Big Thanks to Chris: @Rail_Focus​ Go Subscribe!

What I find quite frustrating is that you can explain to people the actual benefits and reasoning of HS2, and you'll think they're taking it all in, and then they'll just repeat the stuff about £100 billion to shave twenty minutes off the journey.

A few years ago, an acquaintance found out I was a rail enthusiast and asked me what I thought of HS2. I predicted it would be built as far as Northamptonshire and get cancelled. So my prediction was nearly right. But what Rishi Sunak has done is that in a matter of a few minutes, has done nearly irreparable damage to HM Government, the Conservative Party and himself. Firstly: he has turned HM Government in a Bad Customer. That means many companies will simply not come forward for contract work and others will put up their prices, ask for higher deposits, higher initial down payments and increase cancellation fees. If, in the future, HS2 is restarted, it will cost considerably more than if Sunak had just let it go ahead as it was. Maybe three or four times as much. Secondly, he has demonstrated that he and the Government care little for Northern England and Scotland. And this will be reflected in the ballot box. Thirdly, as a businessman, he has shown poor judgement that in many companies would get you the sack on the spot. He has confused Capital with Operational expenditure. You can't use capital to repair roads. That's not how it works. That's not what it's for. Capex is for creating stuff, Opex is for maintenance, insurance, wages, paying off loans, etc. Fourthly, if you go to the bank to get a loan for the express purpose for, say, building an extension to your house, and then go and spend that cash on a car instead, you'll get a letter from your bank manager, asking exactly what is going on. It looks as if Rishi has read the chapter about 'How Not to Spend Other People's Money' in the 'Big Boy's Bumper Book of How Not to Do Stuff' (Harvard Business School Edition) and decided to ignore everything. Sunak has just exposed himself as incompetent. And now we're going to pay for his mistakes. Rant Over.

Why would the PM support building new rail lines when he can travel everywhere by helicopter?

In my humble opinion, breaking up British Rail and privatising the rail network totally screwed up the whole thing. Yes, BR had many problems and was inefficient and slow to make necessary changes, but in the last few years before it's demise it was improving. Now with multiple companies, multiple different stock owning companies, and no institutional memory, constant goal post changes by governments and different overseeing organisations, and the draining of 'profit' from the whole infrastructure, everything costs much more than it needs too and takes much, much longer. A total balls up all round.

Long-term, large-scale national infrastructure projects should never be cancelled because of short-term savings

I was one of those people spouting exactly what that bloke did in your short clip - 20 minutes saving! But now, after having followed the project by creating videos with my drone, I have had to research everything and I particularly remember a video of yours when you met up with Gareth Dennis and he explained everything so clearly. I just didn't realise what it was actually about before. The media has twisted all the information and nothing, as you say, has been done to correct it all. What Sunak did was a blow to the country. I'm even surprised he was allowed to do that. I thought any serious decision like that would have to go through committees which would last for weeks and yet he seemed to make the decision in a few days.

The UK's approach to rail is shocking leading to people still being wedded to their cars. Beeching really started the rot with no future view towards urban and rural expansion. There's some fantastic locations in rural Scotland, previously having a railway connection, that would massively benefit from rail infrastructure in 2024.

Cancelling HS2 was a big mistake that will haunt the U.K. for decades to come.

I moved to South West France but I used to commute to Basingstoke and London Waterloo by train regularly (An absolute cattle truck coming out of Waterloo at 6pm and ferociously expensive). SO.... I parked the car in Bordeaux and hopped on a tram to the Gare St Jean (about €1.30) from there I got my pre-booked upstairs seat on the TGV to Paris (€45 each way). It left on time to the second and got to Paris on time to the minute. 350 miles in 2hrs 40mins. Think about that. (Touching 200mph in parts). From Gare Montparnasse in Paris I got the Metro to my Hotel (€2). The point being that it was a cheaper option than driving, quicker than driving, more civilised than driving, and kept several hundred cars off the roads. The whole Tram, Train, Metro thing was seamless. It's just so damn affordable and civilised. It makes sense.

The wood discussed @5:57 was the site of the terminus of the Halton Railway was a spur line from Wendover to RAF Halton used to transport coal and other goods to RAF Halton. It closed in 1963.

I never knew when we were hearing the cost comparison of building HS2 Vs other countries that it was comparing the whole infrastructure as well as the trains against the rail tracks only! That makes quite a significant difference!

Ahhhh. Politicians govern and plan for their pensions not the good of society! 🇨🇦

Citizens don't have the framework to understand what infrastructure projects cost; anything in millions of dollars/pounds/euros is unfathomable. Even installing a new traffic signal can cost $100k. New transit option appear to be crazy expensive, but are rarely compared to other annual expenses or projects.

The small bit of hope, is that the government’s plan for a quick re-sale of the land put aside for the extension leg, has hit the buffers itself. The door is still slightly ajar, for it to be revived.

Thank you for being a voice of reason, the way the discussion around HS2 has been co-opted by climate change deniers and people who oppose rail in general is ridiculous. The facts are that the WCML is at capacity and a massive modal shift is needed to get cars off the road; if it's not HS2 then it'll be years, possibly decades of even more expensive upgrades to existing routes. Hopefully a future government will see sense and reinstate phase 2.

The thing that gets me about roads is that the accountants never count if a road generates a profit, and they never look at road closures for unprofitable roads (of which there are many). Constant and consistent tarmac bias, and lots of railism! Thanks for pointing out @Rail_Focus now subscribed! Cheers Paul - great video.

UK is disgusting with cars. Totally bike unfriendly. Shameful.

The problem is these mistruths were also told to the politicians who couldn't explain the real reasons why they were building it.

Loved being on site to see you shoot this. Thanks for inspiring my son James.

I'm currently reading Stephen R. Brown's "Dominion", a book about the building of the Trans Canada Railway in the late 1800's. It's interesting that the inflated costs and political corruption in infrastructure projects are the same today as they were then. Whether we are talking about London, England or London, Ontario much of this is the same. Public infrastructure projects seen by contractors and others as just a chance to raid the public treasury. And, I refuse to be politically partisan about it-- all political parties allow this to continue because those gorging at the public trough make sure some of it gets back to the political parties as "contributions"-- or what any reasonable person would call a bribe. A bribe being what it is. The problem with public perception with rail specifically, is that there's a default idea that if we use steel wheels on steel rails, it has to "pay for itself". But no one expects a pay back when we put rubber wheels on asphalt. We subsidize roads without a thought because it's generally recognized that even if one does not own a car or truck, we all benefit from the efficient movement of goods and people. Somehow, this does not extend to rail transportation-- or public transit for that matter.

I'm gonna be perfectly honest here, I've been a bit skeptical in the past about HS2 but after seeing how this government seem to prefer roads over railways and all the myths about this project, I wish more than ever before that they didn't cancel it.

I still want to know how the PM had the power to cancel HS2 given it was VOTED FOR IN PARLIAMENT!

All major construction projects go well over their proposed budgets. That's a fact of life everywhere. The Elizabeth Line in London went way over, but now that it's operating it seems to be proving to have been a good investment. The UK already has a huge amount invested in HS2, and to stop it now means that much of it was spent for naught. In the US, California has embarked on a major high-speed rail project, and it is also well over budget and behind schedule, but they're continuing construction. I've heard from other sources that the biggest benefit of HS2 would be to increase much-needed capacity, which would improve the existing passenger and freight services. You need a new Prime Minister....

Welcome to the wonderful world of HS2 video comments, enjoy 🤣. Great different take on the HS2 debate 👍.

I lived in Korea for 11 years, they have an entire separate High speed rail network from the low speed lines. Not half-arsed either. Major cities and country connected from North to South and They are still building too, an entire new line from west to east though mountain ranges and valleys. There's no politics around it, it's seem as progress and people are proud of it. Rail tickets are also up fixed, about 36 quid to travel the either line. slower tiers even cheaper. we need to be proud of build stuff again. HS rail. Dual carriage bypasses. motorways. We have totally stagnated.

All sections add up to part of a larger integrated system. HS2's capacity will help many miles away. Just look at the way the Lizz line has worked in London.

As a Thurrock resident, another issue that the LTC will have is it doesn't take the traffic far enough from the problem area. When the Dartford crossing messes up, the WHOLE of Thurrock can become gridlocked, literally not moving for hours just sat in your car in the same spot.

Here I was thinking we were going to get a video about something old and historical! This is interesting and not what I was expecting!

Utterly ridiculous that HS2 wont even make it to Crewe at the very least, as ending at Handsacre as the permanent end will be nothing short of a disaster, especially at the already congested Colwich Junction. And lets not talk about the uncertainty of Euston (which should have been kept as gov funded under Phase 1 post 2023), which will make a further disaster, as the Elizabeth Line will have to soak up the HS2 capacity. At least getting it to Crewe would have given trains a sensible spot to terminate, and would go well with the proposed North Wales Electrification scheme, as HS2 trains could even go up to Holyhead as well, so wales could have benefitted. Manchester could have still gotten a HS2 link via NPR (with a small stub to link HS2 to it). It will be ridiculous if they give the Thames tunnel the go ahead (Which wont be a motorway by the way, it will become the A122, which will be an all purpose A Road dual carriageway, in a similar vein to the A14 upgrades north of Cambridge), as that same money really should go into getting HS2 to Crewe (and Euston) rather than another road for the South-east. I do wonder what the real motive for cancelling HS2 was, as i wonder if it was caught up in Sunak's pro cars moment as a desperate way to get voters back, after the win in Uxbridge

If HS2 Had started in Scotland and worked South it would never have been cancelled. HS2 didn't help the North just the South

Until the line gets to Euston (2040ish) the time savings will be wiped out by having to stop at Old Oak Common and wait for what will be a stupidly overcrowded Elizabeth Line train.

This video is spot on. Cancelling in the way it has been done is the worst decision possible for the UK.

It was the high speed bit of HS2 that caused all the problems. The faster you go over 100mph the costs exponentially rise. And the benefits get smaller. A normal railway line would have been less sexy but far more practical and cheaper.

Should have started at the top down, there would probably have been less chance of it not being completed.

As a Northener, I think the money would have been better invested building additional infrastructure across the north, linking Birmingham, Leeds Manchester etc and maybe re-opening some of the ex Beaching lines that could aid in reducing congestion and also remove some freight from roads. Is HS2 going to help balance the UK economy or is it just going to make luxury homes in the north more accessible to wealthy southerners who want a weekend getaway, and extend the commuter belt for people working in London. We need HS2 but, other rail infrastructure should have happened first.

I am a Duchie and here in the Netherlands there is and was a lot of new train lines made.Those new lines are enormously succesfull.And they can get a speed off 250 km/hour.And this is already very fast.But because it is not a speed train the costs off those are less than say a train traveling on 400 km/hour! So why not choose the middle and make it a train for 250 km/hour?But not a train stop at every village off course.

Build the bloody thing..what are they waiting for ????

Hi Paul. The trouble with railways (and airlines too) is that they never seem to go from where you are to where you want to be. That naughty Dr Beeching closed all those branch lines that fed the main lines. What we need is an integrated transport system so buses meet trains and so on. That is an impossibility with this fragmented privatised model that governments pursue.

As someone who lived in Surrey in 1990-1992 (I'm an American), it boggles my mind how the UK's rail has failed. Y'all had AMAZING rail and as a kid, we NEVER needed a car. We could walk to the rail station and take the train into London, take buses and the Underground all over, and never once need the car. The ONLY exception was maybe some touring if we wanted to go to places outside of easy rail access or if we needed frequent point-to-point travel. Well, that and shopping at Sleezeberries. Between the bumpercarts and the self-bagging, it definitely required an automobile (like any other big box store), which was why the housewives like my Mum and the neighbors used to carpool together and fend off other carts/shoppers teying to mow you down as a collective. 😅 But I guess that's what happens when Thatcherism goes mad. RIP English rail post-deregulation.

I dispute the suggestion that spending 100 bn on HS2 "won't make much difference to the cost of a loaf of bread". 100 bn is enough to completely solve the housing crisis. And if we did that, the cost of rents and mortgages would fall dramatically, making a loaf of bread significantly more affordable. If you then consider an end to the enormous indirect costs of the housing crisis (estimated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to be in excess of 75 bn) we could see further benefits, in terms of public spending budgets. Add in the growing desire for reduced "food miles", the desire to consume less, and the growth localised economies, and it's difficult to see how an expansion of the railways, at huge cost, at a time when money is tight, can really be justified. Apart from anything, human nature inevitably means that making a route slightly faster will just result in people choosing to live slightly further away from there place of work, to exploit slightly more advantageous house price differentials, until a new equilibrium is reached.

Thankyou Paul for a very informative vidio, I agree there are many problems with the whole project the first being the route out of London, it is supposed to be a high speed route to the north yet it will leave Euston and immediately turn left and head west for miles to then go on to carve its way though miles of prime land some of which must be the most expensive in the country only to go on to swing to the right of Birmingham to eventually merge with the most congested part of the west coast main line north of Tamworth . The other failing is it does not connect to HS1 in any way so anyone wishing to use it as part of an onward journey to the continent is faced with a massive break in their journey to get betwen Euston and St Pancras international . Whilst not all international passengers will be looking to travel north a fair proportion may wish to connect to onward high speed services without the need to change stations . What might have been a better plan would have HS2 start at St Pancras heading North out of London to a suitable place where it could pickup the now closed GCR route to the North, suitable junctions could be constructed to allow trains to then connect to upgraded existing lines towards Birmingham, Derby , Leicester and the north. North of Derby use could be made of the now closed route across to Manchester through the Pennines , whilst this may not be the fastest part of the journey it would be the most scenic and could ease pressure on the WCML by not trying to add more traffic to an allready busy route . Electrification of all the routes between the major citys would allow faster journey times with better through routing of cross country services benefiting all. We need to avoid trying to go the last mile to each destination at high speed and settle for the last few miles on existing tracks and routes as building into and out of cities has become too expensive since a certain previous government forced BR to sell off all the spare land they had around the major stations.

You can't have nice things but you can watch videos of China's 38,000km of high speed rail and weep.

It is unbelievable that it is cheaper to send crates of tomatoes from Spain to supermarkets in England via lorries rather than use freight trains. Rebuild the railway network up, and get the juggernauts off of the roads. [or maybe even buy more stuff that is made and grown locally 🤔]

The question of WCML capacity is important. A lot of people living in Buckinghamshire complain about HS2 coming through their neighbourhood - and it is causing disruption in many ways - but where do they catch their trains if they want to go north? The answer is places like Tring and Leighton Buzzard on the WCML. HS2 should create more capacity for such services by taking some of the longer distance services off the WCML - or provide the space in the timetable for more of them to stop at Watford Junction or Milton Keynes. Alternatively, it could allow freight services to speed up (perhaps by taking some of them off the Northampton loop and sending them down the fast line).

Thank you Paul, we get brainwashed by the myths and you put things into perspective. I learned a lot tonight.

There is a step towards re-using abandoned rail lines in Ireland. The parts of defunct inner city lines that ran to the old Broadstone terminus (in the north of Dublin) and Harcourt Street terminus (in the south of Dublin) have been repurposed for the 'LUAS' (- or tram) - most of the 'Green line' follows the old Harcourt to Bray route for it's course. But there's also the re-introduction of the Clonsilla to M3 parkway rail line that was originally closed in the early 1960's and was re-opened in 2010 to serve the Dublin suburbs that had recently spread to the area. The line is eventually intended to continue onwards to serve the town of Navan & will follow (as far as is possible) the original line.

this is the most frustrating thing... many people don't realize that roads cost billions and when they are told it they don't bat an eye even if it's very short and overpriced, and then that has to be completely rebuilt in 50 years, then there's rail... these days we have many machines doing the hard work of bringing it up to standards including removing old track, scraping the underside clean relaying the underside and realigning the track... when was the last time your local council picked up a lane of road and then put it back within the same day? Sure it's oversimplifying it but... it's scarily close to dropping off and picking up your dry cleaning... You're inconvenienced for a day and tomorrow they are probably off in the next city

Excellent video. I do hope the project isn’t fully dead but I don’t hold much hope. One of the videos I will point “20 mins to Brum” people at

It was a dark day when our Prime Minster who we haven't even voted for cancelled HS2 in a Disused Station! This line would had helped with capacity for local passenger trains and freight trains. Even the PM is against getting the High Speed Line into Euston and trying to sink the project still. And some of the things that were shown saying 'HS2 will wreck that' even now it's 2 miles away makes me wonder why would someone make up a BS news story about that a certain land would be destroyed by HS2 even know it going nowhere near it. Great video Paul

Something I want to bring up is that in the 2010s everyone was like 'crossrail is over budget' and 'oohoh its several years late' but now you dont see anyone like that, they take it for granted and use it, proving that it was worth it. But now the blame has shifted to HS2 and I have a suspicion that its gonna end the same way again

Paul, great watch & listen. Very informative & well delivered. Thanks for your 'highlighting' of what was outside the Head. Appreciated. Regards from Western Scotland 👍

Crazy to cancel anything not finished! Another clear explanation with some great pictures of tunnels! Keep them coming. 😊😊😊

Well done. Please add to the next programme the massive new build development around the Birmingham stations that has not been included as a benefit in the economic assessment. Also the additional tunnels required by local Chiltern MPs added to the costs.

Gareth Dennis at Rail Natter on KZfaq has some very good discussion on HS2. His perspective is that of a rail industry professional 🙂👍

Thank you. Different from what I expected but well worth the effort you (plural) put in. I was not a big fan of HS2 because I thought that that starting from London was a guarantee that once it got past the M25 our politicians would cancel it. I felt it should have started from Manchester and gone north and south from there. And I live in a part of the south where the 90+ mile rail route to Exeter is mainly single track. Thank you again.

I was ambivalent to HS2 leaning towards not wanting it, without really looking into it. I'd only heard the "horror stories" It was when a friend of mine pointed out that it was really about freeing up the existing network for more trains, which he did in depth, that I realised I'd been hoodwinked by the "fake outrage" coming form certain parts of the media.

Because we're British, invented the blasted thing, & successive Governments & others can't organise a party in a brewery. There are too many examples over the decades & I've never been able to work-out why. I think we treat these projects as 'party political footballs' whereas other countries view them as strategic infrastructure for the good of the nation.

As usual, great work Paul! From the title I thought you were going to talk about us here in America!😂 Keep up the good fight!

hello again Paul, another very interesting video, enjoyed this one again , really well done and thank you 😊

The railways were originally made to move freight, the profits off set/subsidised the passenger fare costs, by 1960 the railways were 135m in debt, due to lack of investment during the war and the advent of the car and heavy goods vehicle, the only way to make the rails pay and lower passenger costs is to get heavy goods back on to them and off the roads, it does seem that a lot of people have their noses in the trough when a 14m stretch of road costs 10b, but HS2 will double capacity between the 1st and 2nd cities, so at least that's something

We can actually have nice things. It's just that getting the tories to actually support it and fund it is like trying to persuade a truculant teenager to clean their room. The power is there, they just refuse to use it.

Great video. Unfortunately some people just don't want to listen to you, but some will so please keep it up

What’s really sad is that 15 years ago in school I remember reading in a scholastic magazine about how Amtrak and British Rail discussed the possibility of a high speed rail line connecting the US and UK via a trans Atlantic tunnel. What’s sad about it is that it would’ve been schedule to have been completed phase 1 construction by 2024-2025, with regular service connections to New York and London

One of the main reasons that costs have increased so much is the interminable dithering of the Tory Government. Repeated reviews, "will we, won't we" decisions, part-cancellations, mean that any potential supplier is going to jack up their prices as a contingency against the possibility of investing a load of time, effort and money only to have their contract cancelled. To stop the line at Birmingham means that they're building the most expensive part of the line (through London and the Home Counties), but without gaining any of the real benefits (relieving the capacity crunch up around, and to the North-West of, New Street. It also means that when a future Government comes to their senses and realises that we do actually need it, it will be even more expensive - partly because the Tories are deliberately trying to sabotage any future revival by selling off the land that was bought to build HS2, and because all of the ecosystem (suppliers, trained workers, etc.) will have evaporated and will need to be built again. To cancel the Northern part of HS2 and instead spend a lot of the money on road building is truly criminal. I fully expect some brown envelopes to have gone into some of the Tories' pockets.

That woodland the other side of Wendover at RAF Halton used to have a railway in it. There was a small branch line from the NW of Wendover Station to RAF Halton that had its marshalling yard near those woods. And yes those buildings are from RAF Halton.

What infuriates me about HS2, is the bit we need the most, is the bit we won’t get. We’ll be left with bit we need the least. The north part should have been built first (& all the way to Edinburgh / Glasgow!)...

1-Build more capacity then. 2-Just don’t need high speed. 3-current London to Rugby faster than London Dover (HS1). 4-Should have been Glasgow (why not Inverness) to Birmingham.

Nicely done, sir (from the USA, home of the conflated and misunderstood cost-benefit.)

HS2 will have a station close to Birmingham airport and was going to have a station AT Manchester airport yet HS2 was never proposed as a solution to the debate of Gatwick's second and Heathrow's third runways'. Manchester airport already has two runways and IS bigger than Gatwick and it is planning to build more terminal space yet it is unloved by the (current) government because its owned by a collection of Northern (Labour) councils. I also think like you that the Southampton to Didcot railway should reopen for freight with a flyover at Didcot so as to not block passenger train paths on the SW mainline at Basingstoke and the GWR at Reading as they do now. However the big question no one has ever answered for me is; Why is HS2 taking so long to build? The original Birmingham to London line only took 5 years from first spade to fully open and the Manchester to Birmingham railway took a similar amount of time. Both these railways were dug by hand and the 11 million hand laid bricks in the 22 arch viaduct at Stockport only took a year to build.

Great video, although that clip of Sunak in Manchester really riles me!

I’m so happy you’ve made this video. I think the biggest failure of this project is the lack of showing the great things it does.

A very good video Paul and a very thought provoking one too. Makes you think how short sighted the Beeching report was. We have gone to where you could of got almost anywhere in the country by rail to having to use a car

The GCR should of been reopened and all the other railways that got closed

Excellent Video Paul, Thank you for sharing a BALANCED VIEW of what could've been Britain's Greatest internal Achievement. Thanks to the incumbent Government and their short-termism, we are left behind again, Brexit has shown the importance of keeping things moving but its always the excuse "we can't afford it" well actually for our children and their children WE CAN'T AFFORD TO NOT BUILD THE REQUIRED INFRASTRUCTURE.

Good one Paul, well worth highlighting. My view is we would need a full breakdown of all significant changes made from the original plans (which were much more than just outline proposals), and which were done to keep predominantly Conservative constituencies happy. It looks to me as though no real cost control was ever capable of being exercised against that budget if contracts were let on a cost-plus basis thus effectively ruling out price competition. I understand the amount of tunnelling has increased significantly from that planned and overground viaducts seem to require the most amazing temporary works which As I understand it are paid for in full but will disappear into the asset bank of said cost-plus contractors. If so these changes could well explain why a PM who loves his numbers and private jets would see the cancellation as a possibility even though it meant removing the entire reason for HS2, railway capacity increase. I would love to know from anyone actually in the know working on the project, because we are left to glean only snippets of information from multiple sources and the HS2 site leaves so many questions unanswered.

Great vid. The key points are crystal clear and always have been. It's not a level playing field. Roads get built with very shakey business cases, but railways have to have a much shorter payback and the benefits of recreating an integrated rail network are never truly considered. This is completely backwards, of course. More cynically, Tory MPs probably aren't members of the rail infrastructure lobby, but are members of private health care, so guess what gets promulgated!

Excellent summary. Have you already made the video about the A303 Stonehenge scheme cancellation?

Paul, as ever this was brilliant, clear and concise. Thank you!

I thought the reopening of the Moor Street line was meant to relieve capacity in Birmingham as the Worcester line trains used to go from New Street. I think there are places such as Crewe, Doncaster, Newark, York etc where east-west routes cross north-south ones. These (such as new platforms at Crewe so the Manchester / Liverpool - Wales trains don't have to cross the WCML and a new flyover at Newark to take the Nottingham - Lincoln line over the ECML) could relieve capacity at relatively low costs. There are also disused railways such as Swinton - Normanton & Glossop - Penistone that used to be inter-city routes that could be reopened.

The country is being dismantled by a failed political system. Education, health, transport are pillars of society, not just ‘cost centres’. There’s some kind of dystopian society laid out for us, where we don’t go anywhere and remain stuck in front of a screen beavering away until AI replaces everyone. Rail, affordable rail, is critical for our collective futures, along with car pooling and other alternatives. Instead, we have a nation throttled by mismanagement and facing an uncertain future as all our key pillars crumble through under investment.

I often wonder if the anti's travel along routes like the M40 'guilt free' as if it was always there.

the problem is with government and in particular the Treasury know the cost of everything and the value of nothing

Tolls can be charged on motorways (usually to a private company in a PPP arangement) but not on railways. Explains in many countries the building of toll roads at the expense of public transport.

Well the water table is being affected by HS2 cutting across the landscape in Buckinghamshire Paul; and the ancient woodlands being destroyed too ..had they not dropped the Aylesbury spur from The East-West line then I think the locals (including myself ) might have been more supportive… however with so much of the project now been cancelled, I cannot see that changing. With some other projects being promised money instead .. we do need to re-open some of those closed lines including lost branches .. here in Bucks the link between High Wycombe & Bourne End is a perfect example.. closed post Beeching .. it would be very welcome now with The Elizabeth Line running through Maidenhead & give alternative routes into London for both GWR & Chiltern Railways. My only concern all along has been how HS2 was supposed to free up capacity elsewhere .. I could not see how that would help the Chiltern Railways line without forcing passengers to have to go into London to get to Birmingham; if they tried that then it would just force people back into their cars!

I really think the reason rail projects get all the headlines is the tendency to build them all at once. What if, instead of phase 1/2/3, all in the tens of billions, these projects were more like phase 1 to reach a minimum viable product, and then just a slow, constant build out adding a new station every year or two, gradually expanding under the radar. That every infrastructure project is a massive announceable investment makes it harder to build networks.

its a fine balancing act between Cost and Benefit, as for the lower thames crossing between Kent and Essex there is a good reason for that project and its fundamentally the same as HS2 its all about capacity, given that the M20/M25 Motorway is a major trunk route from the Dover ports into London and the rest of the country and as a result theres significant strain on the 2 pre-existing routes (Blackwall Tunnel and the QE2 Crossing Tunnel/Bridge) As for HS2 i fear it won't do a huge ammount to mitigate road traffic on that route as the cost of a ticket between the 2 ends of the line will likely be eyewateringly expensive compared to teh alturnative, as it stands it costs £82.50 to go between Ashford (AFK) and London St Pancras (STP) during peak hours and roughly £38 off peak and thats roughly only a distance of about 60 miles... the problem is who will be able to afford to use it? im a railfan myself but the overboated prices are doing more harm than good to the viability of any new railways/routes

Fossil fuels are not renewable and will be replaced by nuclear power, solar and wind. That will mean living with electricity to a much greater degree. Electric trains and cars are a more efficient way of using that electricity than for example, hydrogen from sea water. Hopefully money saved from cancelling HS2 will be spent on electrification of other railway lines. I myself think HS2 to Birmingham is WIP and no doubt will be completed to Scotland in the future.

Suspect there are more friends of the government in the highways and oil sector than the rail sector. 'Twas ever thus.

Can't say I agree with @Paul on this one I'm afraid. There are certainly examples of poorly used and down-right misused data on both sides of the argument, and I agree that we do need to increase capacity and utility in our rail infrastructure but I don't see HS2 as the answer. Even if it were the means to "level-up" Britain by providing currently non-existent levels of connectivity between cities in the "Northern Power-House" as well as linking them to the south, it should have been started in the north where the greatest benefit would be felt and then continued as originally planned - a half-arsed bodge is less than pointless (IMO ofc). As for my opinion on what we do need, it would be to increase rail capacity with more lines to enable trains to be more useful to more people rather than just go slightly faster for a few people. In other words, not HS rail (Britain's too small to need it) but more connectivity (HS2 didn't provide a lot of connectivity since it only connected a handful of cities). Full disclosure, I live near the route but not so close I can see it, thanks to a hill, but close enough that we're heavily affected by it. However, I'm also an engineer, love trains and railways and support the need for improved infrastructure. I just don't see HS2 as an improvement.

I don't think it was ever going to go beyond Birmingham. I am a Londoner living in the Midlands and unfortunately it's become clear over my lifespan. successive UK governments don't really think about anything outside the home counties.

The advantage of a highway is that you dont hafta travel 100 miles to get access compared like often the case to a train station for a high speed railway . What percentage of the British public will work or live within a couple of miles from a high speed train station ? Besides all cars are gonna be EV's by the time HS2 is finished anyways so there will be no adverse carbon issue .

It isn't just HS2, it seems that every civil infrastructure project for the last 20 odd years has been cut back, over budget, highly delayed and not meeting standards. Off the top of my head I can think of the Elizabeth line, Edinburgh Trams, Millenium Projects, West Coast Main Line upgrade... From what I have heard a large part of the problem is that they have been inconsistant with projects meaning that each one requires a large number of contracted staff rather than having long term staff. Also the failure to commit means that ideas are discussed for decades before any action is taken. For example, although I can no longer call myself a young man, most of my life there has been discussion about a new runway in London without it either being completely cancelled or a single spade put in the ground. Apart from the immediate effect of not having these facilities, the uncertainty means business are afraid to commit to projects where these are a deciding factor.

Paul, I used to live in Kingsworthy and my belief is that the station was obliterated by the dualling of the A34. Where you lept onto a platform cannot be there as your voice would have been unheard over the traffic noise. Are you sure that wasn’t further up the line, say, Worthy Down camp? Could you place a Google pin on those platforms? I’m having an anxiety attack that I missed something in my old locale. (I live in southern France these days.

Well done report. I'm in the US, so this doesn't matter to me, but some observations... I saw a report that France has built out their HSR system to the point that short haul airline flights have ended, shifted to HSR, to save an enormous amount of fuel. This is a reason for a full HSR network in the fairly dense UK. The other big reason, as stated, is to separate long distance traffic from local and freight traffic. Building just a small part of the network is Completely Ufeleff (Jeremy Clarkson voice). People keep wondering why the US doesn't build more HSR. Note that the state of Texas alone is 2.8 times the area of the entire UK, and has less than half the population of the UK. The answer is to build a better product and people will use it. Mandates have become discredited in the last few years.

HS2 killed by Train Drivers Strike. Trains will only work in the UK when the Robots are in the drivers seat.

Although I'm almost missing the main point here Paul, can I say how much I loved seeing the old DN&SR at Worthy Down and Woodham Junction / Hookpit Lane once more. This was where I "discovered" disused railways, 31 or so years ago. One day you may have to suffer my photos from then (including when the cutting of the 1940s spur to the L&SWR main line had not been infilled)!

I was there when this was made

The capacity issue. Two days ago, just nine intercity trains out of Euston in the 5 pm to 6 pm peak. This is 5,270 seats. This is ~32% lower than what a full service with Stadler-type trains would provide, without any infrastructure changes. Also, a fortune can be saved by using cheaper off-the-shelf tilting trains improving speeds on the WCML to 140 mph and capable of 160mph on dedicated HS2 track.

Great video. I liked your previous video on this subject where you suggested the same argument. The government is still wedded to cars, please see Jen on the moves recent video . Jen details the introduction of a pilot scheme on the LNER, started on 5th Feb 24, where the price structure is 'simplified' . Train fares will rise e.g.. Kings Cross to Newcastle costs £140 one way, another £140 to return. Ordinary folk will not be able to afford to travel by train. The new pricing structure will be based on surge pricing as per Uber, that is cheap fares at 06:00 I'm old enough to remember Dr Beeching cutting the Great Central Railway (GCR) because trains were seen as old fashioned, the car being the future. Britain has been in thrall to the car ever since. Beeching cut the railways at the behest of the controversial transport minister Ernest Marples who was linked to a road haulage firm/road building firm. Incidentally, the GCR run from London to Manchester!!