HS2 could cost up to £102.7bn and trains won't start until at least 2036

[JonathanH]

Also, how much will the reduced speed actually save as a % of total costs? I’d imagine it’s relatively small now given that much of the infrastructure has already been built for 360km/h. What a waste.

About £2.5bn, but the points in favour are easier testing and less risk.

With this sort of money, could we potentially have gotten an extra 2 tracks along the entire WCML and a whole suite of upgrades to that?

That is unlikely. Going alongside the WCML simply isn't feasible in many places. Take a look at Berkhampstead for example. It still involves land purchase and expensive civil engineering because there is not an existing formation to use.

 

[perstreperous]

https://wheredoesitallgo.org/ is an eye-opener (transport is far down the list of spending and HS2 is only one-sixth of transport spending)

 

[BrianW]

How much of the cost over run is due to successive governments not providing enough cash to get the job done smartly? Surely the longer it takes to build the longer you have to keep everyone employed on the job and material costs rise just due to inflation.

Of course each current administration doesn’t want to pay more than it absolutely has to. That would mean maybe short changing their particular special interest groups. So minimum funding continues, costs rise, and rise and the project timeline extends into the long grass… In the meantime the public have no new railway and become mutinous wanting the whole thing cancelled.

Incidentally the government pours ~£5bn per week into the NHS, ~£7 per day per head of population. Yes I know that’s apples and oranges. HS2 started construction in 2020 so if it’s only completed by 2040 then that’s £5bn per year?

Reasons for the current 'state of play' have been well known for some time- the choice of delivery vehicle, gold-plating for highest speed, mismanagement, government meddling, poor cost exstmation and control, etc, etc. These have been referred to in many reports by many a consultant etc etc.

The minister's statement relates to 'going forward'. A number of posters here remark on the long time-scales. For HS2 to operate requires at lease two stations, track and trains and related staff, signalling etc. The M1 opened from Watford to Crick (where's that??) and was gradually extended. It had intermediate junctions. What is the MINIMUM required to open HS2?

What I see no mention of is CASH FLOW. I imagine the Trerasury has set a limit on affordability. How much taxpayers' money can be allocated vs NHS, Police, Potholes etc. Government faces a General Election in three years if not before. What can be featured in a manifesto? Sadly the electorate want to be promised something for nothing. We get what we deserve. I imagine Ernest Marples'successors will be laughing al the way to the bank, and back ...

 

[Peter Wilde]

About £2.5bn, but the points in favour are easier testing and less risk.


That is unlikely. Going alongside the WCML simply isn't feasible in many places. Take a look at Berkhampstead for example. It still involves land purchase and expensive civil engineering because there is not an existing formation to use.

Just wondering, is the last point really valid? If we had instead of starting HS2, put the 2 extra tracks along the length of the WCML, how many deep tunnels would have been needed to avoid disruption at all the places where new tracks could not have been squeezed in on the surface? Given the extraordinary long tunnels on HS2, one could for the same (or less) money have done a lot of shorter ones alongside the WCML where required. Also the “widened WCML” alternative could have been designed for lower speeds and thus had tighter bends and changes of slope.

Much of the cause of the current HS2 mess was the over-optimistic, gold plated, super high speed spec.

 

[Trainman40083]

I often see comments that people think it should have been built from the North. But at the point it was started, the biggest capacity problem was south of Birmingham, where express, semi fast, slow trains mingle with ever increasing freight trains. There were mitigations that could be put in place for Midland Main Line and East Coast Mainline....for now. But even building what they are, there is still capacity constraints between Birmingham and Crewe, and probably around Manchester Piccadilly. I often see figures mentioned, that passenger numbers are rising , say 4% a year. So over say 20 years, serious overcrowding. So you need more capacity. But reading the HS2 report, it seems to suggest more than just a Euston HS2 station.. More a new concourse etc for the whole station.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 May 2026 ==

Just wondering, is the last point really valid? If we had instead of starting HS2, put the 2 extra tracks along the length of the WCML, how many deep tunnels would have been needed to avoid disruption at all the places where new tracks could not have been squeezed in on the surface? Given the extraordinary long tunnels on HS2, one could for the same (or less) money have done a lot of shorter ones alongside the WCML where required. Also the “widened WCML” alternative could have been designed for lower speeds and thus had tighter bends and changes of slope.

Much of the cause of the current HS2 mess was the over-optimistic, gold plated, super high speed spec.

Some of us remember the everlasting chaos when they last attempted to upgrade the West Coast Mainline. Years of rail replacement buses. How much property would have had to be acquired, stations rebuilt? At an early stage, the idea was discounted....

 

[yorkshirerail]

Personally for me this railway would only have been useful if it had been built as originally planned with all the legs to Manchester and Leeds as well. Now it’s just a complete waste of an enormous amount of money and initially unless you want to travel from Old Oak Common to Birmingham it’s not helpful at all

 

[Trainman40083]

Personally for me this railway would only have been useful if it had been built as originally planned with all the legs to Manchester and Leeds as well. Now it’s just a complete waste of an enormous amount of money and initially unless you want to travel from Old Oak Common to Birmingham it’s not helpful at all

I actually think, at some point in the future, they will have to build those two legs. Leeds must be nearly at capacity, Manchester needs more local trains.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This is outrageous. I fail to see how the numbers stack up.

Also, how much will the reduced speed actually save as a % of total costs? I’d imagine it’s relatively small now given that much of the infrastructure has already been built for 360km/h. What a waste.

I feel like HS2 has made some people very rich at everyone else’s expense. We’re looking at ~£1bn per mile of new railway.

Start with the senior management of HS2 the previous CEO was on over 600k pa and he got bonuses most years on top. The senior leads were on 300k+ and there were dozens of them as well. They were then supported by a vast army of consultants from the great and good on huge retainers yet with all that brain power the project got into a mess. And not be outdone DfT own army of expensive consultants providing oversight failed to identify things were falling apart.

Shame we cant resurrect Stephenson and Brunel from the grave to see how they achieved equivalent line lengths in so short a time with horse and men with spades.

 

[Nym]

Just to weigh in on the consultant bashing.

A consultant will deliver what they’re told to. If what they’ve been asked to do is wrong or stupid, even if they tell the customer it will go wrong if they do that, they’ll be told to shut up and deliver what they’re told.

 

[Swedenorer]

And the 95% of the population for whom the project is completely irrelevant will be asking how many transport improvements, that might have made their lives easier. could have been paid for with this really quite astounding amount of money.

 

[43096]

The descision to cancel future phases is looking really rather sensible based on the utter fiasco of stage 1 of HS2.

 

[Falcon1200]

I have always fully supported HS2 and still believe that both East and West northward extensions should be built, eventually... But the delay in getting anything running is just ridiculous. Not to mention the cost overrun too, although a proportion of that is due to inflation.

One particular (expensive) aspect intrigues me, the £100 million pound 'bat tunnel';

HS2: Railway could cost up to £102.7bn and may not open until 2039, transport secretary says

Heidi Alexander told the Commons the railway, estimated in 2011 to cost £32bn, had become "a symbol of this country's decline".

www.bbc.co.uk

During her Commons statement, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander promised the government will be "building no more bat tunnels on HS2".
There was widespread criticism when the then-chairman of the rail line announced £100m would be spent on protecting bats in Buckinghamshire as part of the construction back in November 2024.

Natural England said it had not required HS2 to "adopt this structure", but its role had been to "comment on whether the proposed mitigations will work".

So, who decided that this structure was necessary, and did no-one, up to the top level of HS2 management, and Government question this? And, if HS2 had decided it was not worth the cost and abandoned the idea, would they have faced legal challenges and had to build it anyway, now with legal fees on top of the £100 million?

The whole HS2 fiasco has surely poisoned the well for future high speed rail in the UK, not helped by public ignorance of the scheme, for example in the same BBC New article;

Brian in Cumbria says, "I can’t really believe what I have read. So the public are paying for a high-speed train to only Birmingham which now if it ever runs , it will run half speed?

A reduction from 360km/h to 320km/h is not half speed!

 

[Howardh]

2036!?

Just, unbelievable...

My first thought was, at a grand old age of 67 and a half, I won't be around to see it completed. It's not a flippant remark followed by an !, just something very sobering.

 

[Broucek]

I'm a consultant (not transport or construction)

I work for an extremely large company. We provide work of one sort or another to the majority of major employers in the UK (and globally). About 8 years ago, HS2 wanted us to do something for them. I don't know the exact price (and wouldn't be able to share if I did) but it was almost certainly less than £100k. All major stakeholders were onside. And yet the HS2 procurement team was so awful that we literally could not agree terms (the problem was NOT with price).

It was astonishing to watch. Other big private, public and third sector clients are fine to agree terms (perhaps with some minor adjustments).

It's a minor thing, of course. But at the time, it made me wonder about the effectiveness of the organisation....

 

[Krokodil]

With this sort of money, could we potentially have gotten an extra 2 tracks along the entire WCML and a whole suite of upgrades to that?

In short, no.

And the 95% of the population for whom the project is completely irrelevant

There are 69 million people in the UK. 9 million live in Greater London, 2.4 million live in the West Midlands. So that's already 17% of the population directly served by HS2, who will benefit from economic development whether or not they use it themselves. So your 95% figure has already been blown out of the water.

Even with the scheme cut back, services will continue onto Manchester (3 million), Liverpool (1.5 million) and the Scottish Central Belt (3 million). So that's 27% of the population benefitting from the project.

The wider economic benefits will touch most of the country. So the project is completely relevant for 95% of the population, not "irrelevant".

 

[gravitystorm]

What is the MINIMUM required to open HS2?

The minimum required to test HS2 has been declared as running from the Washwood Heath depot in Birmingham, for around 50 miles south (to the north portal of Wendover Green Tunnel).

The minimum required to take fare-paying passengers has been decided as Old Oak Common to Birmingham Curzon Street. There's only one station in between (Birmingham International HS2) and there's no connections to any other railway in that first stage which could be used as an intermediate step. So unlike the motorway example you gave, they can't run any smaller chunk than that. Well, maybe Curzon - International or OOC - International, but neither of those are worthwhile.

It might seem like the current "minimum viable product" is most of HS2, but it's only "most of the remaining" bit of HS2. This section is roughly about 1/3 of what HS2 was, it's just that almost all the rest has been removed. So it's not unreasonable that it can't be chopped up into further sub-phases.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I often see comments that people think it should have been built from the North. But at the point it was started, the biggest capacity problem was south of Birmingham, where express, semi fast, slow trains mingle with ever increasing freight trains.

Quite - where do they think those trains would have gone once they reached the southern end of the new line?

 

[Kilopylae]

The wider economic benefits will touch most of the country.

One word: "how?"

 

[norbitonflyer]

The minimum required to test HS2 has been declared as running from the Washwood Heath depot in Birmingham, for around 50 miles south (to the north portal of Wendover Green Tunnel).

The minimum required to take fare-paying passengers has been decided as Old Oak Common to Birmingham Curzon Street.

I would scrap the Birmingham spur (which is useless for anyone traevlling to or from the West Midlands unless they want to go to Birmingham City Cntre or are prepared to change trains) and concentrate on the main line to Handsacre, which can take trains to the entire north west of England, North Wales, and southern Scotland

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 May 2026 ==

My first thought was, at a grand old age of 67 and a half, I won't be around to see it completed. It's not a flippant remark followed by an !, just something very sobering.

Don't despair yet! The ONS reckons a 67 year old man has a better than 75% chance of reaching the age of 78. (I am the same age as you)

Life expectancy calculator - Office for National Statistics

Enter your age and sex in our calculator to find out your life expectancy, and the likelihood of you living to be 100 years old.

www.ons.gov.uk

 

[Krokodil]

One word: "how?"

There was a KPMG report ages ago detailing the economic benefits.

 

[Trainman40083]

In short, no.


There are 69 million people in the UK. 9 million live in Greater London, 2.4 million live in the West Midlands. So that's already 17% of the population directly served by HS2, who will benefit from economic development whether or not they use it themselves. So your 95% figure has already been blown out of the water.

Even with the scheme cut back, services will continue onto Manchester (3 million), Liverpool (1.5 million) and the Scottish Central Belt (3 million). So that's 27% of the population benefitting from the project.

The wider economic benefits will touch most of the country. So the project is completely relevant for 95% of the population, not "irrelevant".

I would think you could also add in people who would benefit from enhanced local services; maybe a Trent Valley service half hourly. Maybe more freight using WCML then East West Rail towards Oxford. Maybe even people using the motorway, if more freight can go by rail to the ever increasing number of rail linked terminals. I could have benefitted from the Eastern leg between Birmingham and Leeds, without ever using it.....by having more capacity on the trains on the traditional line. Maybe in the wider Manchester area, there could have been more frequent services from the likes of Northwich too. I might be wrong, but didn't Wales and Scotland get a share of that HS2 spend, to spend as they saw fit? That might have paid for Cardiff area electrification and enhancements in Scotland. .

 

[JonathanH]

I might be wrong, but didn't Wales and Scotland get a share of that HS2 spend, to spend as they saw fit? That might have paid for Cardiff area electrification and enhancements in Scotland.

Scotland has had Barnett consequentials. Wales is in dispute about the fact it hasn't.

I would think you could also add in people who would benefit from enhanced local services; maybe a Trent Valley service half hourly.

Any extra Trent Valley service can't go further north than Lichfield and won't happen until the mid 2040s though, given no additional capacity beyond Handsacre (or prospect of there being any).

 

[Trainman40083]

Scotland has had Barnett consequentials. Wales is in dispute about the fact it hasn't.


Any extra Trent Valley service can't go further north than Lichfield and won't happen until the mid 2040s though, given no additional capacity beyond Handsacre (or prospect of there being any).

Then they really need to do something north of Handsacre, else there will be a queue of trains. Maybe freight might get quicker routes through Bescot.. Thanks for the confirmation about Scotland. They have benefitted, just don't see it. Wonder what happened with Wales?

 

[wilsontown]

I often see comments that people think it should have been built from the North. But at the point it was started, the biggest capacity problem was south of Birmingham, where express, semi fast, slow trains mingle with ever increasing freight trains. There were mitigations that could be put in place for Midland Main Line and East Coast Mainline....for now. But even building what they are, there is still capacity constraints between Birmingham and Crewe, and probably around Manchester Piccadilly. I often see figures mentioned, that passenger numbers are rising , say 4% a year. So over say 20 years, serious overcrowding. So you need more capacity. But reading the HS2 report, it seems to suggest more than just a Euston HS2 station.. More a new concourse etc for the whole station.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 May 2026 ==


Some of us remember the everlasting chaos when they last attempted to upgrade the West Coast Mainline. Years of rail replacement buses. How much property would have had to be acquired, stations rebuilt? At an early stage, the idea was discounted....

You don't even have to have a long memory, you just have to look at how things are with a current project to upgrade an existing railway - TPRU. Years and years of diversions and buses and I might be able to use an electric train from York to Leeds in 2030 assuming I haven't been made redundant by then...

 

[Trainman40083]

You don't even have to have a long memory, you just have to look at how things are with a current project to upgrade an existing railway - TPRU. Years and years of diversions and buses and I might be able to use an electric train from York to Leeds in 2030 assuming I haven't been made redundant by then...

I was involved in the supply chain, for the West Coast upgrade. It was a nightmare. Very limited track possessions (a few hours a day), seemingly permanent lack of weekend trains. After it was finished , they said they would never do what they did again.. It took too long. In fact, you struggled to get cost savings from buying in bulk, because the delivery plan was over such a long period. Little space to store. Even then, the designs/plans changed. I feel sure I read a report that do upgrade the West Coast Mainline to deliver what HS2 did, would have taken something like 36 years of time limited possessions.

 

[JamieL]

In short, no.


There are 69 million people in the UK. 9 million live in Greater London, 2.4 million live in the West Midlands. So that's already 17% of the population directly served by HS2, who will benefit from economic development whether or not they use it themselves. So your 95% figure has already been blown out of the water.

Even with the scheme cut back, services will continue onto Manchester (3 million), Liverpool (1.5 million) and the Scottish Central Belt (3 million). So that's 27% of the population benefitting from the project.

The wider economic benefits will touch most of the country. So the project is completely relevant for 95% of the population, not "irrelevant".

Will Scotland really benefit? If the new HS2 trains don't tilt, they will be slower on the existing track so I am not sure overall journey time will improve (and could actually get worse). Also will Scotland benefit or lose out with train capacity? I believe the current 11 or 9 coach Avanti express out of Glasgow Central will now be reduced to the HS2 8-coach config? If the southbound Glasgow/Edinburgh express trains have to connect with each other after Carstairs, does that double the risk of delay if one or other portion is delayed? Also, will standing be allowed on the HS2 trains when not on high speed track? If not, that will be bad for Scotland because everytime there is mass delays on the network, the priority is trains south to London (which I appreciate is where most customers want to go) but that means the first and second trains north are normally rammed. Unpleasant, but better than being left on the platform at Preston!

 

[stratford]

Really don't seem to have many answers on this reset:
* How much does reducing the speed save? What is the design speed now? I thought the plan was to start running at a lower speed and gradually/overnight increase speed.
* Will there be the expected reduction in capacity North of Birmingham with 200m trains, if that is changing is the depot designs etc. changing?
* Given ~£44 billion has now been spent, and more than the same proposed what is that actually being spent on given most of the big civils such as tunnels are already mostly done and I assume paid for. Is this just track systems and trains?

 

[Trainman40083]

Will Scotland really benefit? If the new HS2 trains don't tilt, they will be slower on the existing track so I am not sure overall journey time will improve (and could actually get worse). Also will Scotland benefit or lose out with train capacity? I believe the current 11 or 9 coach Avanti express out of Glasgow Central will now be reduced to the HS2 8-coach config? If the southbound Glasgow/Edinburgh express trains have to connect with each other after Carstairs, does that double the risk of delay if one or other portion is delayed? Also, will standing be allowed on the HS2 trains when not on high speed track? If not, that will be bad for Scotland because everytime there is mass delays on the network, the priority is trains south to London (which I appreciate is where most customers want to go) but that means the first and second trains north are normally rammed. Unpleasant, but better than being left on the platform at Preston!

When you look at it, no new train for the West Coast Mainline has been fitted with tilt. Classes 397/800 type. So have time savings due to tilt been saved by more rapid acceleration?

 

[Brooke]

* How much does reducing the speed save? What is the design speed now? I thought the plan was to start running at a lower speed and gradually/overnight increase speed.
* Will there be the expected reduction in capacity North of Birmingham with 200m trains, if that is changing is the depot designs etc. changing?

Great questions. Because both reducing the speed and reducing the train length have the effect of reducing capacity.

So for e.g. London-Manchester or London-Glasgow journeys, will there be more or less seats than now?

And if the answer is less, how can it be said that the North or Scotland are going to see any benefit?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Great questions. Because both reducing the speed and reducing the train length have the effect of reducing capacity.

So for e.g. London-Manchester or London-Glasgow journeys, will there be more or less seats than now?

And if the answer is less, how can it be said that the North or Scotland are going to see any benefit?

What there doing with the trains is unclear and Alexander avoided provided answers on several occasions early when MPs asked about rolling stock.

Given timescales for running onto the classic network now extend out to 2040 then surely a complete rethink is now required as the pendolinos will be life expired by then if they even last that long.