The inexplicable story of HS2

The debacle of HS2 leaves me speechless.

The debacle of HS2 leaves me speechless. I did several radio interviews after the ‘reset’ of the scheme was finally announced by transport secretary Heidi Alexander who expressed anger at how the scheme had got completely out of control.

The cost for a much truncated version of the original scheme is now definitely going to exceed £100 bn, three times the original estimate for a much longer railway. Moreover, astonishingly, the completion date, which was supposed to be this year, is now at least ten years later than originally envisaged and frankly likely to be 2039, the latest date of the range given by Alexander.

Even though I have written about this project – and indeed opposed it from the start – for more than a decade, I am still left baffled by how the situation can be so bad. It just seems inconceivable that after some £60 billion has been spent, the people in charge of this project are unable to give any precise details of how and when it will be completed.

Surely there must be a list of particular works – a bridge here, a viaduct there – and an understanding of the time it will take to lay the tracks and install the signalling. But it seems not. After eighteen months, the new CEO Mark Wild was apparently unable to provide these details – or perhaps Alexander was unwilling to give them. Wild has explained that it is the uncerrtainty about the weather which means no clear date can be given.Work should normally be concentrated in the period March to November but wet conditions in that period could delay work. That seems pretty pathetic.Surely this should have been already taken into consideration and doesn’t explain why it is going to take ten years to get even the basic London to Birmingham railway working. It is a national disgrace.

I suspect that the malign influence of the Treasury may be in play here. The obvious way of completing the project would be to speed it up, throw money at it as fast as possible to ensure its early completion and the start of revenue generation. But the Treasury has, perhaps understandably, rather lost faith in the rail industry. Indeed the Treasury has never liked railways, taking the narrow and mistaken view that they are simply a money pit, rather than understanding they are a vital part of the nation’s infrastructure and deserving of government support in the same way as education, health or defence.

My new book Fast Track covers this failure in some detail but it also explains how China has built 30,000 of railway in broadly the same period that HS2 has been in progress. So the score in the high speed world cup is China 30,000 - UK 0. Some scoreline. I have written my next Rail column on the HS2 debacle at Euston and a Spectator piece explaining more of this disaster, and both will be available soon to Premium subscribers.

In the meantime, if you want to be put on the list to preorder a signed and discounted copy of the new book, email me at Christian.wolmar@gmail.com

PLease become a premiuym subscriber