The £100bn Railway: Why is HS2 Four Times Over Budget?

The UK's HS2 Project is set to cost £100 Billion; over four times its original budget adjusted for inflation. So how did this happen? We speak to Gareth Dennis, a rail engineer, writer and expert on the issue, to find out why HS2 has been so expensive.

TLDR is all about getting you up to date with the news of today, without bias and without filter. We aim to give you the information you need, quickly and simply so that you can make your own decision.

TLDR is a completely independent & privately owned media company that's not afraid to tackle the issues we think are most important. The channel is run by just a small group of young people, with us hoping to pass on our enthusiasm for politics to other young people. We are primarily fan sourced with most of our funding coming from donations and ad revenue. No shady corporations, no one telling us what to say. We can't wait to grow further and help more people get informed. Help support us by subscribing, following, and backing us on Patreon. Thanks!

[DashCamSheffield]

The Japanese started using the bullet trains back in 1964. We got the HST Intercity 125 in 1975 as a stop gap while we made the APT tilting train, some of those stop gap trains are still in use almost 50yrs later. 60yrs after the Japanese and we're only got 68 miles of high speed rail in HS1. Its pathetic how little our transport system has changed, as we cling onto short term cost saving ideas which cost us far more in the future

[taipizzalord]

It doesn't matter if it is overbudget. At least less so than the road building projects that we have that are currently way overbudget yet never get criticised for it. Only when its public transit is money a problem.

[Fuzzy]

At this point I think the Tories want the project to fail so they have an excuse not to put money into big public projects anymore and give it to themselves instead

[Vonononie]

Small correction: HS1 doesn’t go to Dover. For domestic traffic the HS1 only goes from St Pancras to Ashford, the trains then swap to the usual rails and are limited to the usual speeds. The international HS goes from St Pancras to Folkestone where it goes into the tunnel

[steffenberr]

I work on HS2 at the moment. I think one of the biggest issues is that everything has been sucontracted out and as little as possible is being done in house. In theory thats more efficient but its a nightmare and costs increase a lot more when theres inevitable changes. It makes way more sense to me to keep as much of it as possible in house to develop the knowledge so you can continue building in the future

[thelegitidiot]

As a rail engineering student in the US, it's amazing to see how common the mistakes listed in thus video are. The high speed rail project in California faced a lot of similar challenges with mismanagement and trying to tackle too large of a project. I'm not sure if this was an issue with HS2, but in California there was a crippling reliance on expensive consultants for project management, with an incredibly understaffed internal team.

[ab-ymbf]

Strange how the UK is unable to build even 1 high speed line, while a country like Spain, much sneered at in certain parts of the UK, has an eleborate network linking it to other parts of the EU.

[amanoso]

I am Japanese and live in an area that does not benefit from the Shinkansen. It seems that the Shinkansen will finally be built in 10 years to my city, but I really wanted it to be built 40 years ago. During those 40 years, the economic disparity with other regions widened, young people fled to Tokyo and other places, and lost its vitality. Making HS2 is not wrong. The mistake is that while France and Germany were laying the groundwork for high-speed rail, the UK neglected to do so.

[davidwebb]

1: Gross incompetence.
2: Corruption.

[primeprover]

HS2 has been done in a pretty incompetent manner, but future generations will look at it as a key part of the rail network in the UK. They will wonder how we coped without it. It is coming at a huge cost at a time that is difficult economically, but prices will only rise, so the sooner, the better for this sort of project.

[noahroth]

You cannot IMAGINE the joy when you said the expert was the absolute mad lad Gareth Dennis!

[crazycjk]

I love that you brought an expert in to bring some insight, it really added to the quality of this video for me.

[Dendarang]

It's amazing that there's so much opposition and getting this through has been so difficult. Britain is the ideal place for high speed rail, it's small, it's very densely populated and it's rich; connecting the entire country through high speed rail should be a no brainer in Britain.

[GWVillager]

This is a great video, far too often you see people talking about HS2 who have no idea what it actually means, but you went to the effort of researching and calling in experts. It shows!

[silkmaze]

You guys need me make longer videos. This is one story that really needs to have more time, to explain the whole story.

[ed]

It can be argued that these kind of projects are also jobs programs. The American's Artemis program comes to mind: woefully over budget but it keeps tens of thousands employed and results in stimulation to the economy. The danger of this is that most government money for these projects falls into the hands of only a few executives, thereby negating trickle down effects.

[kiltrash]

It's an aversion to risk, which steadily increased over the past 20 years that I was involved in major railway projects. The design phase for each project gets longer and longer and hence more distant from the original requirements. Also, some parts have to be designed and built together, eg the major stations and approach routes. You can't plan a high-speed route into Euston if you have no idea on the precise alignment of the platform you are aiming to join up to. (The last carriage is designed to leave the platform at 70mph so a smooth alignment is a major requirement.

[untitled]

It's embarrassing that we're seemingly so incompetent at almost anything rail related. Although, at this stage with the infrastructure we've developed to build HS2 and the amount already spent, it'd be ridiculous to scrap it.

[mittfh]

IIRC (I wish I could find the source!), one of the issues surrounding all the various subcontractors is that while they're all supposed to be using a single design and project management application suite, they all prefer to use their own instead - so when other subcontractors turn up for the next phase of a project area, they have to spend time working out what the heck was done beforehand, as it deviates from the "official" designs...

[hellbach]

"We're gonna talk to an expert on the matter" _cuts to Boris Johnson_