The horror story of HS2

“It’s notHSHSTBM ideal,” says James Richardson, a tunnelling engineer at Old Oak Common station in west London. He is standing in a vast hole: almost a kilometre long, 70 metres wide, 20 metres deep. Some 2,000 people are working at the site: by the early 2030s Old Oak Common should be one of the largest stations in Europe, with six underground platforms for high-speed trains whizzing in and out of London. But Mr Richardson isn’t sure where to dig next.Last October the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, decided to amputate , a railway project turned national trauma. He announced that the northern leg of the line would not extend beyond Birmingham to Manchester. Mr Sunak said that the London terminus for 2 would stillbe Euston, some 10km east of Old Oak Common, but that private investors would have to pay for the tunnel connecting the two. That money is far from certain to materialise, which is why Mr Richardson’s team is soon to bury two giant tunnel-boring machines (s) at Old Oak Common. They will be entombed there, pointing eastward, until things become clear.