The London-Birmingham Railway High Speed 2 project is expected to play a significant role in the regeneration of central Britain. It will transform journey times and bring economic benefits from faster journey times throughout the region, fuelling growth in jobs and housing. London-Birmingham Railway High Speed 2 will provide access to Heathrow Airport via the West Coast Main Line for all intercity rail journeys between London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. It will also reduce pressure on Central London traffic flows by improving interconnectivity with local transport systems such as Underground services at Paddington Station. The scheme will be designed to facilitate capacity increases to meet growing demand between central Scotland and London, including potential future links to the south coast. It will also facilitate capacity increases to meet growing demand between central Scotland and London, including potential future links to the south coast.

In addition to providing a new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham at 250km/hr, this new infrastructure will enable journey times on regular services between Glasgow-London and Edinburgh-London via Birmingham/Milton Keynes to be reduced from their current average of 6 hours 30 minutes (via Preston) or 7 Hours (via Leeds) by over an hour, with a further reduction in journey time through the use of faster trains such as those proposed by Agility Trains Ltd. Thereby creating significant opportunities for both passenger and freight operators throughout Central Britain. The scheme will also reduce pressure on Central London traffic flows by improving interconnectivity with local transport systems such as Underground services at Paddington Station.

A detailed outline of the scheme is described in this report, which forms part of a multi-disciplinary study on the London-Birmingham Railway High Speed 2 project undertaken for LCR2 Ltd., by Leighton Asia.

The optimal route corridor between Euston and Birmingham has been identified after an analysis of various corridors based on interaction among many parameters, including environmental concerns, socio-economic impacts, engineering, and cost aspects. The key route corridors considered are in close proximity to the existing, broadly parallel West Coast Main Line (WCML), which will be upgraded as part of the project.

Considering all potential options along with their positive and negative attributes led to the identification of a preferred route corridor as explained in detail later in this report.

High-speed rail projects are by definition large scale and complex, involving all layers of government as well as a myriad of stakeholders ranging from rail users to environmental groups and many others; given the requirements for developing optimal alignment for High-Speed Rail system over long distances in highly populated areas requires careful planning.