HS2 confirmed that over a million tonnes of construction material have been delivered by rail to the high speed rail’s work sites across Buckinghamshire, taking the equivalent of 100,096 HGV journeys off local roads.

The milestone was achieved over eighteen months, with 583 trains delivering aggregate to three locations around Calvert and Aylesbury. Transporting this material by rail instead of by road is estimated to have saved 11,399 tonnes of co2 emissions.

The construction of HS2 – which is designed to improve links between London, Birmingham and the north, help level-up the economy and provide a low carbon alternative to car and air travel – is now well underway across Buckinghamshire, with the aggregate used for early works and temporary site access roads.

HS2 Project Client, Rohan Perin said:

“We are serious about reducing the impact of construction on the local community and every freight train delivering material to site is the equivalent of around 70 trucks that would otherwise be on local roads.

“HS2 will offer zero carbon journey for passengers, but it’s also important that we drive down the amount of embedded carbon in construction. We’ve been working closely with Network Rail, EKFB and the Freight Operators for a number of years to make deliveries by rail possible and it’s great to see that our freight trains have now passed the one million tonne mark.”

Across the whole HS2 project, 15,000 freight trains are set to haul 10 million tonnes of aggregate to construction sites – taking the equivalent of 1.5 million HGVs off the UK’s roads.