Cost estimates have ballooned as completion dates stretch out. The estimated total cost of completing HS2 has ballooned to over £100 billion, significantly higher than initial projections which started at around £16 billion.
Now smaller but more expensive.
Phase 1, from London to Handsacre near Lichfield, connecting to the north-south West Coast Main Line and a branch to Birmingham. Construction contracts were signed in 2017, with work expected to start in 2018 or 2019. Services were originally expected to begin in 2026 but by June 2025, the opening date was said to be “beyond 2033”.
Phase 2 initially consisted of the two legs of the Y-shaped route, with the Y splitting north of Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds…
The route to Leeds was cancelled in November 2021, with the eastern branch cut back to end at East Midlands Parkway station, south of Nottingham. In June 2022 the link to the West Coast Main Line at Golborne south of Wigan was cancelled. In October 2023, the route to Manchester was cancelled, leaving only phase 1…
With the Saudi pipeline shut down an estimated 3 - 5 weeks (one guess I heard) by the Houthi militant greens, Zandi might need to revise his estimates.
I honestly didn’t know the Houthis were such big high speed rail proponents.
Easy for you to say. The point is that the cost has tripled while the route has shrunk and the completion time has expanded.
Sounds like California’s “political dysfunction”.
How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html The state was warned repeatedly that its plans were too complex. SNCF, the French national railroad, was among bullet train operators from Europe and Japan that came to California in the early 2000s with hopes of getting a contract to help develop the system.
The company’s recommendations for a direct route out of Los Angeles and a focus on moving people between Los Angeles and San Francisco were cast aside, said Dan McNamara, a career project manager for SNCF. The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
More useful would be an explanation of why France or Morocco, for example, can be successful/efficient at building high speed rail while the UK and California fail.
HS2 is symbolic of the UK at the moment. Nothing seems to work properly or on time. The only thing growing is our public sector which just gets more and more inefficient.
As for trains, look at the one China built in three years and in budget. The Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway which is 819 miles long. It even runs at a profit: