Manchester and Birmingham could be linked by a new railway line under fresh plans

Manchester and Birmingham could be connected with a new railway line years after the HS2’s northern leg was cancelled.

Train travel across the north of England could be smoother and faster in the future if plans for the Northern Powerhouse Rail upgrades go ahead, with the government expected to make an announcement on it tomorrow.

Options are also being looked at for a possible new rail route connecting Birmingham and Manchester.

The new Birmingham-Manchester route would be built after the Northern Powerhouse Rail is delivered.

However, it would not mean the axed HS2 route is reinstated as such, and more work is needed to find out how the plan could support the future of rail across the north before further steps.

The government said it is ‘learning the lessons of HS2 to ensure that the program does not repeat its failures.’

It comes more than two years after the HS2’s northern leg from Birmingham to Manchester via Crewe was scrapped, leaving the passengers in the Midlands and the North West in limbo.

Why was HS2 to Manchester cancelled?

Then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak caused an uproar in 2023 when he announced that the northern leg of HS2 would be axed, with critics calling it a damaging U-turn.

He said the ‘facts’ of the project had changed in the face of rising costs, but the decision left passengers, the industry and mayors in the north seething.

The second northern leg to Leeds was ditched by then-PM Boris Johnson.

After a year of uncertainty over whether HS2 would extend to London Euston, Chancellor Rachel Reeves revealed in her first budget that HS2 would stretch from Old Oak Common to Euston.

Meanwhile, the cost of the high-speed rail’s construction from London to Birmingham, known as Phase 1, has ballooned.

The price tag for the first leg could pass the earlier estimate of £80 billion.

A cross-party committee of MPs overseeing government expenditure warned in 2024 that HS2 had become ‘a casebook example of how not to run a major project,’ with DfT and HS2 Ltd accused of failing to work together effectively.

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