High Speed 2 is a high-speed railway under construction in the United Kingdom which, when completed, will directly connect London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds and Manchester. Scheduled to open in phases between 2026 and 2033, high-speed trains will travel up to 400 km/h on 330 miles of track. HS2 will be the second high-speed rail line in Britain, the first being High Speed 1 , which connects London to the Channel Tunnel, commissioned in the mid-2000s. Peak hour capacity at the HS2 London terminal at London Euston is predicted to more than triple when the network is fully operational, increasing from 11,300 to 34,900 passengers each way. The line is to be built in a Y configuration, with London at the bottom of the Y, Birmingham at the centre, Leeds at the top right and Manchester at the top left. The two phases of the project will be: Phase 1 – from London to the West Midlands, with the first services scheduled for 2026. Phase 2 – from the West Midlands to Leeds and Manchester, scheduled for full completion by 2033.Phase 2 is split into two sub-phases: Phase 2a – from the West Midlands to Crewe, with the first services scheduled for 2027. Phase 2b – from Crewe to Manchester, and from the West Midlands to Leeds, with the first services scheduled for 2033, however a one year delay has been announced to mesh in Northern Powerhouse rail, west to east line, into HS2.Services on the new routes will be provided by two fleets of trains: One dedicated only to the high-speed track, named captive trains, servicing Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester; the second fleet extends the reach of HS2 to cities on the existing classic network by operating on a mixture of high-speed track and existing slower tracks, named classic compatible, serving Carlisle, Chesterfield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Preston, Sheffield and York. HS2 is being developed by High Speed Two Ltd, a company limited by guarantee established by the UK government. The project is estimated to cost £56 billion, up 71% on the initial projection in 2010 of £32.7 billion. In July 2017, decisions on the full Y route were approved by Parliament. Construction of Phase 1 began in 2017.
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