GUEST POST Why has the HS2 project been such a disaster?

Peter Chambers goes in search of enlightenment about the ironic low-speed train crash that is HS2.

Most people I meet have an opinion on HS2. Different opinions. It has been expensive. It goes to Euston. It was a plot by Labour or the Tories. It goes too fast. Or not fast enough. It was a sop to the North or a scheme to divert economic activity to London.

What are the most useful points? Was it anything but a muddle? Some acquaintances have advised me to use these new GPT-LLM-RAG machines to produce a summary (AI). However, I know too much about how they work, so will politely decline. Instead I might read a human-written review of a human-written book that has been deemed somewhat informed. 

So off to the Literary Review for some opinion. Transport expert David Leeder reviews Off the Rails: The Inside Story of HS2 by Sally Gimson. I was looking for something with lots of numbers, geography, requirements, political objectives, strategy, analysis, risk-management, expertise and national benefit. Who am I kidding? It was Oxbridge debating with itself and Natural England being paid off one change at a time.

Leeder tells us that at least 40 per cent of the population (of what ?) lives in a quadrangle formed by London, Bristol, Liverpool and Leeds. The distance between London and Birmingham is only around 160km while London and Manchester are around 260km apart. It is proposed to operate HS2 at 320 kph. Forty-nine  minutes. Barely time to scan the Guardian, and tell the buffet assistant twice that there is no milk in Americano. There never was. 

We can skip the bits about Blair and Adonis (who?) and the aspersions about Roy Jenkins and claret. You might as well take Avanti West Coast from Euston and find a good forward-facing seat in Coach C. They have USB and the Project Reach cellular upgrade should be working in 2028, even at Piccadilly and Euston. It would take most of 49 minutes to get Teams working and find that the AI sent you the wrong meeting minutes document. Was that £38bn or £80bn? At least the No.1 circular bus at Manchester Piccadilly is both free and powered by electricity.

Much of the rest of the review takes on a tour of the group-think of the rotating cast of London-based decision-makers. Leeder describes them as "Britain’s political class, which comprises a narrow pool of upper-middle-class types who share many of the same vague assumptions." 

This seems plausible as the stated requirements used vague language and rotated with administrations. The very basic cost-benefit analysis that would link national growth with having a high-speed railway at all seems missing. The two most dynamic nations do not encourage us: the US does not bother with high-speed rail, the PRC has long distances between major cities and poor legacy transport networks. We do not compare with either.

Perhaps the most concise criticism is that the low productivity of most of the UK outside London and the Home Counties may well be due to factors having nothing to do with transport. A high pound, managed decline, class struggle, City bias, disdain for STEM, and the privilege of the Oxford Union will be suggested by a quick-lazy search engine. 

HS2 functions as a 'shiny' and could be useful as a distraction from unpalatable political action. It is rather expensive for that though.

Peter Chambers is a Liberal Democrat member from Hampshire.

Celebrity dog trainer sues government for £8m over upheaval caused by HS2

The Independent wins our Headline of the Day Award and the judges thought you might enjoy this example of a celebrity dog trainer's work.

An elephants' graveyard: Toton sidings and locomotive depot today

Years ago, I was on a rare passenger working through Toton. The ranks of stored wagons and locomotives made it feel like an elephants' graveyard,

As Our History Underfoot – the new name for the old Trekking Exploration account – discovers here, the vast yards and loco depot Toton are largely derelict today. This was to have been the site of the East Midlands Hub for HS2, but that won't happen now.

Besides Toton, we see the River Erewash and some of the tangle of lines that makes Long Eaton a railway labyrinth.

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"At the turn of the 20th century, British protectionists waged a long and unsuccessful crusade against free trade. Like President Trump’s policies, their campaign for tariff reform expressed the anxieties of a global power in decline." Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri draws an enticing historical parallel.

Will Hutton talks to Yvonne Wancke at North East Bylines: "Capitalism ... does produce wealth, it does produce innovation…but it has a propensity to inequality, a propensity to monopoly, a propensity to oppress and exclude, it has phenomenal inbuilt instabilities that have to be pro-actively managed by public agencies, and that is elected governments."

"HS2's so-called bat tunnel has become a political scapegoat, used to justify rolling back environmental protections. But the real story is very different. The tunnel was not forced by conservationists or wildlife laws - it was a consequence of poor decisions made by HS2 Ltd and approved by parliament." Holy correction! It's the Bat Conversation Trust.

Mapping the Quartet follows the careers of four eminent women philosophers who began their careers at Oxford during the second world war: Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot, Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Midgley.

Andrew Miller argues that the appointment of Harry Brook betrays the shocking tangle that England's once-formidable white-ball set-up has got itself into.

"What captivated Kubrick about Thackeray was his ability to expose the cruelty beneath the polished facade of aristocratic life. The rigid etiquette of the 18th century – a period described variously as an age of gentility, sensibility and enlightenment – demanded an emotional detachment that fascinated the director." Nathan Abrams believes that Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon deserves another viewing.

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"In recent years, the United Kingdom has seen a troubling increase in Holocaust denialism, fuelled by disinformation, a lack of historical education, and the actions of influential public figures." Jack Wilkin on a growing assault on truth.

Patrick McGuinness remembers the hounding of Christopher Jefferies: "The day after his arrest, one of my former classmates spoke to the Telegraph. The article was headlined 'Joanna Yeates Murder: Suspect Christopher Jefferies was eccentric with love of poetry' and my classmate was quoted as saying: 'He was particularly keen on French films.' If innocence can look this bad, who needs guilt? Jefferies became the nation’s High-Culture Hermit-Ogre.

Phil Edwards asks why the New Statesman keeps hyping up the threat posed by Nigel Farage.

No, the HS2 'bat tunnel' has not cost £300,000 per bat, and it will protect a lot of other mammals, birds and insects. Holy heritage, Jeff Ollerton.

"That's what made him such an ideal partner for Kenneth Williams: always unselfish and understated, he complemented rather than competed. While Williams concentrated on the broad brushstrokes, he was content to add the fine details. It was why Williams, who so often came to clash with his fellow performers, never had a bad word to say about Hugh Paddick." Graham McCann pays tribute to a skilled and understated performer.

John McEwen celebrates the books of Denys Watkins Pitchford ('BB'): "His most famous was The Little Grey Men, a children’s adventure story about some gnomes who went in search of their long-lost brother. It was inspired by his own incontrovertible sighting of a gnome at the age of four. He was a down-to-earth man and never budged on this issue; though latterly he felt that gnomes, like so much of the countryside, might have become extinct during his lifetime."

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Tom Forth examines the prospects for HS2 now: "Building a new railway from Birmingham to not-quite-London at Old Oak Common would be ridiculous. It is good that Labour seem likely to continue the railway to the city centre. But it is also painful that a huge national investment sold for more than a decade on the promise to benefit North England is now likely to barely benefit it at all. What little gains remain from the plan will fall overwhelmingly to London."

"Duncan came back to his foster home from college one day and found all his bags were packed. It hadn’t even been a week since he turned 18, and his foster carers were happy for him to stay. He’d been living with them since he was 11. But social services said it wasn’t an option. The police would be called if he didn’t go calmly." Greg Barradale reports on the Staying Put scheme, which is helping reduce homelessness among care leavers.

A year ago, the Independent Commission on Equity in Cricket published a bombshell report that exposed many of the game’s ills. Alan White asks why the sport decided to rip the shroud away from itself, and finds out what comes next.

Jeni Rizio on the many good reasons for learning Welsh.

Melina Spanoudi visits Nottingham's Five Leaves Bookshop: "The bookshop is not located on the high street, so events are key to get customers into the shop; the booksellers hold 100 or so a year. In the past weeks, these have included a talk on the history of lesbian fashion, a conversation between human rights activist and politician Shami Chakrabarti and biographer Rachel Holmes, a launch of poetry pamphlets and a discussion with Jonathan Coe and Graham Caveney."

"The sight of glow-worms lighting our way along the hedgerows of a country lane at the height of summer, with all the smells of hay and flowers, is delightful and often unexpected. They are a source of amazement, like seeing a shooting star." Steven Morris meets the glow-worm survey volunteers of Dorset.

The alternative London HS2 terminus sites that were rejected

Jago Hazzard looks at the many HS2 stations in London that might have been but weren't.

You can support his videos via his Patreon page.

Curzon Street: Jago Hazzard visits Birmingham's oldest and newest station

Curzon Street was Birmingham's first railway station, served by Grand Junction Railway trains from Liverpool and Manchester and by London and Birmingham Railway trains from Euston.

When Birmingham New Street was opened in 1854, it was relegated to being a goods station and survived in this form until the 1960s.

Now the site is being redeveloped as the Birmingham terminus - indeed the Northern terminus - of HS2. It's Grade I Listed entrance building will form part of the new station.

Jago Hazzard's video covers both its past and its future - you can support Jago's videos via his Patreon page.

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"Short-form social content is great for punchy superficial gesture, but just terrible at containing any form of complex nuanced context. The volatile nature of the provocative issues embedded in this conflict are barely containable even face to face among close others with whom we disagree. Exchanging with strangers online is not only impossible, but tends to result in the hardening of positions and may even contribute to radicalisation." Aaron Balick explains why social media amplifies hatred in a time of unspeakable horror.

"There is too much emphasis on what connects with 'Middle England', and the blue wall in particular. How does that connect with someone in Caernarfon or Caerfyrddin? Through the consequences of Brexit, we have seen what appealing to strong feelings of Unionism can do and are doing. We need to move away from all that." Cheryl Williams says it's time to reinvent the Welsh Lib Dems.

Matthew England and Ruth Fox ask what the HS2 fiasco means for Parliament: "The Prime Minister’s decision to cancel the next stage of HS2 has given rise to criticism that once again the Government has ridden roughshod over Parliament. Just over 1,300 hours of legislative time have been spent on four HS2-related Bills over nine Sessions in the last decade."

Over half (58 per cent) of prison sentences given to women in 2022 were for less than six months, reports the Prison Reform Trust, despite a widespread recognition that short sentences are harmful and ineffective.

Daniel Callcut looks at the moral philosophy of Bernard Williams: "Williams had little time for the idea, associated with postmodernism, that all of reality is a cultural construction. Humans have dramatically reshaped the Earth but they didn’t create the planet they live on. Ethical reality is constructed via interaction with ‘an already existing physical world’ that is not a cultural product."

Alwyn Collinson on the extraordinary life of Johnny Smythe: "One of the first black airmen in the Royal Air Force. The man in charge of the historic voyage of the SS Windrush. A Krio who said that his skin colour saved his life when he was captured by the Nazis."

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Matthew Pennell explains where HS2 went wrong: "his is the hallmark of populism - a complete failure to deliver, a lot of posturing and constant drama about things under your nose, with no capability to do anything strategic."

Nick Winch pays tribute to his mother Phoebe Winch, who died last week at the age of 92: "She was a member of the Standing committee of ALC then ALDC – and was the organisation’s first President. She would travel around the country with the likes of Roger Hayes and Andrew Stunell running training days for councillors and campaigners, wrote ALC booklets including an informal - and funny - history of the first ten years at the Birchcliffe Centre."

"Northern England has contributed so much to modern Britain and the world. Its economy, though diminished in relative terms from its industrial peak, remains bigger than that of countries such as Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Northerners have a fascinating story that deserves to be heard." Brian Groom explains why the North matters.

Jonny Thomson examines Dietrich Bonhoeffer's argument that stupidity is more of a threat than evil: "Evil is a puppet master, and it loves nothing so much as the mindless puppets who enable it - be they in the general public or inside the corridors of power."

Simon Perks on work and life and balance.

I miss the days when there was a rich ecology of blogs. Matthew Cooper had one devoted to critique of the works of the historian Dominic Sandbrook that flourished for five years from 2012.

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"Basic Income was proposed by Paddy Ashdown as a fundamental component of his Radical Agenda for the 1990s, a book published in the late 1980s. It is liberal because it recognises the agency of the individual and their contribution to society. A Basic Income, he said, 'gives security to each individual', and will also 'liberate power in the hands of the citizen'." Jane Dodds is encouraged by the success of a Basic Income in Wales and dismayed by Liberal Democrat backsliding on the policy.

Richard Sanders on the way the 2017 general election has been written out of Labour Party history because it does not fit into the narrative promoted by the party's current leadership.

"A very senior insider told me that there ‘has never been any proper management and accountability of the project. There have been constant changes to the specification with no understanding of the cost implications’. Remarkably, there is no overall budget, the business case has not been reviewed despite the changes in specification and rises in costs and the accounting is carried out, bizarrely, in '2019 prices’ - a subterfuge to disguise the soaring expenditure." Christian Wolmar explains why HS2 is costing so much.

Sarah Bakewell recommends five book on existentialism.

"Last year, I joined a group of intrepid plant hunters descending into the depths of the last remaining bomb site in the City of London. We climbed all the way down into the hole until we reached the level of the platforms of what was formerly part of Aldgate East Station, until a V2 bomb dropped nearby in the Second World War." That was The Gentle Author blogging in 2018.

"Typically set in a sprawling country house and populated by a cast drawn from the landed gentry and the well-to-do, 'Golden Age' detective fiction is not the most obvious genre in which to find two of the country’s leading socialist intellectuals." The Society for the Study of Labour History recalls G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, whose 28 detective fiction novels and four collections of short stories helped the publisher Collins achieve great success with its Crime Club imprint.

GUEST POST Why is the UK failing so badly at infrastructure?

Our obsolete political system and a lack of knowledge and experience in the civil service have made Britain an also-ran in infrastructure investment, argues James Oates.

On the face of it, we are in something of a golden era for investment British infrastructure. The Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) in London, was just opened on 21 May 2023, and at the same time the full-scale construction of the HS2 high speed rail line between London and Birmingham is now underway, with a projected completion date of between 2029 and 2033. The Thames Tideway super sewer is also now on course to be completed by 2025. 

Over the course of the last decade, 400 miles of UK Motorway have been turned into 'smart motorways'. A programme of junction improvements across the country is another significant investment in the national road network. 

Yet, the slightest comparison shows that the UK is in deep trouble. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which reviews major projects on behalf of the government now believes that at least one in ten of current major infrastructure projects cannot now be achieved, including HS2.

Much of what is being built is drastically behind schedule. Crossrail was first proposed in 1941, and in the time the UK has built two through lines in London, namely Crossrail and Thameslink, France has built five, all significantly longer. 

As for High-speed rail lines, France has built over 2800 km of such lines, while HS1 is 109km and even if completed, HS2 will only be 225km in length. Much of the British railway infrastructure runs along the equivalent of cobbled streets, which explains our low standing in the Global Economy ranking of the quality of nations' railway infrastructure - and we do little better in their ranking of roads.

More to the point, the French have been able to build these projects for far cheaper as well as far quicker than the UK. The construction of the LGV from Paris to Bordeaux, 302km of new built lines, which was completed in 2017, had a total project cost of €9bn (£7.7bn at current exchange). 

The scheduled project cost of HS2 is already over budget at £44 billion, and this is only for Phase 1, London to Birmingham and Phase 2a, Birmingham to Crewe. There is no current budget to complete phase 2b of the project to Manchester, and the Eastern alignment to Sheffield may be abandoned altogether. 

How come the UK is going to spend well over ten times the amount that France spent on the LGV Sud Ouest and end up with a project that delivers little or even nothing?

Many suggest that there is a question of geography: that South East England is extremely crowded and that land costs are much higher than is France. This is true, but only a small part of the story: the NAO estimates that the cost of purchases for phase one of the project (including c.£900m of compulsory purchases) was a total of around €3bn. 

So, given that the purchases have now largely been completed, the costs are high, but not insane. Nor are the specific geological problems for construction much different in France versus Southern England, so how come the build costs are so massively higher in the UK versus France?

One suggestion as to why UK costs are so high is that contractors are not kept under constant control by the build customer. That each large infrastructure project requires individual delivery authorities, and that there is a churn between these authorities and the contractors. 

This is certainly anecdotally true, but the costs are reviewed by central ministries and ultimately by the National Audit Office. In theory then, any questions of bid irregularities should be at least kept under control, if not eliminated entirely.

In practice, however, things may not be properly reviewed at all. The benchmark for contractors is that bid prices reflect the prevailing market conditions and this generally means therefore that the lowest bids are accepted. The risk of the open bidding process being subverted by insider knowledge is clear, and equally, though hard to prove, it appears to be widespread.

The problem for infrastructure investment, as with so much in the UK government system is that the central civil service no longer has a body of experience and knowledge that allows it to evaluate design and build issues from a position of control.  Delivery authorities are not beholden to the civil service, given that the longer-term career interests for those who serve with them are more likely to be aligned with the private sector, once the project is complete. 

The costs of engaging consultants to provide the necessary expertise is extremely high, and again, interests may not be fully aligned.  In any event the issues with both the delivery authorities and the consultants are too short term to work efficiently for the longer-term issues that large scale infrastructure is likely to involve.

Some would argue that the whole process should be nationalised, and that the IPA takes executive powers or a new body could be created. My own view is that, while such planning could certainly benefit from a more coherent policy approach, the issue is to create a skill set and culture within the UK civil service that can adequately supervise the delivery authorities, and that if there is a clear career path for those involved in the delivery authorities, it should be within the public sector as much as the private.

The UK, for environmental, social, and economic reasons needs to modernise its infrastructure. The combination of the obsolete political system and underinvested, poorly structured and badly motivated civil service is making Britain the also-ran in global infrastructure investment and undermining our whole future. 

We talk a lot about policy. We do not talk enough about administration and delivery, and while this is true in much of the British public sector, it is now critical in the way we build our infrastructure in the coming few years. Civil service training and incentives will be at the heart of the coming debate.

Are we ready?

James Oates blogs at Cicero's Songs and you can follow him on Twitter.

Work halted on HS2 after mystery pool of bubbling foam appears

 

The Guardian wins our Headline of the Day Award for this disturbing effort.

Christian Wolmar - an informed HS2 sceptic

 

A lot of opposition to construction of HS2 has been ill-informed - my favourite example was an article in the Spectator calling for the reopening of the old Great Central Railway. 

That would be a wonderful idea if its route through both Leicester and Nottingham hadn't been lost to redevelopment.

So it's good to listen a an HS2 sceptic who knows what he is talking about.

Last week Christian Wolmar appeared on The Bunker podcast to guide us through the project's confused rationale, route and future.

Have a listen to him. He also has a new podcast of his own: Calling All Stations.

Why are Euston and Euston Square separate stations?

In short, because of 19th-century competition between railway companies and 20th-century worship of the motor car. But all that is about to change.

But do watch the video, because Jago Hazzard is always engaging. You can support his videos via his Patreon page.

Department for Transport halts work on East Midlands leg of HS2

The Birmingham Post reports:

Work on the eastern leg of the High Speed Two rail line has stopped, the project's chief executive has admitted. Officials are busy preparing plans to extend the HS2 line north west to Manchester, but they have been told by the Department for Transport to halt work on the planned section between Birmingham and the East Midlands, and onwards to Leeds.

HS2 Chief Executive Mark Thurston said: "We wait to be guided by the Department on what we do with the eastern link."

It has been rumoured for some time that the East Midlands leg of HS2 is under review. And, as someone who has always found this project hard to love, I am not heartbroken at this news.

I know the arguments about HS2 increasing the capacity for regional services, it's just that they appear not to hold true here in the East Midlands.

As Jones the Planner blogged back in April 2013:

The HS2 business case claims that 80% of passengers from Nottingham will transfer from MML to HS2, and to help this heroic punt come true, hidden in with the small print, you find the assumption that direct trains from the new Nottingham Hub to St Pancras will be cut by half. Well, that will do a lot for city centre competitiveness, I don’t think. 

So actually Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield get a worse train service to their city centres, where most people want to be, than they do now - but great if you want to drive to a Parkway station. Leicester, a city of some half a million people will no longer have a mainline service as such. 

It is bizarre if not surprising that a project which started with the aim of boosting provincial cities should end up promoting plans which will hugely undermine city centres and urban economies and positively promote exurban motorway sprawl.

For this reason I would rather see money spent on the electrification of the Midland main line all the way to Sheffield and on local improvements, such as the proposed 'diveunder' at Nuneaton to allow a direct from Nottingham and Leicester to Coventry.

Andrew Adonis on the case for reversing Beeching

Andrew Adonis - Remain ultra turned Corbyn loyalist - has done his best to upset all sides recently, but he knows his stuff when it comes to railways.

Yesterday he gave a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 'Reversing Beeching'.

The first half dealt with HS2 - a project I find hard to love and one that may not long survive the arrival of a new Conservative prime minister.

Reading the recent Independent article  by Jon Stone, however, I suspect it is one I should try to love. Certainly, Stone makes a better case for HS2 than any politician has done.

It is the second half of Adonis's speech, where he turns to reversing Beeching, that appeals to me:

The case for a systematic – not piecemeal – policy of reversing the worst mistakes of Beeching is now overwhelmingly strong. 

Look at the last decade. London Overground, reinventing and extending the North London Line which was a designated Beeching closure which didn’t happen although the service became virtually non-existent, is one of the most successful public transport upgrades in history. 

The Welsh Government’s reopening of the Valley line from Ebbw Vale to Cardiff and the Scottish Government’s reopening of the Waverley line from Edinburgh to Galashiels and Tweedbank, have also been great successes. 

The problem on all three of these routes hasn’t been viability but overcrowding, with traffic greatly exceeding projections.

And who could resist this proposal?:

The Burton-on-Trent to Leicester line, goods-only since passenger services were withdrawn in the 1960s, would serve the towns of Coalville, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and Swadlincote among others. 

This line comes into Leicester through heavily built up districts where there could also be stations. With new and reopened stations in the towns and Leicester, this would serve a rail neglected population of about 150,000 on this line alone.

Adonis has thought of how this programme can be paid for too:

The M4 Relief Road has just been cancelled, saving £1.4bn. The ludicrious tunnel proposed for the A303 under Stonehenge, which I cancelled a decade ago but has resurfaced for political reasons at a projected cost of £2.3bn, should also be cancelled. 

Add in a few other politically motivated but unjustified road schemes and you have an initial £5bn Reverse Beeching fund. More if you can secure local contributions and other regeneration funding. 

That’s enough to make a bold start on the first set of Reverse Beeching projects, which should be agreed through a competitive evaluation next year.

He goes on to point out that there would be more money still for these schemes if Brexit were cancelled.

No one knows what the final cost of HS2 will be, says ex-chairman

Sir Terry Morgan, the former chair of HS2, spoke to the House of Lords economic affairs committee earlier this week.

As Rail Technology Magazine reports, he did not hold back:

"They [the HS2 project team] have a lot of work to do," Sir Terry said, in response to Lord Forsyth’s query on overall cost. 

"Nobody knows actually yet. All I’m saying to you is that the HS2 team will have the challenge of what I would describe as cost, time, and not least, scope."

And that was not the half of it:

Sir Terry went on to note that the current management team is still working to the original scope of the project — 18 trains an hour at a top speed of 250mph - however said that HS2 could be looking to scale down the project. 

He said: “It’s a combination of frequency and speed. That is one of the things that, inside the project team, the determination is that the scope is still being worked to as specified by government. But at the same time you won’t be surprised that one of the things that HS2 will be doing when it looks at ‘what-ifs’ – what if it wasn’t 18 trains an hour, what if it was something less an hour. 

“I think the triangle of scope, cost, and time, something has to give. Something will have to give. I think the whole question about the value for money, about do we need the speed, do we need the frequency, I think is something that people will have to flex.”

Today's papers are full of government reassurances that HS2 will continue north of Birmingham to Leeds and Manchester. But I would not put too much money on that.

Brexit Britain could have a low-speed high-speed train

HS2 Ltd's chief executive Mark Thurston has told a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group that train speeds and frequency on the new line could be changed to reduce costs, says the Evening Standard.

Its report says the options discussed included lowering train speeds by around 50kmph (30mph), reducing train numbers from 18 to 14 per hour and changing from slab to ballast track.

A low-speed high-speed train would be a perfect symbol of the dynamic new Brexit Britain.

More and more, politics today reminds me of the early 1970s, when prestige projects were promoted and then abandoned.

There was the third London airport at Maplin (announced 1971, abandoned 1974), the Channel Tunnel (started 1974, abandoned 1975) and Concorde, which was kept going, but proved hard to sell to anyone but Britain and France's national airlines.

HS2, you may recall, was approved by David Cameron, as a way of making good on his pledge not to build another runway at Heathrow.

Then came Theresa May, Brexit and the need for a new prestige project to show that Britain was open to the world. So a new runway was announced after all.

Ever since that, HS2 has been in danger of looking a bit of a white elephant.

I suspect it will be built from London to Birmingham, but it will be a long time before it gets any further than that.

However fast it runs.

Trent Cottages, Long Eaton, waiting for HS2 and demolition

Long Eaton is a railway town. It is crossed by a confusion of lines, some used only by goods trains, and level crossings are common.

Today, with passenger services diverted because of major improvements being undertaken at Derby station and a train derailed on the Leicester to Birmingham line, it was more confusing than usual.

Long Eaton has had stations on several sites. The one that currently carries its name is not well placed - there used to be one right in the town centre, but that line now has no scheduled passenger service.

One day soon it may be affected by the railway even more. It is planned that the HS2 line will cross the town on a high viaduct. Long Eaton is far from the Home Counties where a fortune is being spent on limiting the line's visual and aural impact.

The construction of HS2 - though I would not bet your house on track being laid north of Birmingham any time soon - will also see the demolition of Trent Cottages, which stand next to the old Trent Power Box beside the main line to Nottingham.

I notice them every time I catch a train there, and today I found my way to them on foot.

Long Eaton's most remarkable station was Trent, which stood a little way outside the town. The Midland Railway had a habit of building large junction stations in the middle of nowhere.

I had always assumed that it was sited at Trent Cottages, but the Trent Station site locates it further out of Long Eaton.