Leaked plans to rebuild Euston station
Exclusive: What the new HS2 station could look like, the battles behind the scenes, and why it could be overcrowded from the start.
Euston, we have a capacity problem.
The much-derided London railway station, famous for its 1960s concrete design and travellers sprinting down ramps at the last minute, is due to become the terminus of the long-awaited High Speed 2 railway from Birmingham.
Yet a stash of confidential documents and design plans obtained by London Centric sets out fears within Transport for London that attempts to build a cut-price solution following years of political interference could result in a dangerously undersized and overcrowded station.
The plan is for the existing Euston mainline station to remain largely intact. A new, underground High Speed 2 station would then be attached at the western side where there is currently a giant building site.
At the end of last year Transport for London bosses warned central government that they may have to block the potential expansion of High Speed 2 for safety reasons. They were concerned the rebuilt Euston’s concourse could quickly become overcrowded and additional passengers from Manchester would overload the capital’s transport network and cause fire risks.
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“The station could hit capacity constraints within six years of operation,” warned a confidential internal briefing in late 2025. The document, seen by London Centric, continued: “That would likely mean TfL would have to object to commercial development plans in the local area and would limit the ability of HS2 to run additional services… thus hindering the potential expansion of the network and impacting the Midlands and the North to a greater extent.”
According to the documents, TfL set out a series of concerns to central government about the plans to rebuild Euston. These included:
TfL warning it has “no funding” to upgrade Euston tube station to cope with the thousands of extra passengers arriving in the capital off High Speed 2 trains every hour.
Fears from London’s transport planners that the capital could “bear disproportionate long-term costs” if Euston tube station is overloaded, with deputy mayor for transport Seb Dance telling rail minister Peter Hendy the capital cannot pick up the costs for what is a national project.
Predictions that plans to fund the construction of the new High Speed 2 station by building housing, shops, and offices around Euston will further overload the station by attracting commuters and shoppers to the area – as well as causing years of disruptive construction work.
Details of Sadiq Khan’s team having looked at taking out new loans to help pay for the required upgrades, repaid with increased taxes on businesses in the local Euston area, impacting City Hall’s ability to borrow for other projects.
“Concerns” from TfL about the predicted High Speed 2 passenger numbers and a belief they may have underestimated passenger growth, based on the explosive popularity of the Elizabeth line which is outperforming all expectations.
Warnings that, as the High Speed 2 station could be at a completely different height to the existing station, there might be disability access issues. One solution under consideration is for the Euston concourse to be dug up and dropped to remove the dangerously steep ramps down to the existing West Coast Main Line platforms.
There will also be the option to add three extra half-length platforms in the future, potentially to enable services to Manchester or Scotland. Under the current plans these could never be expanded to full length platforms as the required space would instead be taken up with new commercial buildings, permanently limiting HS2’s capacity.
This week the TfL press office told London Centric the comments “referred to options under consideration at that time, which have now been superseded” but did not clarify whether it still has concerns about funding and capacity for Euston station.
The TfL spokesperson continued: “We are working closely with our partners on proposals to ensure that Transport for London’s infrastructure at Euston can meet future demand and deliver the best possible experience for our customers when HS2 services begin.”
Despite hundreds of millions of pounds being spent on abandoned designs for a new station at Euston there is still no agreed plan, following years of political wrangling and attempted cost-cutting which has often pushed up the price. A new delivery company has now been formed to try to get the project sorted.
On Tuesday, as we were preparing this story, transport secretary Heidi Alexander coincidentally announced that High Speed 2 is now expected to start services to Birmingham from Old Oak Common in west London in the late 2030s, with trains finally making it to Euston in the early 2040s. This means decades of disruption for those living next to the site.
“If it’s built as planned we’ll have huge queues in the morning and evening peaks,” one person with knowledge of the ongoing planning process told London Centric. “Why would we want to build a brand-new station that’s as crowded as the current one?”
The individual warned attempts to cut costs for political reasons could result in immediate demands for a rebuild: “If we don’t get this right we’ll be pissing money up the wall.”
Paying subscribers can access the rest of this story, including the detailed leaked designs of what a new Euston station might look like…
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