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2043
Britain completes the final phase of its HS2 rail link
High Speed 1, also known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, opened in 2007 as Britain's first high-speed railway. Running for 110 km (68 miles) between London St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel, it allowed trains to reach 300 km/h (186 mph) and cut the London-to-Paris journey time to 2 hours 15 minutes. Its completion encouraged new debate about whether Britain should build a domestic high-speed network of its own.
In 2009, the government announced plans for High Speed 2 (HS2), a much larger railway intended to connect London with the Midlands and the North of England. The original route took the form of a "Y" shape, with a central trunk from London to Birmingham and two northern branches: one to Manchester and the other to Leeds. Ministers gave the project the green light in January 2012, with an expected cost of £32.7 billion. Trains would begin running in 2026, while the full network would open by 2033.
The plan promised faster journeys, extra rail capacity, and major regeneration around new stations. London to Birmingham would take less than an hour, while Manchester and Leeds would gain direct high-speed links to the capital. HS2 would also free space on the congested West Coast Main Line, allowing more local, regional, and freight services to operate on existing tracks.
However, the project soon became one of the most troubled infrastructure schemes in modern British history. Costs rose repeatedly, schedules slipped, and the route faced strong opposition from communities, environmental groups, and some economists. Critics argued that the railway would cause years of disruption, damage countryside and ancient woodland, and offer poor value for money compared with smaller regional transport upgrades. Supporters continued to argue that Britain needed a new north-south rail artery, but the original national vision began to shrink.
The first major cut came in 2021, when the government scrapped the eastern leg to Leeds. In 2023, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled Phase 2a to Crewe and Phase 2b to Manchester, leaving only the London-to-Birmingham line, a connection to the West Coast Main Line near Handsacre in Staffordshire, and a future link into London Euston. HS2 trains would still continue towards Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other northern destinations, but they would do so on existing mainline tracks rather than on dedicated high-speed railway.
By the mid-2020s, HS2 had become a symbol of Britain's difficulty in delivering large infrastructure projects. A 2026 government reset placed the expected cost of the remaining scheme at £87.7–102.7 billion, excluding future inflation. Ministers said two-thirds of the increase came from missed work, underestimation, and inefficient delivery, while one-third came from inflation. By March 2026, HS2 had already spent £44.2 billion, close to the entire original budget, yet no passenger service had begun.*
The same reset pushed the opening date back yet again. The first trains between Old Oak Common in west London and Birmingham Curzon Street were now expected between 2036 and 2039. The full scheme – including a tunnel to Euston in central London, and the northernmost section to Handsacre – would follow between 2040 and 2043. To reduce complexity, the government also lowered HS2's planned top speed from 360 km/h (224 mph) to 320 km/h (199 mph), bringing the railway closer to proven European high-speed standards. This saved around £2.5 billion and trimmed at least a year from the delivery programme, although it slightly increased journey times.
By 2043, Britain has finally completed the last phase of HS2.* The railway now runs from London Euston to Birmingham Curzon Street, with intermediate stops at Old Oak Common and Birmingham Interchange. At Handsacre Junction, HS2 trains join the existing West Coast Main Line, allowing onward services towards the North West and Scotland. The completed railway cuts London-to-Birmingham journeys by around half an hour compared with pre-HS2 services and doubles peak long-distance fast rail capacity between the capital and the West Midlands.*
The benefits are real. HS2 improves reliability on one of Britain's busiest rail corridors, supports regeneration around Old Oak Common, Euston, Birmingham Interchange, and Curzon Street, and creates new space for housing, offices, and local transport links. Around the main station sites, tens of thousands of jobs and homes are created, alongside new commercial districts and upgraded public spaces.
Even so, completion brings relief rather than triumph. The railway that opens in the early 2040s is far smaller than the one approved three decades earlier. It no longer reaches Leeds on new high-speed track, and it no longer provides a dedicated high-speed route to Manchester. Many communities endured years of uncertainty, property blight, and planning restrictions for a line they never received, while taxpayers faced a bill several times higher than the original estimate.
HS2 ultimately leaves Britain with a faster and more modern railway between London and Birmingham, the country's capital and second-largest city, along with a useful increase in capacity on the wider network. However, it also stands as a cautionary tale about over-ambitious design, weak cost control, political indecision, and the slow erosion of a national infrastructure vision. For many observers, the completed line has value, but falls well short of what had once been promised.
Credit: High Speed Two (HS2) Limited
The Ross Sea has lost 50% of its summer ice cover
The Ross Sea is a large bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica. Like much of the frozen continent, it had been gaining ice at the start of the 21st century. This was due to various factors including changes in wind speed, precipitation, salinity, ocean currents, air and water temperatures.
In subsequent decades, however, a rapid reduction of ice cover began to occur during the summer months as temperatures in the region soared, with corresponding changes in wind patterns and ocean currents. By 2043, half of the summer ice cover has been lost and is continuing to decline, now on track to decrease 56% by 2050 and 78% by 2100.**
The Ross Sea is critically important in regulating the production of Antarctica's sea ice overall. The decline now being witnessed therefore has long-term implications for the continent as a whole. This comes at a time when commercial interests are beginning to eye the potential for resource extraction, as the Antarctic Treaty is due for review in 2048.*
Marine life in this productive and once unspoiled ecosystem is also being negatively impacted. A number of important species are dependent on the ice during their life cycles, including crystal krill and Antarctic silverfish. Krill are a major food source for the Ross Sea's top predators – minke whales, crabeater seals, Adélie and Emperor penguins (the latter may go extinct by 2100, if trends continue).
Slovenia closes down its only nuclear power plant
The Krško Nuclear Power Plant is located in Krško, Slovenia. It was built between 1975-1983 as a joint venture by Slovenia and Croatia, which were at the time both part of Yugoslavia. With 730 megawatts of generation capacity, it provided more than one-quarter of Slovenia's and 15 percent of Croatia's power.
In 2008, a coolant leak was reported, triggering fears of a Chernobyl-style disaster and prompting an EU-wide alert. However, this turned out to be a false alarm. The incident resulted in a relatively large amount of media attention for what was a minor malfunction.
The planned retirement date for the plant was 14th January 2023. The decommissioning plan that was ratified by the Slovenian and Croatian parliaments scheduled the start of disassembly shortly after that, and the taking apart of the plant would last until 2036. An extension for 20 years – extending the plant lifetime to 14th January 2043 – was subsequently made to the Slovenian regulatory body (URSJV).*
The Chang'e-3 lander is shutting down
Chang'e-3 was a Chinese spacecraft launched in 2013. It was the country's first unmanned probe to touch down on the Moon's surface and included both a lander and rover. The landing site, in Mare Imbrium, was determined by topographic data from the previous Chang'e 1 and 2 orbiters.
On the surface, Chang'e-3 deployed a 140 kg (310 lb) rover named Yutu, which was designed to explore an area of 3 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) during a three-month mission. Equipped with a digging tool, it performed analysis of soil samples. Using a radar on its underside, it also obtained the first direct measurements of the structure and depth of lunar soil down to 30 m (98 ft) and studied the lunar crust at several hundred metres' depth.
The lander, meanwhile, featured the first automated and remotely operated telescope to be deployed on another world. The thin exosphere and slow rotation of the Moon allowed for extremely long and uninterrupted views of targets and their light variation, improving a number of astronomical models. These observations included galaxies, active galactic nuclei, variable stars, binaries, novae, quasars and blazars, as well as the structure and dynamics of the Earth's plasmasphere. Three cameras installed on the lander – each facing in different directions – provided high-res panoramic imagery of the Moon's surface.* NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took a photo of the landing site, in which the rover and lander were both clearly visible.*
With solar panels and a radioisotope heater unit (RHU) designed to last 30 years, Chang'e-3 was a very long-running mission. While the rover stopped working in March 2015, the telescope on the stationary lander had enough power to operate until 2043. By this date, Chang'e-3 is finally shutting down.* Like the Apollo landing sites of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it earns a historic status and eventually becomes a tourist attraction when civilians are able to visit the Moon. Given the lack of atmosphere or weather conditions on the surface, it remains in a pristine state into the distant future.
Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences
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References
1 HS2 6-monthly report to Parliament: May 2026,
Gov.uk:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/hs2-6-monthly-report-to-parliament-may-2026
Accessed 23rd May 2026.
2 "The first services are expected to run from Old Oak Common in west London to Birmingham Curzon Street between May 2036 and October 2039. It can now be estimated that the full scheme, including both south to Euston and Handsacre Junction to the north, will open between May 2040 and December 2043."
See HS2 Project Update,
High Speed Two (HS2) Limited:
https://www.hs2.org.uk/what-is-hs2/hs2-project-update/
Accessed 23rd May 2026.
3 Transport Secretary ends 'era of neglect' on HS2 with thorough reset,
Gov.uk:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/transport-secretary-ends-era-of-neglect-on-hs2-with-thorough-reset
Accessed 23rd May 2026.
4 Study projects big thaw for Antarctic sea ice,
Virginia Institute of Marine Science:
http://www.vims.edu/newsandevents/topstories/ross_sea_thaw.php
Accessed 5th March 2014.
5 The effects of changing winds and temperatures on the oceanography of the Ross Sea in the 21st century,
Geophysical Research Letters:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059311
Accessed 5th March 2014.
6 See 2048.
7 Decommissioning in Slovenia,
Jožef Stefan Institute:
http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/WTS-Networks/IDN/idnfiles/Presentations-in-pdf-Necsa/Country_presentations/Slovenia.pdf
Accessed 11th November 2012.
8 Chang'e 3 Lunar panorama: Lander Terrain Camera,
360Cities:
https://www.360cities.net/image/lunar-panorama-change-3-lander
Accessed 11th June 2017.
9 NASA Images of Chang'e 3 Landing Site,
NASA:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-images-of-change-3-landing-site/
Accessed 11th June 2017.
10 China's telescope on the Moon is still working, and could do for 30 years,
gbtimes:
http://gbtimes.com/china/chinas-telescope-moon-still-working-and-could-do-30-years
Accessed 11th June 2017.
