The first major account of HS2 – and how it went so wrong

‘A jaunty account of a monumental cock-up. Makes the unbelievable readable.’ Sir Michael Palin

‘High-Speed 2’ was to be the crown jewel of British rail. The first Intercity railway built north of London in over a century, it would connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, bridging the North–South divide and propelling Britain’s infrastructure into the twenty-first century.

Dogged by mismanagement, overspending and incompetence, HS2 has collapsed. What remains is a bleeding stump between Birmingham and the outskirts of London – Euston, the central London terminus, still seemingly unreachable. All of this has cost taxpayers tens of billions.

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.