News / Mourning the demise of HS2 extension, with RailNatter’s Gareth Dennis

A battle for the soul of Britain, happening almost entirely on Twitter, has spilled out into the real world, pitching UK motorists and rail commuters against one another in an imagined zero-sum conflict, alongside the second leg of HS2 being cancelled.

The move should be understood as far more than merely withdrawing further funding; rather as an annulment and sabotage of the cost and resources invested so far, rail engineer Gareth Dennis, host of the RailNatter podcast, told The Loadstar. “It destroys it, it wrecks it. It just disappears,” he said.

“Higher-speed long-distance services, slower local commuter services, freight; we’re running everything on a limited number of rail corridors, through several major pinch points,” Mr Dennis said. “And this is a Beeching legacy. [The 1960s transport minister] prioritised high-speed long-distance services and deprioritised suburban rail – the frequent-stopping stuff – everywhere outside London. That limits freight paths.

“HS2 was about releasing capacity, including for rail freight, by taking those non-stop services and plonking them onto dedicated tracks. So not only can you run them faster and closer together on those tracks, because they’re all doing the same thing, but you create lots more capacity on the other tracks for local services, commuting services and, critically, freight. These rely on that intermediate infrastructure, freight terminals and so on in a way that high-speed doesn’t.”

A radical increase in transport capacity is long overdue, Mr Dennis said. Until now, “that industry had been talking about doubling rail freight, which is absolutely critical for the country, increasing rail’s modal share from 10% to 20% or more, ideally before the end of the 2030s – not just from an emissions perspective, but economically.”

That benefit is now forfeit. “People say, ‘actually, it would be better if we built a new freight railway’ – this would be an absolute waste of time. All the existing terminals, all the places that freight trains want to go, are plumbed into the existing network.”

But because of the way the revised version of the HS2 plan will work – which includes trying to run high-speed trains on existing lines – Mr Dennis expects the situation will become actively worse for UK rail freight, with a corresponding knock-on effect on trucking. High-speed services deployed on ordinary lines, he said, “…will push for greater priority, more reliability of the long-distance services, and make the situation even worse”.

“The railway is already a deeply unappealing prospect for freight operators because of the limited capacity – it is just too much of a bother for them. Even for the railway managers in Network Rail trying to make it happen, it’s an enormous stress and hassle.

“Freight is severely kneecapped in an industry that’s already on its knees. Brexit has made that even harder because now we’re relying on the ever-diminishing British pool of driving talent.”

The UK is not the only country to suffer from a shortage of truck drivers, a growing problem which poses “significant risks” to supply chains, with some 2.8m driver vacancies globally. “About 50% of [UK] HGV drivers will have retired by the end of this decade. So one, logistics gets harder. Two – congestion on the roads is horrendous and will continue to get worse. And three — HGV driver pay will just have to go up, and continue to rise massively as those numbers get squeezed.”

One of the few justifications given for scrapping the HS2 extension is the cost. Despite overruns, HS2 has remained inside its budget contingency; but transport secretary Grant Shapps recently argued that post-Covid train ridership had diminished, weakening the business case for the project. This is not true, said Mr Dennis, arguing that ridership levels were returning to, and frequently exceeding pre-pandemic levels. But, commuter dynamics have changed, he added.

“Covid accelerated the demise of the 9-to-5 commuter in and out of London – that’s the main change. But commuter numbers outside London have actually increased dramatically – in Leeds particularly, but Manchester as well, has seen an increase in the number of rail commuters. And that’s despite the fact that TransPennine Express is completely useless.”

But, he said, so certain is the government that high-speed rail couldn’t possibly be successful in the UK that it has sold the land, bought for the project, at knockdown rates, ensuring no future government will be able to make a go of it either.