A HIGH-SPEED rail system linking Northern city regions with London could be built in time for the Olympics in 2012, it was claimed last night.

The magnetic levitating train - or maglev - would travel at 311mph (500km) an hour and reduce journey times from Newcastle to London to just over an hour-and-a-half.

Project managers UK Ultraspeed (UKU) said the North-East would be the ideal place to build the first piece of track, linking the Tees and Tyne regions with just ten minutes' journey time.

It hopes the groundbreaking scheme would improve the North-East's economy and bring the district back into the cradle of the national rail network.

It would make the North-East as accessible to Heathrow Airport as London's Canary Wharf is today.

Dr Alan James, UK Ultraspeed's project leader, told delegates at the economic forum that if the system goes ahead, the region could trailblaze in front of other economies - just as it did with the opening of the Stockton-Darlington railway two centuries ago.

The Transrapid system is already operational in the Shanghai area of China, where the government implemented it in just 22 months from first setting eyes on the technology in Germany.

Dr James said: "Britain has an urgent need to transform our strategic transport.

"Ultraspeed's radical transformation of infrastructure could also 'rebalance' Britain, by making the regional economies of the English North and metropolitan Scotland more accessible to, and competitive in, the global economy.

"The project is designed to make the North-South divide a thing of the past."

Dr James said Middlesbrough's Middlehaven development could be the new Canary Wharf, as it would be almost as close in journey time as Canary Wharf currently is to Heathrow.

He told The Northern Echo: "Initial preparation could take four to five years, but if we move quickly we could have the link in place by 2012."

UK Ultraspeed said it could theoretically go ahead and build the link without public backing, but it wanted the support of the region's public sector so it could plan for the best economic benefits.

It is already in talks with One NorthEast and has presented the case to Prime Minister Tony Blair, who included a high-speed transport link between North and South in Labour's 2005 manifesto.

Most of the track will be built on brownfield land or disused rail tracks, and will run through Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Teesside, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and down to London. It will also run through several major airports.

Newcastle to Leeds would be just 25 minutes, to Liverpool 60 minutes and 100 minutes to London Heathrow. From Teesside, London would be 85 minutes away.