News on HS2 in Bucks & Oxfordshire

The 100th freight train arrived at our main construction site in Buckinghamshire this week, as the latest figures show that construction of the UK's new high speed railway has helped the rail freight industry bounce back from the pandemic.

The first 100 trains - operated by DB Cargo and Hanson for our contractor EKFB – have so far delivered 150,000 tonnes of aggregate for use around the Calvert Railhead. Transporting this material by rail instead of road has already taken the equivalent of 7,500 HGVs off local roads and cut over 24,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

The temporary 26,200 sq/m Calvert Railhead being built EKFB – a team made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial and Bam Nuttall – will be the main construction and logistics hub during work on the central section of the railway. New temporary access roads will then be used to move people and materials from the railhead, helping to take construction traffic off local roads. Once the new railway is built, the railhead and temporary access roads will be removed and the site landscaped, leaving only a small infrastructure maintenance depot.

Despite being seriously affected last year, the amount of freight on Britain’s railways in the last three months is now 2% above pre-pandemic levels. Construction traffic, including that from our sites, showed the largest increase, according to figures released by the Office for Rail and Road earlier this month. Across the whole project, 15,000 freight trains are set to haul 10 million tonnes of aggregate to construction sites – taking the equivalent of 1.5 million HGVs off the UK’s roads.

At the peak of construction, more than 650 people will work at the Calvert Railhead. They will be some of the 4,000 jobs set to be created by EKFB over the next two years, constructing an 80km section of the railway between the Chilterns and south Warwickshire, including 17 viaducts, 81 bridges and three ‘green tunnels’.

The railhead is also next to a section of disused railway which is being brought back into use as part of the East-West rail project which is set to link Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Aylesbury and Cambridge. The two teams are working closely together on their construction plans, and we are set to deliver three bridges and 3km of earthworks along the southern edge of the Calvert site on behalf of East-West Rail.

If you have a question about HS2 or our works, please contact our HS2 Helpdesk team on 08081 434 434 or email hs2enquiries@hs2.org.uk