London-Manchester: Britain's high-speed rail project between ambitions and disappointments

The UK initially aimed to connect London to Manchester with a completely new high-speed line. Dubbed HS2, the project was intended to reduce the journey between the two cities to approximately 1 hour and 08 minutes, compared to just over two hours on the existing line, while also freeing up capacity on the conventional rail network.

This ambition was significantly scaled back in 2023 with the abandonment of the Birmingham-Manchester branch. HS2 is now primarily limited to a new line between London and Birmingham. High-speed trains will still be able to reach Manchester, but they will have to use conventional lines in the north of the Midlands.

Commissioning postponed until the late 2030s

The first trains between London's Old Oak Common station and Birmingham are not expected to run until between 2036 and 2039. The arrival of trains at Euston, in central London, could wait until between 2040 and 2043.

Construction of the 7,2-kilometer tunnel linking Old Oak Common to Euston began in January 2026. The government considers this extension essential to prevent passengers from having to change trains in west London. The transformation of the Euston area could generate £41 billion for the British economy by 2053.

A bill exceeding 100 billion pounds

The cost of HS2 is now estimated at between £87,7 billion and £102,7 billion, compared to around £32 billion when it was first announced in 2012. Delays, inflation, technical complexity and poor management of some contracts account for much of this financial overrun.

To reduce costs, the maximum speed of the trains has been lowered from 360 to 320 km/h. However, the government maintains that abandoning the project entirely would cost almost as much as completing it, due to contracts already signed, land acquired, and infrastructure currently under construction.

Manchester is still waiting for its true fast track

Future trains will be able to continue their journey to Manchester by joining the West Coast Main Line, but this solution will not replicate the time savings promised by the original project. It could even exacerbate congestion on certain sections of the network, since high-speed trains will have to share tracks with regional services and freight transport.

London, however, has not definitively abandoned the idea of ​​a new link to Manchester. The government has mentioned the future construction of a line between Birmingham and Manchester, following the completion of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, a vast £45 billion program designed to improve connections in the north of England. No firm timetable has yet been set, leaving full high-speed rail between London and Manchester as a distant prospect.