Sadly no,our politicians lied to us again!

not under the current government, but most opposition parties seem to be in favour so there is hope there

Yes the current government is funding stage 1 a in spite of everything and u have to acknowledge that. They are also funding Hinckley C and the Dogger Bank wind farm and have completed the Elizabeth line which is now simply accepted as a huge success.

Yes, what an incredible project it is. London to... somewhere in the North of England. And it will shave approx 15 minutes of current times. Why do Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh have to pay £1500 per head for this ill considered project when we'll not see the 'benefit'?

Who cares?

Even rice-lip

The pronunciation was kind of funny though lol

I would have said rye-slip

Yes, but I wouldn't travel on that myself.

@@LoremIpsum1970 Why, do you prefer riding on the Sour Grape Express?

That's because little England keeps voting in the conservative party.

...but will it provide a good ROI? No, it will cost an absolute fortune and will be deeply in the red forever.

Well... I take the Elizabeth line on a daily basis and it is not a love story. There are so many technical problems! Mainly with those platforms doors! And the way some stations were designed, allowing flows of people from different directions to converge to a single entry/exit of the platform is surprising. Basically, trains are great, but the station part is lagging behind.

just not true is it @@leematthews6812

There are many exists at most of the stations that are just smaller and more people don't use. The simple solution being to just make people aware of them and with more signage. Also as for the technical problems, it's very tricky to predict. Problems with the platform edge doors is people trying to get on the train while the doors are closing or unpredictable problems. @

Similar to the Elizabeth Line (or Crossrail as it was originately proposed) it was started too late (crossrail should have been running by 1999 under the original proposals) it was started late and suffered too many changes. The original Greengauge 21 proposal was to run from st Pancras HS1 terminus with links to HS1 so Ashford and Stratford could be used to terminate trains, serve Heathrow Airport and run to the disused Biirmingham New Street platforms for a limited Birmingham service with mmost going on to Manchester etc. It was costed (excluding rolling stock at £5 billion, just after HS1 completion. Bloating of the scheme by the government under "levelling up" and changs of route to need massive tunnelling (pandering to protests?) has lead th the current overspend.

Why does a purely domestic line like HS2 have to connect to an International line to Europe HS1, for a start there is no capacity for HS2 trains in St Pancaras International station

I never thought of HS2 as a 'purely domestic line'. That you call it such betrays a problem - a purely domestic line has no need to be high speed. A conventional railway would have sufficed. The biggest problem with HS2 is the littlest mindset of its progenitors in not thinking internationally - the arrogance of politicians to assume that Britain is self sufficient@@peterwilliamallen1063

​@peterwilliamallen1063 The proposed link would not involve St Pancras. It would have linked HS2 and HS1 north of Kings Cross, the idea being passengers from the North would bypass London and go straight to Paris. It was originally costed at £1.2 billion. Small change now.

@@ds1868 It was tried years ago with special night sleeper coaches from Manchester to Paris and failed, these Coaches were exported to Canada and are now used on the Canadian VIA Rail service across the Rockies, there is no call for trains from HS2 or passengers to travel to Europe via the Channel Tunnel when there are quicker routes via Birmingham and Manchester Airports plus as Avanti West Coast Trains/ Trenitalia will be running HS2 services they would not with out specially built trains be able to run through the Channel Tunnel, that is why there is only one operator, Eurostar that have the correct trains

Nothing's wrong with engineers or engineering, as mentioned in the video, it's about the mismanagement done by politicians and all. Also, this has ALWAYS been the case, and especially in UK. Even in the Victorian era, when the London underground was being built, politicians accused the company of trying to break into the hell. They also bigoted the project to their voter base. But still, the London underground was completed and became loved by everyone. Here in this case however, the funds are coming from the government, so the politics is obviously gonna affect it.

The middle east has the money. Its called oil.

There is nothing being build for high speed rail in Dubai or UAE. The rail line currently being built has a max speed of 160km (100mph) and is freight only. They speak of planning passenger services but nothing has been built that would enable them.

yeah but we don't use slave labour and kill off all our workers in unsafe working conditions, and have next to no tax to encourage scummy people to move there.

Quite easy to build on an open land desert with nothing in your way such as people, wildlife, ancient trees and scenery.

No need to go far to the middle East. The UK's immediate neighbors have built and are currently building mega infrastructures for a fraction of the cost of HS2.

To get to Scotland though we need financial guarantees though by the Scottish Parliament. If they vote for independence they reimburse the UK taxpayer for the costs of the line. Seems fair to me.

It's going to Scotland on day 1

@@cameroncook2048 Not at 180+ mph its not. Hope the Jocks enjoy their bog-standard service Up the SNP!!!! (sarc)

@@jasonhesson1030 Not at 225mph the whole way, but there will be a saving of 40 mins on day 1. I'd love to see the high speed track go to Glasgow one day

​@@jasonhesson1030Or the Scottish government could fund the line from the Scottish boarder onwards. Like the channel tunnel: we built up to the boarder, and the French built up to their boarder.

It won't be needed for a long time because Work from Home has cut passenger numbers dramatically. It may be decades before passenger growth recovers. OK, so delay the expenditure.

"The cheapest day to build is today" is usually true. But with HS2 the cost is so inflated that tomorrow can and should be cheaper. Elsewhere in Europe, infrastructure costs way less and builds faster. Maybe because they think of infrastructure as a public good to serve the public, not as a way to line the pockets of every private interest involved. One of France's latest HSL, more than 300 kilometers long, extreme environmental mitigation features, 360 standards = 7.7 billions. Paris humongous metro expansion equivalent to the length of HS2 between London and Birmingham. 90% in deep tunnels and with about 70 new grandiose stations : less than half of HS2's cost... Madrid's cross center tunnel for high-speed trains, don't remember the cost but it's a mere speck compared to HS2. Fix the spending, the project process and laws. Then and only then try to finish the line. HS2's current cost is completely abnormal and unjustified. It's way overpriced. Even if they halt the project for a couple years while they investigate and fix the cost issue of infrastructure in the UK, it will still be cheaper than today.

@@lesfawcett5245 It hasn't, passenger numbers have recovered surprisingly quickly and are forecasted to continue to grow.

@@marcustrevor1883 what hasn't what? Passenger numbers are about 70% of pre-covid, not surprising when there are less trains. Numbers will increase but work from home will have a long term effect.

True

This country was built by some of the greatest and most innovative engineers in the history of mankind and it’s a testament to their genius that many of their creations are still in everyday use today…..I am of course talking about the victorians. When you look back at that great heritage it is truly sad to see how far we have fallen behind the cutting edge when it comes to infrastructure projects. The fact that large parts of our country, especially in the North are still relying on infrastructure that is well over 100 years old is a disgrace. HS2 would help improve capacity for north south rail travel and reduce the burden on the West Coast mainline which is now 186 years old. It’s looking like it might be on its own for another 186 years!

Then you clearly haven’t see the US. We can’t get our high speed rail in California done either. We have to rely on private companies such as Brightline to bring us high speed rail

​@@rufdymond Built by the most innovative engineers using Stolen Wealth from other countries....😂 This is the reason why UK cannot build anything now because they can't Steal anymore.

We were once Greta builders of railways

Hear hear, a sane voice in the wilderness.

The problem with hs2 is that it was proposed as one big project, which caused much more criticism, if they did the project in stages (like building a station or a bridge) like everyone else does it, it would probably be much more successful

**in Ukraine*

Soon to be the province of the Ukraine

It is just too expensive. The project needs to be ditched, as it is eating away the funding for the existing railway network. Without HS2, the Midland Mainline would have been fully electrified by now. And other important upgrades would not have been scaled back. The only reason to build HS2 is capacity, which could also have been achieved with building a cheap dedicated freight railway line to remove conflicts between slow and faster moving trains. Sunak is making the only sensible decision by scrapping the project

@@jettjones9889 💩

Built by China

Manchester got cancelled 😢

Roo-wee-slip

For TIB's benefit, "Rise lip"

cheap labour.

rye-slip

😂Rooeeeslip!

Problem with that is much of the old track beds have been built on so that would involve much more disruption to people's properties.

@@thorley1969 Very true but the likes of the Colne to Skipton line still has a lot of the railway built on but without permission in Earby and I'm sure there is many more that have done the same with houses that have stretched there gardens on to a disused railway.

actually they did invite china which quote at £13-£17B but politic get in the way same as the Hinckley point c nuclear station ... both could have build at massive less than they do now

I am from Bangladesh, Chinese companies doing great job in delivering river rail bridges, underground sea road tunnel and eletric grid upgrades @@jetli740

Was that a fixed price actual cost quote and did it include for all the services diversions highway alterations, planning requirements, dealing with unforeseen ground conditions, design fees, security, delays to the programme, converting a quote into an offer ?

Do you actually know what you are talking about or live in Birmingham like I do, the HS2 line is an upgrade of the WCML route from Birmingham New Street and as the route runs fro Birmingham Curzon Street towards Birmingham Airport it runs through SALTLEY actually passing the site of the old Saltley Loco Depot and as London Paddington is no where near the run of the route and is full to capacity with First GWR trains that is out of the question and these trains will not for fill the speed potential on a conventional line

nio but speculating on what has happened before with HS1 which opened initially to waterloo and then later to St Pancras. with the esculating costs not suprised to see this happen and be finished off later in the century.

China is a One Party State though with the ability to just take land off people for the common good. The UK has to abide by different rules . . . and the law.

1. HS2 is being built with a top speed of 360km/h, not 300. 2. A quick google says that the full length of HS2 is 530km. If we divide the cost (as stated in this video) of £106bn by that length of 530km, that leads to a cost per kilometre of £200m. That's still a lot of money but nowhere near £1bn! It's also important to remember that that cost includes not just a railway through open countryside, but also complex city centre approaches, massive new stations, and significant tunnelling. So if you're going to leave comments criticising the cost of the project, at least do some research first and get your facts right!

@@jasonhesson1030we've just found someone who believes figures stated by the CCP! there's always one...probably hasn't heard of Chinese tofu-dreg construction.

@@MikeWillSee The 530km length would be the total length including the 2 Northern legs that will never get built. The actual distance, as the crow flies from the centre of London to centre of Birmingham is exactly 100 miles, go and check a map. Top speed does not mean average speed or safe operating speed. The actual operating speed will be around 300kmph. You pulled your stats off wikipedia didn't you? The current estimates for completing the two northern legs are in excess of £150 billion. The £106 billion figure is only the phase 1 expenses, which is the London - Birmingham bit, so effectively a billion per mile, as the crow flies.

@@disposabull wrong again. The £106bn figure *is and always has been* for the full route. The first phase between London and Birmingham is (last I checked) estimated at between £40bn and £50bn. Furthermore, the actual operating speed is also planned to be higher than 300km/h, with trains regularly running at at least 320 - 330km/h, with the ability to increase to 360km/h if they are running late or need to speed up for some other reason. Most of the line is also futureproofed for 400km/h even if it won't initially operate at those speeds.

Give it a rest, get fed up with this rubbish about how to pronounce Birmingham, just live with it mate, init

rye-slip

What alternative plan?

The so called branch to Birmingham is the main stay of HS2, but at least you are beginning to understand about HS2 after me pestering you, yes it will be built to Handsacre where HS2 trains will join the existing WCML and travel to Manchester and Scotland via Crewe

@@peterwilliamallen1063 The mainstay of the new HS2 track is the section OOC to Handsacre - the _spine._ The branch from the spine to Curzon St is needless as it runs alongside the B'ham-Derby line. The branch junction can run onto the existing B'ham-Derby line to better connected New St. The Germans and French use existing tracks to get into city centres. B'ham-London trains go to New St anyhow. Build the crossrail using the Benson St curve and then 3 more trains are take away from New St.

@@johnburns4017 The mainstay of HS2 is from Birmingham Curzon Street to London Euston now, the short section from Water Orton on the outskirts of Birmingham is a short stub to take HS2 trains to Lichfield and Handsacre to join the WCML and with trains topping at Birmingham Interchange speeds to Lichfield will more than likely be only 100 MPH. The whole idea of HS2 is to run on a separate track from freight services and local and other Inter City Trains, you hair brained idea would mean an even more awkward idea of getting trains from the HS2 line onto a route tat has is one of the major freight routes from Birmingham to the rest of the Country and Felixstowe plus it carries X Country train services and local traffic so would not cope with dual use, plus these trains will not fit into Birmingham New Street Station hence a Station that is 3 times larger than New Street Station, Birmingham Curzon Street and before you say anything Birmingham Curzon Street Stations main entrance will be on Moor Street Queens way right in Birmingham's City Center next door to Birmingam Moor Street Stations entrance, don,t forget I live in Birmingham close to Birmingham City Center and the HS2 line alignment and the Birmingham Derby line so unlike you who lives in Newcastle I do no first hand what is going on.

@@peterwilliamallen1063 HS2 is a *_network_* that connects London to: B'ham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. It operates on a mixture of new and existing track. Again.... The _mainstay_ of HS2 new track is London to Handsacre when it runs onto the WCML, taking trains to Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. There is a branch where it runs through B'ham taking trains to B'ham centre at a dead-end, poorly connected station at Curzon St.

Ambitious? Spain and China built theirs overnight and we’re pissing our pants over one railway.🤦🏻

@@qasimmir7117Let me summarize again the problems with the original HS2 plan: too London-centric, too branched out, insufficiently simple. Hence it won't be build as complicated as the original plan. But you will have HS trains to Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. Next you should build HS3 between Liverpool and Leeds. These lines have perfect economic sense. And they would modify people's travel patterns. Further lines might make sense after you have analysed the former's effects, so wait at least until HS2 and HS3 are finished. Spain built its network over a 30 years period, they did not have to built through a city like London, and they still do not have a line to Lisbon. In fact, only a few years ago they managed to connect to France. Moreover, Spain's old network had a different gauge (the new HS network has standard gauge), so they cannot run regular trains on the two networks, something you very often do and will be doing in Britain. Therefore, Spain had to build this crazy many stations: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Spain#/media/File:Spain_High_Speed_Rail.svg to reach as much population as possible with the new network. China's old rail network was in such bad shape that they simply had to build a completely new one. Your old network, by contrast, has all the security and amenities of the new lines, except speed. You already have trains running a decent time in comfortable conditions. Moreover, China had to spend billions to avoid a recession in 2008-2012. That money would have been spent anyway, and would have been essentially wasted w/o the HS network project. Last, but not least, the current new HS lines in China are in need of more maintenance work than the lines built in Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria. Some of the lines they are building have zero economic sense: not only the original investment has to be totally written off, but income from current operations does not even cover the costs of maintenance. BTW, have you seen inside the Chinese HS train stations and trainsets? Note the 2+3 and even 3+3 seat configurations: www.alamy.com/stock-photo/china-high-speed-train-interior.html?sortBy=relevant

The WCML is one of the busiest mainlines in the world, it definitely needs relief and HS2 will bring that. That was the entire point of the project, to relieve stress off the WCML and speed up the journeys while we’re at it

The point of HS2 was provincial cities to have _direct_ services to continental cities. Once the continental link was cut, its raison d'etre dissolved.

Euston is still going to be the ultimate terminus of HS2

Those improvements can only go so far.

It would cost more and the reason Beeching Closed these Railways was because no one used them

Ideally both coasts deserve equal treatment but if we try to cover as many of the largest population centres as possible on one main line I think a snakier main line would be it. A bit of an inverted S. Glasgow Edinburgh Newcastle Leeds Manchester (obvious branch to Liverpool) Birmingham London

@@threesixnine369six Your S can be directly thru Liverpool, then thru North Wales or Chester then onto B'ham. Yes, North Wales that invisible part of the UK.

Why is the HS2 alignment utterly wrong considering from the outset it has been a Birmingham based project.

@@peterwilliamallen1063 Birmingham based? please!

@@johnburns4017 I would very much prefer for it to somehow go or loop directly through Liverpool, but I think even my hypothetical branch is still better than the real life situation lol

Their life is in steak! And they’re crying wofe! No wonder this country is going to the doogs!

It's not an American commenting on British politics, it's speech synthesis. The channel's country is stated as United Arab Emirates.

no way is the voiceover synthesized or AI. it's a real man speaking. and it's rye-slip.

@@RWL2012, obviously it is rye-slip. Why do you not think it is speech synthesis, though? There are even UK channels who use it, such as @UrbanStories.