#hs2

#hs2

The 190m-long boring machine is named Madeleine, after Madeleine Nobbs, the former president of the Women's Engineering Society. It is expected to take about 18 months for the machine to complete the 4.5-mile journey from Old Oak Common in west London. Madeleine was built in Germany and transported to the UK in parts. A 750-tonne crane lifted the components into an underground box at one end of the station, where it was reassembled.

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Ten years ago, I walked the route of HS2, the 140-mile railway proposed to run from London to Birmingham, to discover what lay in its path. Nothing had actually been constructed of this, supposedly the first phase of a high-speed line going north. The only trace was the furtive ecological consultants mapping newts and bats and the train's looming presence in the minds of those who lived along the route.

In the upcoming railway timetable change on 15th December, Avanti West Coast's 7am service from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston will cease to carry passengers. The service, which is quite busy as it's timetabled to arrive in London just before 9am, is also regularly delayed. Over the past ten days, the services arrived at Euston on time just twice. On average, the delays were just inside the 15-minute cut-off to get a delay refund,

The redevelopment of Euston station and the surrounding area could restart in a few years' time, with a tender contract having just gone out for a design and engineering partner to develop the plans for the site. First signalled in June's UK-wide infrastructure strategy, a new Euston Delivery Company (EDC) was being set up to deliver the Euston station rebuild as well as the oversite development that will help pay for it.

The Duchy of Lancaster negotiated payments totalling 1,132,400 by selling land for road works near a proposed hub station in Crewe, Cheshire in a deal that has emerged despite the organisation's assertion that it is completely self-financing and does not rely on taxpayers' money. The duchy which has been controlled by reigning monarchs since medieval times and exists to provide them with a private income acquired a sprawling, 1,400-hectare (3,450-acre) estate set around the Jacobean mansion of Crewe Hall in 1936.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to announce in Parliament that HS2 will not meet its target date of 2033 due to cost overruns.