In France the equivalent of London to Glasgow takes two hours by train. E.g Paris-Bordeaux Edit: and the fare is about €70 if you don’t book in advance. Pretty favourable compared to the current walk up fare to Glasgow.

Cost is a different issue - I'd be very surprised if the subsidy profile of planes vs. trains vs. motoring stays the same over the coming decade.

Unless you live airside at Heathrow and your destination is the Edinburgh duty free shop, I sincerely doubt your journey will take 1.5 hours total. More realistic timings allowing for 30mins travel either end and arriving an hour early for your flight bring it up to 3.5h - the fastest current London-Edinburgh expresses are just over 4 hours.

At those timings, high speed rail starts to look quite attractive, considering it's much easier to work and relax on a train and you don't have to waste time shuffling through the airport and waiting in queues.

I used to fly regularly from Manchester (Near Altrincham) to London (Near Hammersmith)

  t+0 leave office
  t+45 arrive Heathrow
  t+90 wheels up
  t+145 wheels down
  t+150 in taxi
  t+160 home

Compare to

  t+0 leave office
  t+45 arrive Euston
  t+60 train departs
  t+170 arrive Wilmslow
  t+175 in taxi
  t+195 home

On the way down it was even quicker by plane

  t+0 leave home
  t+7 arrive manchester
  t+10 arrive gate
  t+25 wheels up
  t+85 wheels down
  t+145 arrive office

If it took you 15 minutes from the plane hitting the ground in Manchester to get to your house, I think that says more that you live really near to (or next to? inside?) Manchester airport. And 10 minutes between leaving your front door to arriving at the gate!?

That's either a slight exaggeration or an impressive feat

Takes about 2-3 minutes to taxi to the gate at T3, I usually chose 1C so was first off the plane. Takes 60-90 seconds to get from the gate past baggage collection (obviously hand luggage only) depending on the exact gate.

Having ordered Uber during the taxi, it was already waiting for me, so in within 2 minutes of getting off the gate. 5-7 minute drive to home in Hale Barns.

Best I did was 93 seconds from leaving taxi to gate 141, rare to take longer then 5 minutes. Once the taxi didn't arrive and I had to hail one, got in 10 minutes before scheduled departure time and was sat on the plane (in 1C) before scheduled departure time.

BA have changed since then (there's now a business class section so you don't get to choose 1C), and Manchester Airport is very hostile to people arriving/departing via taxi so I suspect it would take 5 minutes longer now.

What sort of airport is this that you can be in the air 18 minutes after arriving at the airport? Is this some tiny little airfield somewhere running tiny cesnas or something?

At most major airports it takes 5-10 minutes just to get out of the duty free shop after security! Even in priority lanes I've never got through security at a big airport quicker than 5 minutes - there is always a line of people ahead.

I know some people who have the "special" invite-only etc airline status where someone physically whizzes you through everything in a few minutes and out into a waiting car to take you directly to the gate etc, but that is hardly representative of the sort of person who might benefit from taking HS2

Manchester airport t3, no duty free after security, priority security so no queues, 10 minute gate closing.

This nothing like a typical journey. I live in birmingham, it takes 15 to get on a train but 》1h to get to the airport gate