First HS2 platforms take shape at £4.3 billion Old Oak Common
High Speed 2 platforms at new London station completed as expensive project takes a step forward
The first platforms at London's new £4.3 billion Old Oak Common have been completed in a rare piece of good news for the troubled HS2 project.
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Six 450m-long platforms have been completed at the station in West London, which will be a hub on the line that will run high-speed train services from the capital to Birmingham.
The line has been 17 years in the making, and Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander recently announced the latest setback: trains will run 25mph slower than originally proposed.
High-Speed 2 (HS2) might not fully open until 2039 and could cost more than £100 billion, according to reports released earlier this year.
The Old Oak Common station's platform completion is a small step towards the end goal, and proponents are happy to have some successes to report.
Read also: Timeline: How HS2 became a £100bn trainwreck for government
Kim Kapur, HS2’s Old Oak Common area director, said: "Going into the underground box at Old Oak Common, you can immediately visualise how it will look as an operational station, including where passengers will board or alight HS2's brand new trains. The scale of the work - and the station now taking shape - is remarkable."
She added: "There is much more to do. This includes construction of the conventional, surface-level platforms, completion of tunnels either side of the underground box and installation of the impressive station roof, which will begin next year.
"Old Oak Common will be transformative for the local area, providing a new transport hub, with a new vibrant neighbourhood developing around it."
The line will allow trains to travel from London Euston to Birmingham in 49 minutes, a saving of around half an hour, with current journeys taking one hour and 15 to one hour and a half.
It will only be 38 minutes from Birmingham Interchange to London.
Steve O'Sullivan, project director, Balfour Beatty VINCI SYSTRA joint venture, said: “This achievement reflects the expertise of our multidisciplinary teams who have worked collaboratively to deliver one of the most technically challenging stations currently being built in the UK, drawing on world-class engineering, specialist knowledge and a shared commitment to excellence.
"As the full scale, form and function of the station is starting to come into view, there is a tremendous sense of pride in what has been accomplished so far to transform an ambitious design into a functioning transport hub, with our focus now on progressing works into the next phase.”