Bullet train beach trips

Designs for the £10 million bullet train have been put forward as an alternative rapid transport system for the city.

The Brighton Monorail and Tram Company has told Brighton and Hove City Council it has the finances in place to build and complete the scheme within two years.

Details of the scheme were spelled out to city councillors yesterday.

The Bullet would link the Palace Pier, which has five million visitors a year, with Brighton Marina which has 3.5 million visitors.

It would run alongside Madeira Drive, parallel to Volk's Railway which would be retained.

Along the way it would call at Black Rock where Brighton International Arena, capable of holding up to 11,000 people is planned, and Peter Pan's Playground where sporting and leisure activities are proposed.

The 1.5-mile line would run at beach level and the train would have two cars which could be extended to three in high season.

The Bullet would travel at 40mph and it could complete the journey in five minutes.

Between 60 and 90 people could travel at a time and there would be no drivers because the train would be fully automated.

There would be no electric live rail, so backers say the scheme is safe.

Each stop would also have access to the beach under the rail.

Passengers would be charged about £2 single, £3 return, with concession fares and half-price child fares.

The company hopes the train would run every day of the year, normally from 7am until 2am, and would carry an estimated 1.6 million people annually.

Councillors have been examining ways to improve links between Brighton Marina and the rest of the city for several years.

They hope a rapid transport system between the main attractions would encourage more people to use public transport, cutting pollution and taking cars off the congested roads.

But the city council favours buses and unveiled its own multi-million-pound transport plans last January.

Key to the proposals is a seafront bus lane linking the marina to Black Rock and the Palace Pier, which could later be extended to the King Alfred site in Hove and the city's two main railway stations.

The bus corridor would cost about £1.1 million a kilometre to build and the running costs would be £700,000 a year. Average speed would be about 20mph.

Plans also include a 1,000-space park-and-ride scheme, costing £2 million to build and £1 million a year to run.

Senior councillors have cast doubt on the financial viability of monorail or tram-based schemes.

Operators of tram systems in areas such as Croydon, which opened its tram system in 2000, have experienced financial difficulties and been forced to cut services.

The council is in a hurry to finalise a scheme because it has to submit a bid to the Government this month for cash to back rapid transport.

It has opted for fast buses offering a frequent service along the seafront and linking to Brighton Station.

A council spokeswoman said: "We are working on a bus-based system because it is cheaper, more versatile and can be put in with minimal disruption.

"It also means that should a monorail be developed in later years, the system could be modified easily to incorporate it.

"If they can come up with a scheme that has full financial backing I am sure we will look at it carefully."

David Courtney, the music impresario who is behind the Bullet, said finance was already in place.

He would like part of the scheme to be financed by the people of Brighton and Hove taking shares in the system but insisted the money was there apart from that.

Mr Courtney first mooted the idea of a Brighton monorail in March 2001.

Parkridge Developments, owners of the commercial side of Brighton Marina, agreed to pay for an initial feasibility study for the project.

In May 2002, his firm signed a joint venture agreement with Ambersham Holdings and its subsidiary Carr West, which developed a similar project in Portsmouth.

If successful, Mr Courtney's project would not be the most unusual seafront transport scheme Brighton has witnessed.

In the last years of Queen Victoria's reign, a quirky form of transport nicknamed Daddy Long Legs ran three miles along the beach from the Banjo Groyne in Kemp Town to Rottingdean.

The Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Railway opened in 1896 and ran on rails that were covered by the sea at high tide.

A 36-ton car called the Pioneer, on four long legs, carried passengers at a stately pace above the waves but a storm later that year damaged the line and the service was scrapped in 1900.

Mr Courtney said: "If Magnus Volk were alive today, he would be the one proposing a monorail system.

"This will be the first public transport monorail in the UK alongside the world's oldest working electric railway."

He said it would bolt the marina on to the city centre and discourage the use of private cars.

The Bullet would produce little noise and would be electrically driven, which lessens pollution. Trains could not collide with any other traffic and in other parts of the world have an excellent safety record.

Mr Courtney hopes the Bullet would be linked to Brighton Station initially by a shuttle bus.

But in the long term he would like to see it reach the station via Old Steine and Marlborough Place, approaching from the eastern side.

It could also link to any park and ride scheme north of Brighton.

If councillors gave the go-ahead to the project now, a planning proposal could be submitted within a year and the system could be up and running by the autumn of 2006, in time to serve major new developments both at the marina and at Black Rock.

Stations are planned both at the marina and close to the Palace Pier. The rolling stock would be provided by monorail experts Metrail/Frazer-Nash.

The monorail company was set up three years ago and has backing from many local organisations, including Parkridge Developments at the marina.

Millionaire boxer Chris Eubank has also backed the project., saying: "We have a duty to make travel from one part of Brighton to the other a far more economic, less time-consuming and fun way of getting to and fro."