News

On 19 October 2020, HS2 revealed the latest designs for the Edgcote and Lower Thorpe Viaducts as the high speed rail project began a four week online engagement event for communities in Northamptonshire.

The new landmark station, set to be built in Solihull, was praised for its green credentials as Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council approved the design on 26 August.

25 August saw the first rail freight delivery of aggregate arrive at HS2’s Washwood Heath site in Birmingham, signalling the start of HS2’s major programme to take up to 1.5 million lorries off the roads to cut carbon emissions.

HS2 revealed the design for the Amersham vent shaft headhouse - one of five structures that will be built to provide ventilation and emergency access to the high-speed rail line’s 10 mile-long Chiltern tunnel.

On 11 August 2020 HS2 revealed the first images and publicly-chosen names of the first two completed TBMs that will excavate the twin-bore Chiltern tunnel on the first phase of the UK’s new high speed line between London and the West Midlands.

Work to install a 65 m bridge, spanning the width of the M42, was completed in just two days and ahead of schedule as the motorway reopened to road users on 9 August, 22 hours earlier than planned. The works near Interchange Station move Solihull a step closer to the arrival of HS2.

The new HS2 Curzon Street station is set to reduce carbon emissions by an unprecedented 55 %, will achieve net zero carbon emissions from regulated energy consumption and use a range of technologies to generate energy from renewable sources.

Construction of HS2’s West London interchange station has reached a new milestone as the Station Construction Partner, Balfour Beatty VINCI SYSTRA joint venture, took possession of the whole station site on 27 July 2020.

On 23 July 2020 HS2 revealed the final design for the Chalfont St Peter vent shaft headhouse - the first of four similar structures that will provide ventilation and emergency access to the high-speed rail line’s 10 mile-long Chiltern tunnel.

HS2 Ltd showed an example of how Britain’s new high-speed railway will provide a greener future by enabling new train paths on the existing network which can be used to move more goods by rail.

Work to build the HS2 London terminus at Euston has taken a major step forward this month with the Mace Dragados joint venture moving onto the construction site adjacent to Euston station to begin work on the new high speed station in central London.

The two 2,000 tonne machines - currently being manufactured in Germany - will dig the 10-mile-long Chiltern tunnels from the site next to the M25, to near South Heath in Buckinghamshire.

Today HS2 can proudly reveal the first images of our first two Tunnel Boring Machines set to launch on the project later this year.

The planning application for HS2’s west-London super hub, Old Oak Common, was approved by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation on 19 May. 

The new HS2 station, to be built near Solihull and the NEC in the West Midlands, has become the first railway station globally to achieve the BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ certification.