‘High Speed 2’ was to be the crown jewel of British rail

Bringing the antiquated and unreliable north-west line up to date, it would connect central London with Manchester and Leeds via Birmingham, reducing travel time and combatting the North–South divide. It was, however, not to be. Dogged by mismanagement, overspending and incompetence, HS2 has collapsed, reduced to a much smaller line connecting Birmingham with the outskirts of London – Euston, the central London terminus, still seemingly unreachable. All of this has cost taxpayers around sixty-six billion pounds.

In a forensic examination of how the project imploded, Sally Gimson meets with the politicians, engineers and ordinary people affected by the failure of HS2. From those whose business and houses were compulsorily bought to make room for the line to the scattering of ghost towns which punctuate the now cancelled Northern branch, Off the Rails offers a thorough and scathing account of how a vital project was overcome by government mismanagement.