HS2 Tunnels Reach Old Oak Common, but Trains Remain a Decade Away

HS2’s tunnels have reached the enormous station box at Old Oak Common in west London, but the breakthrough leaves a striking gap between visible construction progress and usable railway service. The first high-speed passenger trains from the new hub to Birmingham are expected between May 2036 and October 2039, according to HS2’s current construction schedule.

The milestone connects Old Oak Common to HS2’s completed western approach tunnels. It is an important change in the physical state of the project: the future London station is no longer an isolated excavation but is now joined to the high-speed route extending toward the capital’s northwestern edge. Yet HS2 says the overall program, including structures, stations and railway-system installation, is only about one-third complete.

The scale of the station helps explain both the achievement and the work still outstanding. Old Oak Common’s concrete station box is 850 metres long and is designed to contain six underground HS2 platforms. Eight platforms above will serve the Elizabeth line, Great Western Railway and Heathrow Express, creating a 14-platform interchange intended to handle as many as 250,000 passengers per day.

A different tunnelling method for a changing profile

The breakthrough completed two 360-metre tunnel sections between the Victoria Road crossover box and the station. Rather than using the large tunnel-boring machines employed across much of HS2, crews mined these sections through London clay with tunnel excavators.

That method was selected because the tunnel geometry changes on the approach to the station, narrowing from space for two tracks to one. Approximately 100,000 tonnes of material was removed described as roughly the weight of 14,000 double-decker London buses. Crews applied 30,000 cubic metres of sprayed concrete before installing a cast-in-place concrete lining with travelling formwork.

The final station breakthroughs also required a new process for HS2. The dividing wall was cut into blocks and pushed from the station side back into the completed tunnel for removal. Together, the mined sections create a continuous 8.8-mile connection between Old Oak Common and the West Ruislip portal.

This is substantial civil-engineering progress, but tunnels and station shells do not constitute an operating railway. Track, electrical power, signalling, communications, station systems, safety assurance and operational testing must follow. HS2 expects the major civil works on the initial route to be finished by the end of the decade, after which installation of those railway systems becomes the central task.

The eastern approach is still being excavated

Old Oak Common will initially act as HS2’s London terminus because the connection to Euston is on a later schedule. Two tunnel-boring machines launched from the eastern end of the station box at the beginning of 2026 are making 4.5-mile drives toward Euston. That tunnelling work is expected to reach its destination by mid-2027.

Full service from Euston to Birmingham, including the northern connection to the West Coast Main Line at Handsacre Junction, is projected to open between May 2040 and December 2043. The planned Manchester leg has been cancelled, leaving the London-to-Birmingham railway and its connection to the existing network as the remaining program.

When operating, trains are planned to run at up to 200 mph. HS2 estimates a journey of approximately 45 minutes between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street. The railway’s proposed maximum speed has been reduced from 360 kilometres per hour to 320 kilometres per hour, aligning it with high-speed operations elsewhere in Europe and allowing trains to be tested on existing lines. HS2 says the change adds about three minutes to the Old Oak Common–Birmingham trip while reducing certification and delivery risk.

A milestone inside a much larger cost and schedule reset

The latest official estimate puts the program’s expected cost between £87.7 billion and £102.7 billion in a mixed price base. HS2 attributes two-thirds of the recently announced cost increase to delivery and program-management problems, including construction beginning before designs were complete and contracts that did not produce the expected performance. The remaining third is linked to inflation.

The tunnel breakthrough therefore marks real, measurable completion not merely a ceremonial start but it also illustrates the uneven maturity of a large integrated system. Heavy concrete structures can be physically impressive while the railway remains years from carrying passengers. At Old Oak Common, the route has reached the station; the operating railway is still at least about a decade away.

By Thomas Caldwell — AMI’s senior editor for mechanical and mobility engineering, covering vehicle electronics, systems integration, electrification, chassis systems, propulsion, and safety policy.