Restarting HS2a

[Noddy]

There are only votes in cancelling it because the costs are insane. If the costs weren’t insane then the vote winner would be to keep it because it looks like you are penalising the north.

The costs aren’t insane. Expensive yes but fairly typical of this country. If they cancelled it because the costs were ‘insane’ why didn’t he also cancel LTC, Hinkley Point et al?

Cancelling phase 2 was an entirely political decision to grab votes.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The costs aren’t insane. Expensive yes but fairly typical of this country. If they cancelled it because the costs were ‘insane’ why didn’t he also cancel LTC, Hinkley Point et al?

Cancelling phase 2 was an entirely political decision to grab votes.

The costs are insane by any standard, almost certainly even worse than phase 1.

The whole thing where infrastructure is more expensive than elsewhere is a very recent negative change.

 

[YorkshireBear]

If you drive the M40 which has no fixed speed cameras and which I have driven on numerous times there are people who go significantly in excess of the speed limit the whole way. There are no corners which those people (or anyone else) slows down for. Nor is there signage warning about any corners that there would be if there were repeated accidents.


I mean actually the countries with higher population densities like Germany, Japan and Taiwan typically have more intermediate stops than France and Spain.

Again this thread is about HS2 phase 2a, that is much more similar in terms of not having new urban approaches compared to other high speed projects in Europe.

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Are you really arguing that a simpler design that follows the landscape more closely wouldn't reduce costs? Because that seems pretty obvious...

Andrew McNaughton has been quoted multiple times as saying that the alignment was chosen based on avoiding the most damage, property purchase, sensitive areas etc. etc. and the alignment then happened to be fit for 400km/h.

They did not go looking for that alignment. I have quoted this and evidenced it quite a few times including in this thread. But the clearest one is in this green signals episode.

It doesn't take away that bad decisions were made in various aspects, but the alignment came first not the speed according to Andrew. They also took advice from SNCF, as he says, who deliver high speed lines much cheaper and their advice was future proof, hindsight is wonderful but if I were them I'd have gone to SNCF too!

 

[Noddy]

The costs are insane by any standard, almost certainly even worse than phase 1.

The whole thing where infrastructure is more expensive than elsewhere is a very recent negative change.

No they’re not! You yourself said the Jubilee line extension, built almost 30 years ago, was good value but this was significantly more expensive per mile than HS2 will be!

 

[MatthewHutton]

No they’re not! You yourself said the Jubilee line extension, built almost 30 years ago, was good value but this was significantly more expensive per mile than HS2 will be!

That’s a metro in a city. The only comparable cheaper project is Paris Metro Line 14 that was around half the price.

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They also took advice from SNCF, as he says, who deliver high speed lines much cheaper and their advice was future proof,

Well they clearly didn’t listen to SNCF as otherwise the costs would be similar and there would be a lot more intermediate stops. EDIT: Also we all know they did speak to SNCF and they said “don’t build Haute Picarde” which is probably sensible and given the population density is more like saying “don’t build a high speed station at Lockerbie”.

Also all of this is an admission they didn’t speak to JR Central/West where the population density is more similar to the UK.

 

[Noddy]

That’s a metro in a city. The only comparable cheaper project is Paris Metro Line 14 that was around half the price.

And HS2 is running through two cities, with very large stations (11 and 6 platforms) being built in the centre of both! An a third station being built underground, next to and over an operating mainline in London.

 

[MatthewHutton]

And HS2 is running through two cities, with very large stations (11 and 6 platforms) being built in the centre of both!

Phase 2a, which we are talking about, is not doing that.

 

[Noddy]

Phase 2a, which we are talking about, is not doing that.

But the costs are all related because it’s one project. Phase 2 didn’t get cancelled because Phase 2 was expensive, it got cancelled because Sunak was making a political decision to punish the entire project.

 

[MatthewHutton]

But the costs are all related because it’s one project. Phase 2 didn’t get cancelled because Phase 2 was expensive, it got cancelled because Sunak was making a political decision to punish the entire project.

Ok which voters where would be in favour of HS2 being built in the south but not the north so the full benefits won’t be realised?

And bearing in mind that while politicians do make errors (sometimes quite a lot) you do have both Conservatives and Labour coming to the same conclusions including Louise Haig who is a) northern and b) particularly smart.

 

[Noddy]

Ok which voters where would be in favour of HS2 being built in the south but not the north so the full benefits won’t be realised?

And bearing in mind that while politicians do make errors (sometimes quite a lot) you do have both Conservatives and Labour coming to the same conclusions including Louise Haig who is a) northern and b) particularly smart.

Millions of so called middle Englanders, plus a lot in Scotland who complained HS2 was only ever 100s of miles from Scotland, and especially Wales who felt they were being done over by the Barnett formula calculations.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Millions of so called middle Englanders, plus a lot in Scotland who complained HS2 was only ever 100s of miles from Scotland, and especially Wales who felt they were being done over by the Barnett formula calculations.

I think the Scot’s were always excluded from HS2. So give the Welsh their share with the Barnett formula which comes to a few billion and then which specific areas of the country would the middle englanders favour cutting HS2?

Bearing in mind that the “red wall” voters in the north support the northern parts of HS2.

EDIT: Let’s say for the sake of debate that HS2 phase 1 ends up costing £100bn in today’s money and the cheapest you could reasonably do it for is £20bn so it’s overpriced by a factor of 5. Given phase 2a to Crewe/East Midlands hub should probably cost £1.5bn each then a similar overspend would give you a cost of £15bn for both?

Surely to be able to say you’d got the project “done” would be worth a total of £115bn - rather than a half assed solution for £100bn? Even if you have to give the welsh £5bn to spend on transport locally (Which I support in general fwiw)

 

[Krokodil]

There are only votes in cancelling it because...

Clearly there weren't the votes he was hoping for because he still lost the election. He could have left it alone and it wouldn't have changed the electoral outcome.

 

[Trainbike46]

I agree with @Krokodil here, trying to ascribe logic to what Sunak was doing is a fools errand. he (and many others) misinterpreted the outcome of one by-election, by blaming the result on one small factor (of many) that will have influenced voters, and incorrectly assuming the assumed views could be generalised to the country as a whole.

 

[Noddy]

I think the Scot’s were always excluded from HS2. So give the Welsh their share with the Barnett formula which comes to a few billion and then which specific areas of the country would the middle englanders favour cutting HS2?

Everywhere from Cornwall to Northumberland and Kent to Shropshire, and most areas in between.

You have to remember at the same time he cancelled Phase 2 he also announced that nearly £4bn would be ‘reallocated’ to transport schemes in six northern city regions and £3bn for upgraded and electrified lines between Manchester and Sheffield, Sheffield and Leeds, Sheffield and Hull, and Hull to Leeds. He also said money would go towards resurfacing roads ‘across the country’.

 

[AlexSJW]

Do you have any evidence for this

The assessment that HS2 could cost £1 billion per mile has primarily been made by independent critics and media analysts, based on the projected total cost of Phase 1 against its remaining track length.

• Lord Berkeley: In 2020, the former deputy chair of the government-commissioned Oakervee Review published a dissenting report estimating total costs would reach £108 billion. Given Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) is approximately 134–140 miles, an overall budget exceeding £100 billion for this stretch equates to roughly £750 million to £1 billion per mile.
• Media Analysis (The Times & The Guardian): Recent reports in 2025 and 2026 have highlighted that if Phase 1 costs reach £100 billion—a figure cited by some as likely when accounting for inflation and the complex Euston station works—it would hit the £1 billion per mile mark.
• Michael Byng: Who developed the standard costing method used by Network Rail. In 2017, his calculations for the government already placed the cost at over £400 million per mile, significantly higher than official figures at the time.

The project is regarded as the most expensive railway in the world on a per-mile basis.

 

[Trainman40083]

Everywhere from Cornwall to Northumberland and Kent to Shropshire, and most areas in between.

You have to remember at the same time he cancelled Phase 2 he also announced that nearly £4bn would be ‘reallocated’ to transport schemes in six northern city regions and £3bn for upgraded and electrified lines between Manchester and Sheffield, Sheffield and Leeds, Sheffield and Hull, and Hull to Leeds. He also said money would go towards resurfacing roads ‘across the country’.

The trouble is HS2 and similar are funded by CAPEX. Resurfacing roads is OPEX....Funded by taxation, day to day .

 

[Noddy]

The assessment that HS2 could cost £1 billion per mile has primarily been made by independent critics and media analysts, based on the projected total cost of Phase 1 against its remaining track length.

• Lord Berkeley: In 2020, the former deputy chair of the government-commissioned Oakervee Review published a dissenting report estimating total costs would reach £108 billion. Given Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) is approximately 134–140 miles, an overall budget exceeding £100 billion for this stretch equates to roughly £750 million to £1 billion per mile.
• Media Analysis (The Times & The Guardian): Recent reports in 2025 and 2026 have highlighted that if Phase 1 costs reach £100 billion—a figure cited by some as likely when accounting for inflation and the complex Euston station works—it would hit the £1 billion per mile mark.
• Michael Byng: Who developed the standard costing method used by Network Rail. In 2017, his calculations for the government already placed the cost at over £400 million per mile, significantly higher than official figures at the time.

Even basic maths tells me 140 miles divided by 100 billion does not equal 1 billion per mile. It is £710 million per miles.

The project is regarded as the most expensive railway in the world on a per-mile basis.

Crossrail cost £19 billion. I’m unsure which year that is priced against but this was in 2021. That’s 25 billion in 2025 prices which equates to over one billion per mile.

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The trouble is HS2 and similar are funded by CAPEX. Resurfacing roads is OPEX....Funded by taxation, day to day .

Absolutely! It was a cheap vote grab.

 

[AlexSJW]

One billion or just under is an obscene amount of money. What has been spent on HS2 so far could have finished off Liverpool's metro after 45 years and built tram networks in Leeds and Bristol. Both Leeds and Bristol rely on buses. These three projects would affect in a positive light around a million people each and every day. HS2 has set the country back.

You are trying to defend a cludge of a project that offer little value over upgrading that should not have gone ahead.

 

[Noddy]

One billion or just under is an obscene amount of money. What has been spent on HS2 so far could have finished off Liverpool's metro after 45 years and built tram networks in Leeds and Bristol. Both Leeds and Bristol rely on buses. These three projects would affect in a positive light around a million people each and every day. HS2 has set the country back.

You are trying to defend a cludge of a project that should not have gone ahead.

Said those complaining about Crossrail. Where are they now?

 

[Krokodil]

One billion or just under

The word "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this post.

 

[AlexSJW]

HS2 is not comparable to Crossrail - I am not condoning its cost. To upgrading the existing network, including sending Birmingham/West Mids trains via an upgraded Chiltern, HS2 offered very little. It was shadowing an existing high speed service - 125mph is the entry point of HSR.

HS2 to Fradley/Handsacre is being built. So back on topic, the best way extensions can run onwards north from Fradley.

 

[Noddy]

HS2 is not comparable to Crossrail - I am not condoning its cost. To upgrading the existing network, including sending Birmingham/West Mids trains via an upgraded Chiltern, HS2 offered very little.

But you are claiming HS2 is most expensive railway project in the world, when adjusted for inflation it’s clearly not.

If you think simply upgrading the Chiltern line would achieve the same objectives as HS2 that’s great but all the evidence would suggest otherwise. The WCML upgrade in 2008 cost £15 billion in 2025 prices and failed to achieve all its objectives.

 

[Trainman40083]

In fact, some of the Government comments after they cancelled HS2 north, were farcical. They said that the money had been used to upgrade the Hope Valley line. That was strange, given the work was almost finished when they made the announcement. Some of the lines they claimed the money would be used for would have been basket cases, but they had no business case, none would ever have started. The only new lines are ones where capacity increase in critical.. They will find that out on the Eastern leg, where people cannot get on some London trains (two lines) or on the Leeds, Birmingham axis. Someone mentioned Stoke. There must be at least 7 trains per hour North West from Stoke towards Kidsgrove, some travelling a lot slower than others. Gets ever more congested as you get nearer Stockport. I hear people say "how do you get people out of cars?". Well give them an alternative, especially those travelling from a City to a City.

 

[Peter Sarf]

There are only votes in cancelling it because the costs are insane. If the costs weren’t insane then the vote winner would be to keep it because it looks like you are penalising the north.

And it’s not just Sunaks judgement. Haig/Starmer/Alexander made the same call and Burnham couldn’t get it un cancelled.

This tells me that the project is big and time consuming to complete. It also reminds us that the UK is too expensive. That is even accounting for the fact that we are a small crowded island compared to France.

The fact that Euston was even paused let alone considered unnecessary is a very worrying indication to me that the UK has no future unless we sort ourselves out.

The only trip that even slightly matters for is London - Glasgow, in all other cases the train is a lot quicker.

Plus the status quo is really slow for e.g. Thames Valley to Scotland passengers.

I admit my aspiration - to eliminate almost all domestic flights !.

Thames valley arguably gets covered by the Elizabeth line and a change at Old Oak Common.

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And yet ever since other high speed rail service in the world does them. And the older homeowners along the route are well travelled enough to know this, and to object more.

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Stoke on Trent and Crewe have basically the same total passenger numbers today. If anything there’s more room for growth at Stoke as it is a larger place.

I would argue that Crewe serves a larger hinterland than Stoke. For Crewe it is the connections - although I think Birmingham New Street deserves a mention !.

The costs are insane by any standard, almost certainly even worse than phase 1.

The whole thing where infrastructure is more expensive than elsewhere is a very recent negative change.

And I think we can agree we in the UK need to look at why infrastructure costs (not just for railways) are so much higher than elsewhere in the world.

Ok which voters where would be in favour of HS2 being built in the south but not the north so the full benefits won’t be realised?

And bearing in mind that while politicians do make errors (sometimes quite a lot) you do have both Conservatives and Labour coming to the same conclusions including Louise Haig who is a) northern and b) particularly smart.

I think if only part of HS2 was built then the Southern end was of more benefit to more people. It was the obvious place to start.

The fact that the Southern end is the more expensive end unfortunately corroborates that view. After all the Southern end benefits travellers Between London and Birmingham the most. London to Manchester a little less and then less and less to the smaller cities as we go North from London. To have started in Manchester would, apart from being expensive, not benefited anyone travelling London to Birmingham or very little London to North of Manchester.

It could have been a Manchester to Birmingham railway. Now that would provide relief for parts of the West Coast Mainline BUT not for the most overcrowded part (South to London)..

I think the Scot’s were always excluded from HS2. So give the Welsh their share with the Barnett formula which comes to a few billion and then which specific areas of the country would the middle englanders favour cutting HS2?

Bearing in mind that the “red wall” voters in the north support the northern parts of HS2.

EDIT: Let’s say for the sake of debate that HS2 phase 1 ends up costing £100bn in today’s money and the cheapest you could reasonably do it for is £20bn so it’s overpriced by a factor of 5. Given phase 2a to Crewe/East Midlands hub should probably cost £1.5bn each then a similar overspend would give you a cost of £15bn for both?

Surely to be able to say you’d got the project “done” would be worth a total of £115bn - rather than a half assed solution for £100bn? Even if you have to give the welsh £5bn to spend on transport locally (Which I support in general fwiw)

I would say a better figure for HS2 Phase 1 is £750million per mile. HS2 Phase 2a is quite obviously going to be a lot cheaper as it does not get near cities or NIMBYs. But we have lost the momentum and are now casting about spending money looking for savings and undoing the original expenditure by throwing away existing design work. Arguably one of the factors in the cost rises for HS2 Phase 1. So we are in danger of repeating the mistakes.

The assessment that HS2 could cost £1 billion per mile has primarily been made by independent critics and media analysts, based on the projected total cost of Phase 1 against its remaining track length.

• Lord Berkeley: In 2020, the former deputy chair of the government-commissioned Oakervee Review published a dissenting report estimating total costs would reach £108 billion. Given Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) is approximately 134–140 miles, an overall budget exceeding £100 billion for this stretch equates to roughly £750 million to £1 billion per mile.
• Media Analysis (The Times & The Guardian): Recent reports in 2025 and 2026 have highlighted that if Phase 1 costs reach £100 billion—a figure cited by some as likely when accounting for inflation and the complex Euston station works—it would hit the £1 billion per mile mark.
• Michael Byng: Who developed the standard costing method used by Network Rail. In 2017, his calculations for the government already placed the cost at over £400 million per mile, significantly higher than official figures at the time.

The project is regarded as the most expensive railway in the world on a per-mile basis.

It seems all projects NOT JUST RAILWAY PROJECTS are expensive in the UK. What is wrong/different with the UK ?.

One billion or just under is an obscene amount of money. What has been spent on HS2 so far could have finished off Liverpool's metro after 45 years and built tram networks in Leeds and Bristol. Both Leeds and Bristol rely on buses. These three projects would affect in a positive light around a million people each and every day. HS2 has set the country back.

You are trying to defend a cludge of a project that offer little value over upgrading that should not have gone ahead.

HS2 was and is needed to take pressure of the West Coast Mainline. To achieve it has required more expensive works than in many similar projects around the world. It has to get right to the centre of London and Birmingham as existing stations and inner city routes had no capacity. It had to bend over backwards to appease the NIMBYs in the Chilterns (tunnels, bat tunnels, sound mitigation measures etc). But without HS2 we are stifling the UK economy.

BUT it seems all major building projects are costing significantly more than they would in other countries - not just railway projects. So we have to analyse what is different in the UK NOT just analyse it as a railway project.

 

[Grimsby town]

If you think simply upgrading the Chiltern line would achieve the same objectives as HS2 that’s great but all the evidence would suggest otherwise. The WCML upgrade in 2008 cost £15 billion in 2025 prices and failed to achieve all its objectives.

Major upgrades are also hugely disruptive. You only have to look at how passenger figures have dropped for TPE while nearly every other operator is seeing increased usage. The North TPE route has alternative diversionary routes that aren't at capacity too, which has meant trains have still run during TRU. That's just not the case with upgrading either the WCML or Chiltern lines. It'd be a decade of bus replacements.

 

[AlexSJW]

But you are claiming HS2 is most expensive railway project in the world, when adjusted for inflation it’s clearly not.

If you think simply upgrading the Chiltern line would achieve the same objectives as HS2 that’s great but all the evidence would suggest otherwise.

HS2 is projected to cost more. You obviously disagree with these specialists.
Criticisms of Lord Berkeley and others was that no full study into using the existing network was undertaken. The existing network could have been used by...

• Upgrading the Chiltern to take Birmingham/West Mids trains take the off the WCML.
• All bottlenecks could have been removed from the WCML.
• A Stafford bypass which also diverges Manchester trains onto an upgraded Stoke line,
• make WCML all four track from Crewe to as far north as economically possible,
• upgrade the WCML spur to Liverpool,
• upgrade track in Scotland,
• make all 140mph.
• improved trains and signals,
• high speed passenger tunnel under Crewe.
• Upgrading the ECML to Edinburgh to similar as the 140mph WCML.

Most of this would have been done by now if they went this way. Also the intervention of battery hybrid intercity trains would make all this feasible.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Feb 2026 ==

Major upgrades are also hugely disruptive. You only have to look at how passenger figures have dropped for TPE while nearly every other operator is seeing increased usage. The North TPE route has alternative diversionary routes that aren't at capacity too, which has meant trains have still run during TRU. That's just not the case with upgrading either the WCML or Chiltern lines. It'd be a decade of bus replacements.

Fast battery hybrid intercity trains now will make all this economically feasible with minimal disruption. No expensive and disruptive overhead lines to erect, use them where they are there. London the Chester services come to mind: HS2-Sattord byass-Crewe using wires, hen battery from Crewe to Chester. Battery trains are a game changer - and battery chemistry is getting better i seems by the month. Two metro battery services are in operation right now. Hitachi battery intercity trains are for sale.

 

[Peter Sarf]

HS2 is projected to cost more. You obviously disagree with these specialists.
Criticisms of Lord Berkeley and others was that no full study into using the existing network was undertaken. The existing network could have been used by...

• Upgrading the Chiltern to take Birmingham/West Mids trains take the off the WCML.
• All bottlenecks could have been removed from the WCML.
• A Stafford bypass which also diverges Manchester trains onto an upgraded Stoke line,
• make WCML all four track from Crewe to as far north as economically possible,
• upgrade the WCML spur to Liverpool,
• upgrade track in Scotland,
• make all 140mph.
• improved trains and signals,
• high speed passenger tunnel under Crewe.
• Upgrading the ECML to Edinburgh to similar as the 140mph WCML.

Most of this would have been done by now if they went this way. Also the intervention of battery hybrid intercity trains would make all this feasible.

And none of the above addresses the main constraint on the West Coast Main Line - London to the West Midlands. HS2 Phase 1 does.

Upgrading the Chiltern route might have saved on the cheaper parts of HS2 Phase 1 BUT not the route nearer London.
Where is the extra terminal capacity for London and Birmingham where is the route through the outskirts of London.

Some of the above would help with HS2 Phase 2a - the subject of this thread. But the costs of HS2 Phase 2a look to be cheaper anyway.

But the country no longer has any appetite for another railway project.
It should have :-

Lets admire Crossrail aka Elizabeth line. Over budget and finished late BUT exceeding expectations.
Oh and I remember how long Crossrail took. I was commuting on the Central line in the late 1980s and there was talk of a relief line. That took 35 years to get done. We in the UK are slow and expensive. Lets face it we can save money by not getting things done but there is a cost to that - being left behind. I was travelling on a high speed line in France FORTY years ago.

 

[Grimsby town]

HS2 is projected to cost more. You obviously disagree with these specialists.
Criticisms of Lord Berkeley and others was that no full study into using the existing network was undertaken. The existing network could have been used by...

There were studies done for the alternatives.

• Upgrading the Chiltern to take Birmingham/West Mids trains take the off the WCML.

Its never going to match Avanti for speed and Marylebone is a very constrained station with little room to expand.

• All bottlenecks could have been removed from the WCML

One of the biggest issues with the southern WCML is that the fast lines are completely full until Rugby. The only way to solve that properly is two additional track. Doing that alongside the WCML would be very difficult, expensive, and disruptive.

Network Rail have done studies over the years showing that any relatively small upgrades would only deliever an extra path and they would also require limiting the pendolinos speeds to reduce the journey time differential with other services.

Most of this would have been done by now if they went this way. Also the intervention of battery hybrid intercity trains would make all this feasible.

I doubt it would be. The Transpennine Upgrade was conceived at a similar time as HS2 and is nowhere near being finished. Some of the interventions would have likely be completed but not a full package.

 

[Noddy]

HS2 is projected to cost more. You obviously disagree with these specialists.
Criticisms of Lord Berkeley and others was that no full study into using the existing network was undertaken. The existing network could have been used by...

• Upgrading the Chiltern to take Birmingham/West Mids trains take the off the WCML.
• All bottlenecks could have been removed from the WCML.
• A Stafford bypass which also diverges Manchester trains onto an upgraded Stoke line,
• make WCML all four track from Crewe to as far north as economically possible,
• upgrade the WCML spur to Liverpool,
• upgrade track in Scotland,
• make all 140mph.
• improved trains and signals,
• high speed passenger tunnel under Crewe.
• Upgrading the ECML to Edinburgh to similar as the 140mph WCML.

Most of this would have been done by now if they went this way. Also the intervention of battery hybrid intercity trains would make all this feasible.

That’s all great but just for starters:

If you remove all West Midlands bound trains from the WCML you remove opportunities for intermediate journeys -eg Milton Keynes or Northampton. HS2 will enable more of these to run.

As I said in my previous post they spent £15 billion in the late noughties upgrading the WCML to 140mph but despite the billions spent failed to achieve this. If you think you can upgrade both the WCML and ECML cheaply to 140mph good luck.

 

[AlexSJW]

After all the Southern end benefits travellers Between London and Birmingham the most. London to Manchester a little less and then less and less to the smaller cities as we go North from London.

The 'Y' design was a complete joke, serving only four cities directly. It near bypassed Liverpool, with trains when leaving HS2 at Crewe trundled at 110mph to Liverpool.