I was just using the route from Ashford to Hastings as an example, but yes I am aware of the rebuild work that would be required at Ashford to make it work. But as someone put in another thread, this is the Speculation area!
long story short, there isn’t a need for high speed bi-modes in Kent.
Generally, speculation threads have some acknowledgment of the real world, not accepting the lack of proven demand for through services from Hastings onto HS1, the very high cost of infrastructure to accommodate them at Ashford and the fact that electrification could prove cheaper than a bi-mode solution anyway seems to take this thread from 'speculation' into fantasy worlds.
Fair comment. But sometimes ideas that maybe from fantasy worlds do become reality. An example of this would be reading the many stories of many engineers that worked for BR back in the 1960s & 1970s, that felt that having tilting trains with passengers on was a dream from cuckoo land. How many trains within Europe that can tilt when on curves have come from the developments of the APT?
Tilting trains were developed in order to raise the average speed of train journeys, with the intention being that tilt would be less expensive that slewing curves. Therefore has absolutely no relevance to the discussion about Ashford-Hastings. Hitachi doesn't offer tilting trains in the UK anyway.
The relevance is, that there was many in BR at the time that said that tilting trains would never work. If there is one thing that I have learned in life, never totally write something off from happening.
Nobody's said the Ashford couldn't physically be rebuilt, just that the costs will never be justified by the benefits. That's very different from genuine doubt about the technical viability of producing a tilting train at 125-140mph.