This must be one of Boris Johnson's government's major infrastructure projects. In 2020, the latter gave the green light to a project dating back to 2006. A project that would finally show that the United Kingdom was embracing the idea of having a high-performance high-speed rail network.
Officially due to start in 2020, the the HS2 (High-Speed 2) line, which will allow trains to travel at 300 kph between London-Euston and Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Such a project would considerably reduce journey times.
From London to Manchester in just over an hour
The Department of Transport estimates that Journey time between London and Birmingham would go fromone hour 20 to 52 minutes. That of London to Manchester would be reduced from two hours 7 minutes to one hour 7. And that the journey between Birmingham and Leeds would fall to 49 minutes instead of two hours. The trains would have a capacity of 1,100 seats and would run up to 14 times a day in each direction.
The line was originally due to open in 2026. But delays are piling up, due in particular to the Covid crisis, rising property prices and problems with digging a tunnel under central London. And the total cost of the investment is spiralling out of control.
The latest news is that projectThe initial cost in 2015 was set at £56 billion, could now cost UK coffers more than £106 billion!
Budget cuts?
We now speak of 2028-2031 for the first phase of the project, which will link London to Birmingham. More than a quarter of a century after the opening of the first TGV line in the UKHS1. This links London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel. There is even talk of 2035/2040 for the final phase, i.e. for the forked section that should run from Birmingham west to Manchester and east to the East Midlands and Leeds.
And it now seems certain that the British government is no longer keen on the idea. East branch of the future line. The news leaked into the British press at the end of last week. Budgetary considerations would appear to outweigh the real need for better overland infrastructure in the country.
A decision by the UK Department for Transport is imminent. But the rumour is already causing a stir among MPs and representatives from the East Midlands and Leeds, who have been complaining for years about the appalling state of the network in their constituencies...
