Million tonne milestone for HS2’s Quainton freight trains

A small railhead near Quainton has helped HS2 take the equivalent of 101,000 HGV movements off local roads across Bucks, Oxfordshire and West Northants, it was revealed on 26 February 2024. The company building Britain’s new high-speed railway confirmed that its construction hub at Quainton, Bucks, has now received more than a million tonnes of construction material by rail carried by 646 trains - offsetting the need to transport the material by road.

Situated on an existing freight line north of Aylesbury, the railhead is expected to welcome an extra 1,400 freight trains over the next two years taking the total amount of material delivered to around 3 million tonnes. This is on top of a million tonnes already delivered by rail to previous railheads in the local area, meaning that HS2 has now taken a combined total of two million tonnes of material or 217,000 HGVs off local roads and saved 22,378 tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of 22,300 single passenger flights from London to New York.

Once on site, most of the material - mainly aggregate used for construction - is stockpiled before being moved up or down the line of route of the new high-speed line on a series of dedicated haul roads to keep it away from local road users. The railhead is managed by HS2’s main works contractor EKFB – a team made up of Eiffage, Kier, Ferrovial Construction and Bam Nuttall. EKFB are delivering the central section of the project, including 15 viaducts, 81 bridges and two ‘green tunnels’. They worked with a team from Network Rail who completed a series of alterations to enable freight services to operate in and out of the railhead at Quainton.

The railhead is operated by Fishbone Solutions on behalf of EKFB with trains operated by DC Rail and GB Railfreight on behalf of Hanson.