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I do usually try to get both portals of this tunnel in in my 6 monthly updates, time and weather depending, although I don't often turn and look back at the North Portal in the videos I put up, as I usually edit the video to carry on a little further. The light was kind, in between the rain showers, on the days I filmed this section :).

Do you ever see much activity on this construction project?

I've watched all these videos and I've never seen even one person working.

@@StevieProton As they say on motorway repair works, I;m sure that "Our contractors are working out of sight" 🤣

Not in any useful way, no.

Thanks. Took several days to film it, but that's all part of the fun of flying 😃

I suppose that was a great pleasure 😎

@@robodrone5662 Even my trusty spotter, Mrs TheBoy-UK enjoyed it :)

Really? It means it is pretty good 💪💪

@@robodrone5662 She likes the walks we go on to capture footage, and is happy to act as spotter for me :)

St Ives as restricted daytime traffic rules now, so only authorised vehicles allowed from (I think) 9am to 4pm, hence less traffic and parking around the harbour area :)

It's a brilliant place for flying, with all that beach and water, plus the unique towns like St Ives, and the lighthouse on the other side of the bay. I try to visit there every year or 2 for a short holiday :)

It must be visited as often as possible. Stunning area 👍

@@robodrone5662 I need to get my next holiday there booked!

For a long time.

@@robodrone5662 Yeah, I'm up for it!

That did make me smile! Nice one 👍

Thanks :). Its a lovely location - and near enough to you to stretch the big cat's legs for a day out (in nicer weather, obviously!).

@@theboy-uk Good idea!

@@CrazyCatLady351 👍

Thanks, it was done over 2 mornings to get the tide out to highlight the sand. Even though the weather was a bit dingy, there is something about the light in that bay that really brings it out, no wonder artists flock to St Ives! I love that lighthouse, especially when its proper rough - I can sit on the bench on the mainland for hours watching the waves crash in and over onto the lighthouse.

Thanks, I managed to avoid the rain (and snow) on all the flights that made this video 👍

Can't wait to try when I get home 👍

Last I heard, the section from Birmingham to Wormwood Scrubs is due to open some time in the early 2030s, and the section from the Scrubs to Euston is 2042 *IF* if gets firm funding, which it currently lacks.

And centuries for some of the newly planted trees, when they get round to doing that, to get to same level of maturity as the ones destroyed...

Thank you!

Thanks 👍

It was filmed over 4 days with both the Mini 4 Pro and Mavic 3, and a LOT of batteries were used! I even had power banks on the controllers to keep them charged. Those beach huts are the most expensive in the UK, and go for around half a million quid, gulp!

Thanks 👍. No zoom used, and I remained a few hundred metres away - kinda necessary to see it all IMHO. I did spot other drones going much closer, so I was keeping well back to avoid those...

Thanks ladyintheskyuk 👍

And for no real purpose, which makes it doubly frustrating.

I too have the same sadness you refer to, and a tinge of anger that the whole project is a solution desperately looking for, and failing, a problem.

Oh crickey, lost count! It was done with 2 drones across 4 days last month.

@@theboy-uk Yes i noticed that as the tides were in then out. Loved it anyhoo, watched it the whole way through. ☘

@@IrishMac093 Thanks, glad you liked it :)

True, but getting anyone to build it other than the UK rail industry and it would have been carrying passengers now. If you look at any of my videos, you will rarely see much going on.

The Main Contractors come from Britain, Sweden. France, The Netherlands. Austria and Spain.

@@TrevorWilliams-fq8mg And milking it for all they can :(

I travel regularly between London and Birmingham on the 2 existing lines, WCML and CML. Neither are near capacity, except a couple of trains London bound morning peak. But, ignore those that try to claim it was all about capacity, it never was, and still isn't today. It's simply about speed, and this will allow travel between the 2 cities just a few minutes faster. I never get notifications from TH-cam, settings all look correct.

@@theboy-uk I think the whole project was about money, as usual.

@@davidharle952 Well so far its kept people in high paid jobs in HS2 for more than 15 years so far. #JobForLife

@@martinsloman6905 Don't take too much notice of any greening, that's just they've left it too long. They will move stuff about again, as they did last time it started to green over, and the time before, and the time before. Jumping on other subscribers to provide proof of truths you don't agree with is unacceptable. Regardless of that, you have never been able to provide anything independent yourself.

@@martinsloman6905 Just Google it, the evidence is there.

It certainly looks to me that it could have been refloated. Maybe you and me should but in a bid to do it... ...all expenses 6 month trip to the Island! I think the hull might be too badly damaged now, so would probably sink at a rate of knots when free of the rocks.

@@theboy-uk good idea, I've still got my water wings from when I learned to swim, they should re float it. lol

The start to finish cock-up Phase 1 has been would mean it's a very ,very brave government that would approve either of the 2 legs of Phase 2, let alone Phase 3. Sadly, the mess of this project probably puts paid to any further major new rail projects in the UK for a generation or more, hence the relatively tiny amounts laid out in the budget for rail improvements.

Well, when you have an open chequebook to the magic money tree growing in 10 Downing Street, no need to rush, and you can expand the scope. I've heard it mentioned that the excessive land grab made for this 2 track rail line was because it was always planned that HS2 would be spun out of it's parent, Network Rail, and having a wide corridor of land makes it easier to borrow against as it gives the company more value. I have, however, been unable to collaborate that...

@@martinsloman6905 The fact it needed an act of parliament is irrelevant. So did most other railways. And motorways come to that. But none of those others took such a ridiculous amount of land as HS2. If you can't see it as a land grab, then you really are brainwashed.

@@martinsloman6905 I know you are blinkered. You've said in the past that any money wasted on rail much only ever be a good thing. Why such a massive amount of land was grabbed is not purely to run a narrow railway through. I walked one on a footpath not too far from me whilst walking, and it was over 1km wide. A land grab, incidentally, doesn't have to be illegal, it is any forced acquisition of land. As it happens, a lot of HS2 land grabbing was illegal, as they took the land, and even as recently as a year ago in some cases haven't got around to paying for it. Which is kinda the definition of theft, but let's be soft on them and say they forgot, or the taxpayer couldn't afford to give them the money, or the money had already been pissed up the wall.

@@martinsloman6905 Your words were something like "any money spent on the railways must only be a good thing". Wasted or otherwise. I have told you where I got the info on on Phase 2 being unviable according to HS2. I bothered to attend. You claimed they could possibly have said this, yet they repeated it in several of the events. Nobody has explained why a 2 track railway running in a shallow cutting of less than 10m needs a greater than 1km wide piece of land. You're getting short answers because you repeatedly spout the same rubbish time and time again, and to quote yourself, I can't let your rubbish go unchallenged.

@@martinsloman6905 No reading between the lines. They were quite open that the business case for Phase 1 was "Fragile" (their words), and Phase 2 was not even that good. And very open that they genuinely believed Phase 2 would never be approved because of this. This was repeated several times at most of the events. I don't care if you believe that or not, I believe you are too brainwashed to grasp it anyway. I simply pass on what those of us who bothered to turn up and discuss the project with HS2 were told, but please don't say they never said that when you never bothered to attend. As to saying that it doesn't get that wide, perhaps you should come and see the monstrosity sometime. Then you can make your own mind up. This is way more than just the cutting or embankment (as appropriate.

Yes, I love to see my taxes wasted on unneeded and forever unfinished projects like this. Clearly the UK hasn't nothing else to spend its taxes on. 🤣

@@martinsloman6905 PMSL. They amount to one and the same thing. The government has one prime source of income, and that is taxation. They can short/medium term borrow, but that's not sustainable - we're already using 10% of all taxation to service the debt (for avoidance of doubt, servicing means paying the interest, not the capital). As HS2 will never be profitable - HS2 say they need between 50-60% subsidy per full priced fare to operate *IF* they can achieve that 500,000+ passengers per day on Phase 1 - so that debt for construction has to come from the taxpayer. Ongoing subsidies, not yet funded as far as I can see, will also come from the taxpayer. Now, if it provided a genuinely useful service - beyond being a few minutes faster, and being a vanity project for the UK rail industry to get excited over, - the taxpayer might find it almost palatable. But it doesn't.

Good to know about English public money.

Thanks. I disagree that HS2 will last longer than 5-10yrs in its current form once opened as it will not get the numbers involved. TOCs are suggesting passenger numbers are approaching pre-pandemic levels, but I'm not seeing this when hopping onboard Avanti or Chiltern as I travel along the competing routes.

I will be so glad when this project is finished then hopefully people might stop moaning about it. It wouldn't have cost anything like this much in the project hadn't had to pander to every NIMBY and environmentalist. Then perhaps phase 2 wouldn't have been scrapped. I can't believe some are still taking about or even hoping for the whole thing to be scrapped. I'm on your side! Perhaps there should be a counter protest group 'Stop HS2 Rebellion'

@@krayzkatman1990 So it's fine to blow £67b on a stupid railway that's not needed? There is no shortage of capacity on the existing 2 London to Birmingham lines. It won't free up freight capacity without impact local services. I know the head honcho of HS2 is desperately trying to blame somebody else, and throwing NIMBY rubbish about, but the cost overruns are utterly down to the poor planning of the project, and the total need for a high speed line at any cost, irrespective of it's viability.

Yes, we can't always agree on everything, life would be boring if we did. I try to do these every 6 months - this one was a few weeks late due to the weather and the state of the footpaths I use to be able to film these sections.

I cover the section between Bicester/Buckingham-ish to Southam-ish, as an interesting historical record of progress - old photos of the Victorian railways being constructed are fascinating (IMHO(. My own personal views, and that of the majority of the population it seems, are irrelevant to that.

You do some great coverage of this but it is a balance. Stopped now you'd have banks up in arms and liabilities worse than stopping it. Let alone the redundancies

@@vorlonb3 That's the problem, rather than deal with the problem now, those in charge are happy to throw more money at it and kick a controversial decision into the long grass. Its a sad decision to have to make, as too many people will lose face, but I've always predicted it will have to radically change or be closed within a decade of opening :( I personally don't believe artificially paying construction workers for something that is doomed is the right choice. Governments do.

@@martinsloman6905 So you agree that more people oppose it than back it. I think slowly you are seeing the light. HS2 always was about speed, and always will be until such time they give up with the folly as it stands, and make it just another London commuter route - the only way it can survive. It was NEVER about capacity, be that passenger or freight. That is blindingly obvious by the decisions taken.

@@martinsloman6905 I know what it's like to be up against somebody with total conviction and has minimal knowledge, relying on bias from sites like Green Signals ;). Might be worth looking up the definition of majority, BTW.

LOL. I use railways between Brum and Londonium more than most people I suspect. And I'm one of the handful of people who can actually make use of HS2 - assuming they finish the thing before I retire. The fact I can use it and shave a few minutes off my journey time between the 2 largest cities doesn't make it a good use of taxpayer's money to build it, I'm not that selfish!

And to add to that, I would have preferred to see the colossal amount spent on this vanity project used on more useful rail improvements. Hence I'm all for EWR (despite the fact I will likely never use it), as it's a route that is difficult to do via public transport. As said previously, I am one of the few who can make use of HS2, but still think its a waste of money. Imagine what that £40b wasted on HS2 could have done to the rail industry that is worth upgrading.

@@martinsloman6905 Aye, it will be a few minutes quicker (in around 2042 which still seems to be the estimated completion time for all of Phase 1), especially for the few folk living in central Birmingham, that I don't disagree with. But that is what HS2 was all about anyway, despite protestations to the contrary. Like freight, it won't free up that much capacity for commuter routes, but that's OK, because their aren't passenger capacity issues on the existing 2 lines outside of a couple of trains, morning peak, London bound.

@@martinsloman6905 You are mis-reading

Maybe we should go on an all expenses trip there for 6 months, and see if we can move it for them.... ....I have a reputation when it comes to moving a garage building....

I bet not as calm as the construction staff :)

Do they have parties all the time? 😉

@@robodrone5662 Who knows, as you never see the construction staff!

Maybe they still perform underground works...

@@robodrone5662 Even if there are no underground parts on this section, LOL.

Its a great resource for those that can use it - I think my days for that are long gone, LOL - though not convinced the location opposite and old people's home is ideal!

Thanks. I'm sure local communities will be delighted when this is finished (or cancelled), as I know it some areas it's causing significant daily disruption for months at a time.

Absolutely, and for a vanity project because we must have a train that can get between Birmingham and London in under an hour, as the existing 1h3m isn't fast enough apparently.

Lost ancient woodland and copses will take 400+yrs to regrow, and any other woodland will take decades... And it is wider than 2 dual lanes, because of the cuttings you mention. Overall it uses more land than the M40 ever did...

@@martinsloman6905 I'm glad you finally accept that it will take centuries to restore ancient woodland. By the same token, established woodland, not technically ancient, will take decades, if not centuries to get to the state they were destroy. Clearly you don't travel on the M40 much. Even the M40 cutting at Stokenchuch - which I think is the cutting you are referring to (the one that's at the start credits of The Vicar of Dibley etc, for those of a certain age) - is significantly narrower than most of the cuttings shown in these videos. For reference, the M40 didn't touch any ancient woodland.

@@martinsloman6905 Yes, so it still takes 400 years to grown a new one. Or are you going to try to argue that one as well? The M40 extension was started in 1988, well after the 1980 designation date, and still no ancient woodland was destroyed in it's fast, minimally disruptive construction.

@@martinsloman6905 Once again it sounds like you are agreeing with me, and accepting no part of the M40 takes up that much land, including the M40 cutting which previously you'd implied was massive. Thus, despite trying to argue the opposite, you are clearly stating that HS2 is creating a wider scar across the countryside than the M40 did, not just the insanely ridiculous land grab for construction, but also the width of the railway and its infrastructure in (it's short) life.

Do you think so? Interesting, as I think progress remains stubbornly slow...

Had they closed the 421 again? They seem to do it quite a lot, and not sure they are making much use of that haulage road bridge to reduce disruption - but have you noticed how much it sags in the middle!

not noticed the sag. caroline.

@@carolinecleaveley-q1r Once you've noticed, you can't unnotice it. It's even worse if there are trucks going over, probably why they still use the temporary traffic lights there a lot.

No need to rush when you can milk the magic money tree for as long as the taxpayer will bankroll it ;)

Given the obscene amount of taxpayer money sunk into this, I hope you're right. But as a very regular user of both competing lines between London and Birmingham, I can tell you that there simply aren't the required passenger numbers to make HS2 viable. So unless something dramatic happens soon around passenger numbers, it's already a dead duck....

THanks :)

Thanks. Shame I'm probably too old to have a go myself... ...mind you, that geezer at the Olympics was knocking on a bit, so maybe I should!

Probably not going to happen, as the dates are all over the place - the description and title always have the main month that most of the segments are filmed (and not always in order due to access constraints)

Thanks. Unfortunately it's had to be closed temporarily, as there are some issues with the groundworks - it appears there may be some glass in the topsoil used.

Even in murky conditions, the whole area remains so dramstic.

Thanks. I guess HS2 will suffer the same fate as CML has most of this week, where it runs at ground level over the flood plains. Interesting you think the 2 existing London to Birmingham lines are overcrowded, as this is not something I experience outside of a couple of trains London bound morning peak, and I use both existing lines very regularly. Additionally, HS2 won't help as hardly anyone travels the full route between central Brum and central London, as by about Northampton/Milton Keynes (WCML) and Banbury (CML) most of the trains are near empty. From ground level, those cutting slopes at 6m actually look like they have been purposely turfed - not that easy to tell from the air. No idea why they would go to the expense and work of turfing though? Unless the grass is needed for erosion or stability? Which in itself should ring alarm bells as that will need expensive rework at some point in the future... #JobForLife

@@martinsloman6905 Errr, no, HS2 isn't always on viaducts across flood plains. You'd be surprised what info the TOC's are willing to give with a FOI request. However, neither Chiltern or Avanti will give passenger numbers from central Brum to central London, claiming such figures are unknown to them - difficult to believe, as, like any business, they should know what is happening on their networks from ticket sales. The information isn't really commercially sensitive either, as each of the TOCs have an unbreakable monopoly. It's odd they have felt the need to turf it, when the bridge in that area hasn't been completed, which will likely involve having to remove it (or damage it). It's not common to see Network Rail do similar on other routes when they repair cuttings and embankments, which is why I found it odd. Even if the Birmingham Post's number as correct (and they aren't viable when compared to the published combined Avanti and Chiltern combined figures over their entire networks for that year), 13m is only the tip of the iceberg of the required 180m that HS2 have said they need to carry in their original business plan to Government. And obviously the commuting world has changed forever, so post pandemic figures have the trains carrying around 60-65% of the passengers they carried in the 2018 peak. So by your own argument, you have proved HS2 is unviable, and now agree with all the official reviews that it offers poor value for money. Excellent.

@@martinsloman6905 Yes, as an engineer, I have an inquisitive mind. As to your questions, who knows, but as you already know as somebody who has seen many of my HS2 construction progress videos, they do appear to like to rework stuff. But, can you blame them when they have an open chequebook and not completion targets.... There is nothing special about HS2, it's just like any other project, albeit on a larger scale than many.

@@martinsloman6905 I agree...

Thanks, the weather was unusually kind for the week or so that this video was filmed in January. Unlike the last few weeks where I have been trying, unsuccessfully so far, to do an updated video on progress!

Well some of it will take decades or even centuries to recover. But the blunt point is HS2 has always been somebody's dream looking for a purpose.

@@martinsloman6905 HS1 was not built in the same way that HS2 was. You probably never saw the construction, but land grab was minimal, and temporary use of land was returned to farmers who are far better placed to manage it than having to set up a new organisation (tax payer funded, no doubt, probably run by the corrupt rail industry) to manage the waste land. Geopolitical tensions in the last 3 years have highlighted how we need to be more self sufficient in this country, and not be at the mercy of whims of other nations for essentials like wheat. But HS2 always had other plans of grabbing a massive amount of land. And then thought what a great idea it would be to use the land for wildlife habitats... ...right next to high speed trains. Maybe its a plan so ASLEF can demand danger money for their members?

@@martinsloman6905 HS2 are NOT returning ANY land to the original owners. They are keeping the lot. Other projects rightly tend to return the land to their original owners for things like food production.

@@martinsloman6905 Cobblers. It was always intended that HS2 would keep all the land. It was always in the proposal. It increases the value of the company that the entity now called Network Rail spun out of itself into the entity now called HS2 Ltd (and filled said company with its own people in senior roles - proper jobs for the boys style).

@@martinsloman6905 Its an asset. A very valuable asset. Farming land is generally around £15k per acre, and around £1m per acre for non farming land land outside of Greater London.

The less work you do, the longer the job takes, and the more money you can make. Its a fantastic scam....

@@theboy-uk Somebody invented a perfect recipe for life there.

@@robodrone5662 Yes, and we both need a new job there!

@@theboy-uk My application form is ready.

@@robodrone5662 There is a queue, get in behind me!