High Speed UK

High Speed UK (HSUK) is an advocacy group which proposes an alternative route to High Speed 2 that broadly incorporates the proposed Northern Powerhouse Rail (High Speed 3) scheme.^[1] Railway engineers Colin Elliff and Quentin Macdonald founded the group.^[2]

The HSUK proposal is not officially approved or funded by government.^[1] The scheme was launched in 2008, renamed in 2013 and received a parliamentary hearing in 2015.^[3]

Proposed routes

According to the HSUK plan, there are 72 proposed services, as of August 2023.^[4] The routes are categorised into 7 service groupings.^[5]

Service group	Name	No. of routes	Source
S01	Crosscountry	14	[6]
S02	Transpennine	15	[7]
S03	North & Scotland	17	[8]
S04	North-West Corridor	9	[9]
S05	M1 Corridor	9	[10]
S06	Great Western	-TBA-	[5]
S07	Heathrow	8	[11]

Comparison with HS2

The group claims various benefits of their plan compared to the proposals for HS2.^[12] This includes:

• The cost of HSUK is £20 billion less than current plans for HS2 and HS3.^[13]
• 94% of journeys are improved.
• 40% less travel time on average.^[14]
• 600 million tonnes of CO₂ reduced.^[15]
• The Chilterns are bypassed.^[16]
• Most work involves improving existing infrastructure and restoring old lines, which is cheaper.
• The project is one that integrates new infrastructure with existing infrastructure.^[17]
• All principal UK cities are connected.^[18]