High Speed 2 (HS2) is a Mega railway engineering project currently being built in the United Kingdom, the cost of which is being covered by the British Government (read the Taxpayer). To say that the project is a controversial one is no overstatement as its construction has been beset with cost and time overruns, ever since its inception (in 2009). The original Scope of Work was to lay a double track high speed (passenger only) railway from London Euston to the provincial cities of Birmingham (Phase 1), Crewe (Phase 2a), Manchester and Leeds (Phase 2b), however because of spiralling costs the scope now has been reduced with only the London to Birmingham section going ahead, with the Old Oak Common Interchange station now becoming the initial London terminus, which is situated 5 miles (8km) due west of Euston.

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HS2 plan (Wikipedia)

The original London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), as engineered by Robert Stephenson, was opened in 1838 between Euston and Birmingham and had existing onward connections from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester via the Grand Junction Railway (of 1837) and the Liverpool & Manchester (of 1830). The three railway companies had a close working relationship which led to their merger, in 1846, to become the “London & North Western Railway” (LNWR), considered by many as the “Premier Line”.

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Old postcard of LNWR Express Train

The LNWR would form the southern section of what would become the West Coast Main Line (WCML) from Euston to Glasgow, which was a joint operation with the Caledonian Railway (north of the border), with the two railway companies changing engines at Carlisle Citadel station. The WCML today is the main railway artery going northwards, having been repeatedly upgraded in order to cater for the increases in traffic volume, both passenger (inter-city and commuter) and freight trains, which share the line.

The need for an alternative railway line to assist the WCML to handle future traffic demands was recognised and in December 2009 Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister announced that the government would fund HS2 to the tune of £20 Billion (£20, 000, 000, 000), a figure that raised eyebrows at the time. The latest Government estimate for the completion of the Phase 1 build alone has skyrocketed to between £45 billion and £54 billion, but it is anyone’s guess what the final figure will be, or even when it will be completed. A question that needs an answer is: No matter what the cost, will future generations be glad that it was built? I would like to think that HS2 will be regarded in the same light as the Channel Tunnel, which was wildly over budget, but is now regarded as being indispensable.

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Tunnel Boring Machine creating the Channel Tunnel (Wikipedia)

I have a “What if” scenario, which suggests instead of a High Speed Rail (i.e. 200mph/320kph), a dedicated Freight Line could be built to an engineering standard that would allow for a speed of 100mph/160kph; it is a proposal that was seriously considered back in the 1990’s as a way of removing the long distance heavy goods vehicles (HGV’s) off the roads and motorways and would have been funded by private enterprise, but alas it could not get Government approval and was thrown out in 2005.

The driving force behind the Freight Line was Mr. Andrew Gritten, Chairman and Chief Executive of Central Railway, whose vision was to see a US style, “lorries on trains service” between Liverpool and Lille. The track bed of what was the old Great Central Railway was seen as a possible route from London to the Midlands and the North, which could have been re-purposed had the project gone ahead.

One hundred years before Edward Watkin, the Chairman of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) had the very same philosophy of connecting the industrial North with the Continent through a proposed Channel Tunnel. His vision was partially met by the building of the London Extension of the MSLR to Marylebone, which would, in 1897, become the Great Central Railway. As for the Channel Tunnel, work was started but was soon stopped by the Admiralty not wishing for a tunnel to be used by invading forces. It would take another 90 years for the “Chunnel” to be finally opened in 1994.

The greatest tragedy of the whole story is that the Great Central Main line from London to Sheffield, via Rugby, Leicester and Nottingham was closed down by British Railways in 1966 by Barbara Castle, the Minister of Transport in Harold Wilson’s Labour Party Government. Had it only been saved it would have finally been used for the purpose it was originally built for; there but for the short sightedness of politicians.