The Genesis of High Speed 2

With High Speed 2 being given the going ahead, I thought I would see if I could find when the policy started to germinate within government. After a bit of digging, I found a BBC report from 13 December 2005 that detailed a study by the Institute of Civil Engineers named "The Missing Link." This advocated a high speed line between London and Scotland with trains travelling at speeds of up to 215 miles per hour. While The Independent reported in December 2006 that hopes for such a line were dashed after a report by the former Chief Executive of British Airways, Sir Rod Eddington, clearly the idea remained floating around in government.