How fast will HS2 go from Birmingham to London?

HS2's new British-built, bullet style trains will travel at up to 225mph on both high-speed and existing railway lines. We are building HS2 in phases. Our first phase of operation will link Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common in West London in 42 minutes.



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The government previously said HS2 would cut Birmingham to London journey times from one hour 21 minutes, to 52 minutes.

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Manchester to London journeys will take just one hour seven minutes (less than the current two hours seven minutes) and Birmingham to Leeds will take 49 minutes. In turn, this will likely reduce journey times between London and Edinburgh and Glasgow by an hour – to around three hours 30 minutes.

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HS2's new British-built, bullet style trains will travel at up to 225mph on both high-speed and existing railway lines. We are building HS2 in phases. Our first phase of operation will link Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common in West London in 42 minutes.

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Britain only has a small section connecting London with the rail tunnel to mainland Europe. In terms of speed, HS2's planned top speed of 225 miles per hour (mph) could make it Europe's fastest rail network.

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The number of trains running on HS2 will be almost halved and services will travel more slowly in a proposed shake-up of the £72bn line as ministers scramble to save money. Whitehall officials are considering reducing the number of trains from 18 to 10 an hour, insiders said.

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The maximum speed currently possible in the UK is 186mph, achieved by Eurostar trains on the HS1 line between London and the Channel Tunnel. The HS1 line is used by Eurostar services and Javelin commuter services from Kent, although the latter have a max speed of 140mph.

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While most Shinkansen currently operate at a maximum of 300 kph (186 mph), the E5 “Bullet Trains” of Japan Railways East (JR East) run at up to 320 kph (200 mph) on the Tohoku Shinkansen, which runs north from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori.

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HS2 services These will become 'integrated high speed stations', where passengers can catch HS2 trains and access the high speed network to the south. With two services every hour in each direction, journey times between Liverpool and London will be over 40 minutes quicker, at just over one and a half hours.

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The high-speed rail will provide the greenest, safest and most efficient form of transport. Although the cost was said to be over 100bn the investment will provide a major boost to business and the economy; the faster rail inks will help reduce the north-south divide and overcome the externalities of car use.

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HS2 services will reduce the journey time between Scotland's central belt and London to just over 3 and a half hours. Scotland will be part of the HS2 network from day one, with HS2 trains serving Glasgow on the West Coast Main Line.

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It is the largest infrastructure project in Europe and the most important economic and social regeneration project in decades.

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June 2023 In its six-monthly HS2 update, the government says services between Birmingham Curzon Street and Old Oak Common should begin between 2029 and 2033, with services to Manchester at some point between 2035 and 2041. July 2023 HS2 is described as “unachievable” by the government's infrastructure watchdog.

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The Colne Valley Viaduct is a bridge, under construction as of 2023, which will carry the High Speed 2 railway over the Colne Valley Regional Park and the Grand Union Canal, in Hillingdon, west London.

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We are already committed to using zero carbon electricity to power HS2 trains, which will be some of the quietest and fastest in the world. Reliable, long-distance train travel between the North, the Midlands and the South East will be emission-free.

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