Why I'm not excited by HS2

Why I'm not excited by HS2 HS2 is amazing, as you can tell if you go and look at it. This is the Colne Valley Viaduct, a two mile concrete swoosh on the western edge of London. Specifically it's the point where fast trains to Birmingham will cross the Grand Union Canal, close to Harefield Marina, during a rare burst above ground on the approach to the Chilterns. To get here I took the bus to The River Garden pub and walked down the towpath past 26 moored narrowboats and a tabby cat stalking a moorhen. The viaduct curved majestically through the silence, its geometric arches briefly spanning the cut before fading into the fog above a gravelly lake. I was hugely impressed by the architecture and the civil engineering triumph it represents, but not excited. Because, well, several reasons... 1) It's exceptionally slow HS2 was officially proposed in 2009 and by the following year its route had been sketched across Ordnance Survey maps as far north as Crewe. We'll have it open by December…

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