HS2’s Burton Green Tunnel reaches halfway point

Nice

They really threaded the needle with this section. Such a complex little part of the route. I'm grateful they explained why there are openings when he kept referring to it as a tunnel. I don't know why I never realised the reason for them but it makes so much sense now.

Keep up hard work

Really clear update on this fantastic project

So is this effectively beneath the old disused railway alignment?

Absolutely ridiculous putting everything in tunnels.

ok then cu this time next year

Excellent video, thanks!

So it’s a cut & cover, a buried box that is covered over to disguise its origin. When someone says “tunnel” I think of a bored construction. Cut & cover is more like a wide bridge.

I get why this is so expensive now

👏👏👏

Amazing!, just incredible engineering, congratulations 👏👍

Utter waste of money when we need more prisons more hospitals and a boost to the military, just to get travellers from London 35 minutes earlier.

@michaelcahill9191
Oh hello again Michael. Still on every HS2 related video on YT I see.
But hey I see you have changed your tune and its not about speed but capacity. Which is what we have been saying all along.
"Better a sinner who repents ...." 😂
Sadly you still show the same level of ignorance though. There are no lines left to reinstate (other than local branch lines) and to add to current main lines is recipe for disaster as was shown on the WCML some years ago. Disruption for years and its still 125 MPH.
Oh and those longer trains require longer stations ....

so overengineered. NIMBYs in this town could have just coped

So Boris Johnson gave a thumbs up to millions of pounds for a load of concrete tunnels and concrete viaducts! Wherever I've travelled by train (like London to Aberdeen) I've always enjoyed the journey - the passing scenery & the changing weather. So HS2 won't be getting a thumbs up from me! If the vast sums involved had been spent on upgrading routes in all parts of the UK (and restoring lines closed by Beeching) millions of travellers would now be experiencing faster journeys - and more people would be using the railway!

Why can't we have this in Devon and Cornwall 😮

Wasn't this route previously a railway cutting at least in part? A green tunnel is much more expensive than a cutting, hence the huge overspend on the original project cost esp in the chilterns.

If it was a cutting already couldn't you have dug deeper before putting the concrete on top, surely that would have been cheaper to do? Was it a stability issue?

I cant understand a word of his explanation! Hopeless

Love these videos

Now we can see precisely why the HS2 project keeps ratcheting up in price - it's down to one linear mile of route at Burton Green. We don't get detailed updates at Radstone, do we, where complex landscaping issues are not being talked about, Thorpe Mandeville, where a watercourse has been destroyed, Wormleighton, with its dodgy geology, the south end of the tunnel under Long Itchington wood and all those other equally interesting places. Well I suppose they don't have rows of houses overlooking the railway excavations, so what the public doesn't need to know about...but I wonder what the final price tag will be?

Now I finally understand what was built and how it's going to function.

Really clear and informative update, thanks!

Nothing but a monstrous blot on the landscape & a complete & utter waste of billions of pounds.
HS2 is an environmental disaster of epic proportions &Britain's biggest infrastructure mistake in half a century.

I don't see a mountain or a city, yet I do see a tunnel.

All very impressive and very vey expensive. Nothing like this on European high speed lines. All done to hide it from the moaning neighbours. This is why the whole project is so expensive compared to other countries' rail projects.

Didn't realise they were tunneling beneath the lane. Thought they were just creating the tunnel section where the lane was, and then moving the lane back over and digging the other side out!

Excellent video and explains what has been occuring in the local area. It would be nice though to understand why there is 4 different structures, tunnel, retaining structure, u-box and portal. The retaining area I understand, lower than ground level but not as expensive as a tunnel, but why the u-box between two parts of it?

Wow, just think, we'll soon be able to get to Birmingham twenty minutes sooner than is currently possible and for a mere £100 billion. I know there are critics, but I say who needs an NHS, or social care, or NHS dentists, or prisons, or housing, or affordable child-care, or fire-safe cladding, or the reduction of university fees etc?..Not me, Birmingham with 20 minutes to spare if you please, every time.

So far...so good!

Pointless project.

Much cheaper to put everything in deeper tunnels. One technology, one machine, no bridges, no disruption to roads, rivers, pylons, pipes or railways. No farmland destroyed, very few houses destroyed so no lawyers, appeals etc. Much more predictable costs as the tunnelling machine technology is well understood - as are the concrete sections and the disposal of the soil and rocks removed. Just 10 tunnelling machines and bob’s your uncle. No doubling or trebling of costs and time taken to do the work.

Thank you Rupert and the BBV team. A very informative video showing how sensitively the project is being delivered despite its proximity to many people’s homes.

Utter waste of taxpayer's money. £120Bn to save 20 mins from part of London to part of Birmingham.
Destroying swathes of pricless English countryside, woodland and archaeology.
Criminal.

See, we can build in straight lines, so how come our roads are all twisty windy? Can't have a straight section longer than a few yards.

Excellent explanation. Thank you 🙏

Although I do not support HS2, I have to say the engineering, construction of this part of the Network is extraordinary. It would be really great to see some of the workforce too and get their opinions (regarding the construction) it must be amazing to have worked on such a project. Well done Rupert and the team, you are engineers not performers or actors and we appreciate you sharing this with us 👍

Just think how many homes could have been built with these resources. What a bloody waste of money and effort.