Friday Aug 22, 2025
3/20 Exclusive preview of Sally Gimson’s ‘Off the Rails: the Inside Story of HS2’
In her new book 'Off the Rails: the Inside Story of HS2', Sally Gimson meets with the politicians, engineers and ordinary people affected by the failure of HS2. Travelling from demolished council estates in Camden to ghost towns along the now cancelled northern branch, Off the Rails provides a forensic examination of how a vital social project imploded.
Christian discusses in depth with the author the insights gained from her research, the lessons that the UK should learn and what needs to be done to bring the truncated project into service.
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6 months ago
For not knowing to the nearest decade when this runaway infrastructure project will open, and to the nearest £10-billion how much it will cost, this public spending orgy would have to take the victor ludorum. The latest troubleshooter has found failings in governance that he promises to fix, which is just what his predecessor said a few years ago. In the ordinary, day to day sphere, nothing and no one have been spared from cuts: old folk, those with special needs, youngsters, buses, libraries, national parks, lollipop ladies – the lot, yet HS2 is unassailable because it is too big to stop. With the high speed railway’s billions, there could have been a thousand – maybe ten thousand – smaller projects delivered which would have brought real and more immediate benefits to whole swathes of the population.
6 months ago
When HS2 was announced, I made three bets: 1. It would never go north of Birmingham. 2. It would never reach central London. 3. A man would walk on Mars before the first paying passenger alighted at Curzon St. The first has already paid off, the second is looking very good, and the third is in the balance.