High Speed 3

High Speed 3 (HS3) or Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) is a conceptual coast to coast, east-west rail line in northern England, connecting Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull. In March 2016 at the 2016 Budget the line was approved and £60 million development funding was provided for the preparation of a route plan for the line.

Historically the use of the term High Speed 3 was loose – the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee (March 2015) stated there was no firm definition of the route implied by HS3:

Improvements to east-west links in the north of England have often been referred to as "HS3". This term has been used interchangeably to mean the connection between Leeds and Manchester or a longer route running from Liverpool to Hull via Manchester and Leeds. Such a railway would not necessarily need to be high-speed. [..] We refer to "east-west links" rather than "HS3" in this report as there is no clear indication yet what form or route the proposals might take or if the trains will be "high speed" in the same sense as HS2.

A plan to improve rail journey times in northern England, the Northern Hub, was developed from a 2009 scheme to improve the rail network around Manchester. Schemes to improve the Leeds-Manchester linespeed by 2014 were included in Network Rail's CP5 improvements, with an aim to reduce Manchester-Leeds journey times from 54 to 40 minutes. In 2011 the approximately £290 million electrification of the Transpennine Manchester Leeds line was given funding. Work started on the electrification in 2013, with full electrification between Manchester, Leeds and York expected by 2018.

In June 2014, at a speech given at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne proposed a high speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester; the line would utilise the existing route between Leeds and Manchester, with additional tunnels and other infrastructure. Osborne argued that the northern cities' influence was comparatively less than London's and that the link would promote economies of agglomeration.

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