Work continues at Euston in preparation for HS2

High Speed 2 (HS2) preparation work continued at Euston station over the May bank holiday weekend.Between Saturday and Monday, Euston Station was closed to main line train services due to major upgrades between the station and Milton Keynes.Work at the station has been marred by controversy. In January a network of tunnels dug in secret was discovered at Euston Square Gardens, close to where the HS2 terminus will eventually be built.The tunnels were occupied by HS2 Rebellion protesters, with a joint venture between Mace and Dragados tasked with removing them as part of its role as HS2’s Euston Station construction partner once the protestors had departed.Meanwhile, HS2’s Independent Design Panel last month supported changes at the station and on the Chilterns Tunnel, in its latest publicly available report.As previously revealed, the Department for Transport (DfT) has ordered HS2 consultants to look at scaling back Euston Station’s design to cut the construction time and save costs.An insider close to the Euston station project previously told NCE that scaling back the station from 11 platforms to 10 will allow contractors to build the station in a single stage rather than the previously proposed two-stage design.Network Rail’s North West & Central region managing director Tim Shoveller said the rail operator was “balancing” the need to facilitate bank holiday journeys with the parallel need for “essential railway improvements and maintenance”.As such, where possible Network Rail has moved planned work to minimise disruption for passengers needing to travel.Upgrades at Bletchley over Easter were rescheduled to finish earlier so more trains could run, while essential work in North London and Northamptonshire was also brought forward to be completed before Easter. This meant Euston could stay open on the Easter and Spring bank holidays.Reviews into other planned summer upgrade works are underway to reduce the impact on passengers as the country emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines told the Railway Industry Association’s Innovation Conference last week that the rail operator is “looking radically at the August bank holiday weekend to see if we can guarantee that some of the main flows to holiday destinations will be open”. Other essential work last weekend included track upgrades at various locations between Preston and Penrith, Euston and Milton Keynes and at Watford, along with signalling upgrades in Trafford, ManchesterIt was also a major milestone for the East West Rail project as work continues to reinstate a rail route between Oxford and Bletchley for the first time in more than 50 years. Huge steel beams were lifted across all four lines of the West Coast main line as a flyover is rebuilt.