Rail Express Magazine 286 - March 2020 Back Issue

SO February 11 brought the news the rail industry has long been waiting for, as the Government gave the go-ahead to the full HS2 scheme from Euston to Birmingham and on to Manchester and Leeds.

Plans were first announced more than 10 years ago (see Time Traveller, page 31), but – a bit like the Brexit issue – it divided opinion along non-party lines, with supporters and opponents on both the left and right of the political spectrum. Now though – and again like Brexit – whichever side you were on before, a decision has been made and everyone can focus on making the best of it.

The impact of HS2 on our railways cannot be overstated. The timescales mean there will be up to 20 years of major construction, helping to keep the freight firms busy (and hopefully a number of heritage locos too!).

Then when passenger services begin, first to Birmingham by the end of this decade and the Northern cities in the late 2030s, it will add significant capacity to the wider network. With inter-city travel to the north focused on HS2, paths will be freed up on conventional lines for additional local
and regional passenger trains, as well as more freight. The benefits go beyond rail too, as the more that can be carried by train means less has to go by road. And building a railway has a much lower impact on the environment than building a new motorway, which would have been the only realistic alternative given that we are not going to stop travelling anytime soon and the rail network is already at capacity in many places.

Building the line will remain controversial, as critics point out the high estimated costs (taking worse case scenarios) and say ‘look what happened to Crossrail’, which is late and overbudget. But HS2 will be the biggest construction project in Europe for years and, once complete, will be something we can be proud of, bringing many benefits for the country as a whole.