Business leader
   HS2

Delays and departures as yet another infrastructure project goes off the
rails

   Sir Terry Morgan’s decision to step down as chair of HS2 and Crossrail
   should set an example for the transport secretary

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   Artist's image of HS2 rail project

   [ ] The HS2 rail project aims to connect London to Birmingham by 2026
   and onward to Manchester and Leeds by 2033. Photograph: PA

   Long before spades have hit the ground to build Britain’s planned £55bn
   high-speed train network, HS2 has given the appearance of hurtling out
   of control. HS2 Ltd is welcoming its third chairman in the last five
   months after the departure of Sir Terry Morgan. The announcement of
   major contracts for HS2 stations that were due last week has been
   delayed, adding to the sense of slippage in a project that will,
   supposedly, join London to Birmingham by 2026 and link Leeds,
   Manchester and other points north into rail’s fast lane by 2033.

   HS2 maintains that parliamentarians, planners and the thousands of
   skilled construction workers who haven’t yet departed for Poland can
   still deliver this ambitious infrastructure on time. But, as scathing
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   who knew what and when about the London line’s woes simmers on in city
   hall, with the mayor, Sadiq Khan, and Morgan’s accounts apparently at
   odds. Morgan’s feet were barely under the table at HS2, but such a
   controversial project could ill afford to have a figurehead who let the
   last major project slide so near to the finish line.

   Scepticism over HS2’s price tag is rife despite attempts to counter
   with reports of possible cost reductions. As the transport secretary
   pointed out recently, setting alarm bells ringing, phase two of HS2 is
   far from being approved: legislation may take another four years, an
   almost unimaginable timescale in Brexit-paralysed Westminster.
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   to keep other schemes in the pipeline.

Sir Terry Morgan resigns as chairman of Crossrail and HS2

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   plan for Network Rail, however reluctantly, assuming that borrowing
   would cover the shortfall. That chief executive was, of course, Sir
   David Higgins, Morgan’s immediate predecessor as chair of HS2.

   When the railway of today appears to be run so very badly, it is little
   wonder that so few of the general public are enthusing about the “jam
   tomorrow” of HS2.

   Sunday sees the introduction of a new timetable across national rail,
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   to embrace that responsibility – choosing instead to diminish himself
   by claiming not to run, or understand, the railways. Morgan may be gone
   from HS2 but will look back on helping deliver Crossrail, a
   transformational feat of engineering for London. The legacy of Grayling
   looks increasingly uncertain.
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