Will HS2 stop at Birmingham?

The rail line will stop in Manchester, but from Birmingham it will switch to use existing West Coast Mainline track. It will therefore not be high speed after Birmingham - effectively confirming days of speculation that the northern leg of the controversial project has been shelved.



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The station will be linked to the NEC, Birmingham International Station and Birmingham Airport via an Automated People Mover (APM) carrying up to 2,100 passengers per hour in each direction.

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Rishi Sunak has cancelled the northern leg of the HS2 high-speed rail project, citing ballooning costs and mismanagement.

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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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How much will tickets cost? There is likely to be a premium of between 20 and 33 per cent for using the fast service. That would in theory push the cost of a London-Manchester Anytime ticket from £180 to £240 at 2020 prices, which works out at 6p per second.

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MANCHESTER, Oct 4 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled the northern leg of the costly HS2 high-speed rail project on Wednesday and pledged to invest billions of pounds in local rail and road links instead, saying it was more suitable for a post-pandemic world.

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HS2 was intended to create high-speed rail links between London and major cities in the Midlands and North of England. That has been pared down to a high-speed link between Birmingham and London. It is aimed at cutting journey times, creating more space on the rail network and more jobs outside London.

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HS2 blasts through sensitive wildlife sites, because the speed means the tracks need to be straight. Possible connections between HS2 and other railways, especially East West Railway, have been ignored. HS2 does not provide interconnectivity and is far from an integrated solution.

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View further details of the project on the HS2 website. The first phase of HS2 is proposed to run between London Euston and a new station in Birmingham, and is due to open in 2026. The HS2 route will pass close to the southern boundary of Coventry between Kenilworth and Gibbet Hill.

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The main reason HS2 is so slow to build is it is a really stupid idea that should never have been approved. It has always been expensive, which has lead to delays and construction pauses that push up costs further.

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HS2 will free up capacity on the existing lines, enabling more local commuter services and more freight services – more freight trains will help take lorries off the road and provide environmental benefits. The project has had a negative effect on economic, social and environmental factors.

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HS2 was expected to cost between 72 billion and 98 billion pounds at 2019 prices, but since then the bill has been pushed up by inflation - which ran at around 18% in the construction industry last year, affecting materials like timber, steel and concrete.

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HS2 was originally envisaged to operate more trains an hour and higher speeds than any comparable high-speed line elsewhere in the world. It has been estimated that this pushed up costs by about 10 per cent.

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High Speed 2 (HS2) Ltd is a non-departmental public body, wholly funded by the Secretary of State for Transport and sponsored by the Department for Transport. The HS2 project is one of the largest and most complex infrastructure projects ever undertaken in the UK.

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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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