HS2: Breaking news for PMs

There’s never been a high-speed rail project in the UK before, so it’s testing the project management community to its limit. As HS2 passes an important new milestone, we talked to some of those on the front line.

In February, HS2 unveiled the latest designs for Old Oak Common station – the ‘superhub’ linking the new high-speed railway to Crossrail, Heathrow and central London. The new station will help kick-start what is billed as the UK’s largest regeneration project, which aims to transform the former railway and industrial area at Old Oak Common into a new neighbourhood supporting up to 65,000 jobs and 25,500 new homes.

The high-speed platforms will be situated underground, with an integrated connection to the adjoining conventional station at ground level using a shared overbridge to provide connections between HS2, Heathrow and central London. The current station design also includes the potential for provision of future services to Wales and the west of England from Old Oak Common.

Other design features include a light, airy concourse linking both halves of the station, with a ‘soaring roof’ inspired by the site’s industrial heritage. Designed by a team led by engineering consultancy WSP and architects WilkinsonEyre, the station will be the UK’s best-connected rail interchange, HS2 says, with an estimated 250,000 people passing through it every day.

Leaving a legacy

For project managers at WSP, the unveiling of the latest Old Oak Common design marks another milestone in the delivery of HS2, which is due to run services for passengers from 2026. Adrian Tooth is WSP project director for HS2 at Old Oak Common station, which will feature six HS2 platforms below ground and eight conventional rail platforms above ground. He is managing a team of 240 full-time staff on the project.

There’s a complex stakeholder engagement piece for Tooth and his team. Tooth says key stakeholders include Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, Crossrail, Network Rail and, of course, London’s citizens.

“I think there is good support from the public to date for the transformation that is taking place at Old Oak Common,” Tooth says. He formerly worked as a project director for the transformation of London Bridge station, which is now open to the public. “The general feeling is that the redevelopment of London Bridge has improved the area and the passenger experience dramatically. We think something similar will take place at Old Oak Common. We are leaving a legacy for the country.”

Birmingham will also benefit from a new HS2 station. Opening with seven high-speed platforms in 2026, the new Curzon Street station is located within a brownfield site in the Eastside district on the edge of the city centre with the existing Moor Street station at one end, the Millennium Point development and historic Curzon Street station building to the north, and the existing Birmingham-to-Rugby railway line running along the south side.

The new station at Curzon Street is not just for high-speed-rail passengers; it will also be a new public space and gateway to Birmingham city centre. It will be fully integrated into an extended tram network, as well as offering pedestrian, cycle, taxi, bus and conventional rail connections to the rest of the city and the wider West Midlands. Much as at Old Oak Common, Birmingham City Council’s Curzon Street Investment Plan will see £900m spent on regenerating the area around the new station. That scheme will take place over 30 years, leading to the creation of several new neighbourhoods across almost 150 hectares, including 4,000 homes and 36,000 jobs.

Blazing a rail trail

Tooth’s colleague Ather Lodhi is part of the 200-strong WSP HS2 project team in Birmingham. Lodhi, service director for programme management and controls at WSP, is currently leading rail systems design work for the Crewe-to-Manchester and Birmingham-to-Leeds parts of the new railway, known as Phase 2B. WSP is already designing signalling and train control systems, he says.

“Our rail systems design will inform the railway corridor and in turn the civil works and environmental side of the project. Part of our work is also to look at the electrification of the Midland Mainline,” Lodhi explains.

The WSP team are supporting HS2 as it develops its environmental statement and cost estimates – a key part of passing the HS2 hybrid Bill through parliament next year to extend the line to the north of England.

“Successfully depositing the Bill is our main objective, and there is political support – right now,” says Lodhi. “It is important we provide the right technical advice and are dispassionate in how we present our outputs.”

It is not the first time WSP has supported the parliamentary process. Lodhi says he has worked on many projects, large and small, but “what marks this project out is that we haven’t done high-speed rail in this country before. We are blazing a trail.”

The National College for High Speed Rail – with two campuses in Birmingham and Doncaster – will help to develop the skills Britain needs to serve the industry, he says. “But what we can’t do is go to the market to find project managers who have 20 years’ experience in high-speed rail in this country – they don’t exist.”

Rather, from a project management perspective, the development of HS2 is relying on developing and switching project managers with transferable skills into the industry, Lodhi says.

The greater good

As an organisation, HS2 already has an eye on its legacy for skills and practices. Suresh Sadanandan, head of project management at HS2, says that he wants to leave a legacy of highly skilled project managers who can deliver other major UK infrastructure schemes in the future. “My vision for HS2 is to embrace all the learning we can from what we’ve done before, use that to empower our people, and disseminate good processes and systems to drive standards in the industry in the future.”

Lodhi is in no doubt as to the potential for HS2 to transform the country.

“It is comparable to the motorway schemes of the 1960s in the UK. Just imagine what the country would be like today if we didn’t have that network. HS2 is transformational. You will never be able to please everyone, but as project managers, we need to make the right decisions for the greater good.”