
This really isn't true. HS2 is quite different to grand rail projets on the continent (which largely compete with/are designed to take business from airlines) in that one of the main reasons for building it is to create capacity for more local services by moving long distance services onto the new line. See:
https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/89694/hs2-capacity-britains-existing-rail/
But also:
https://www.railtech.com/infrastructure/2020/07/21/hs2-will-unlock-capacity-of-three-mainlines-in-uk/
https://www.railengineer.co.uk/the-capacity-benefits-of-hs2/
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2019/10/02/more-evidence-that-hs2-is-more-about-capacity-than-speed/
The UK has a huge capacity problem and it sure ain't a myth. We have a railway network which is - unlike just about all other countries, because we invented it - fundamentally Victorian. Because of this the carriages have to be narrower, stations have shorter platforms (unless they've been extended), infrastructure is very outdated. We also spent years not spending any money on maintaining it. And so on. And on top of this there has been huge passenger growth in recent years without any significant capacity growth.
Sure, you could fix this by completely revamping the current network - extending station platforms, replacing bridges and tunnels, lengthening trains, replacing signalling and other infrastructure. But it would take years and years and years of disruption to rail users, cost a fortune and - given the UK's track record for upgrade projects - possibly not even work properly at the end of it.
In short: it would be completely unworkable.