The Northern Way report envisages not only a west-east Northern Crossrail but also a connection to Yorkshire from London that travels via the east of England and the East Midlands.

The economic benefits would be £3.5bn for the North, £3.5bn for Greater London and £3bn for the rest of the country, said the group which includes three northern regional development agencies.

Professor David Begg, chairman of the Northern Way's transport compact, said: "These wider economic benefits come about through reducing travel times in city-to-city and business-to-business access.

"They appear not to have been taken into account in the (Government's) rail White Paper and are additional to those previously calculated for high-speed rail."

Northern Way wants to see a western line from London to the North West with connections to Heathrow and the West Midlands; an eastern high-speed rail line running from London via the east of England and East Midlands to Yorkshire, the North East and on to Scotland; and a trans-Pennine link.

Prof Begg, a former chairman of the Government advisory body the Commission for Integrated Transport, said: "The importance of a new high-speed trans-Pennine link in addition to a line on each side of the country is very clear.

"There are very worthwhile benefits for the North East and Yorkshire from a high-speed line on the east side of the country and for the North West from a high-speed line on the west side."

He added: "But a trans-Pennine link adds more than 40% to the wider economic benefits that we have identified for the North.

"What a trans-Pennine link adds is better region-to-region and better city-to-city connectivity within the North, as well as better connections from the North East to the West Midlands and from the North West to the east side of the country. A trans-Pennine link would help create a new economic geography for the North of England and the country as a whole."

The full story appears in Wednesday's Yorkshire Post