Quiz – what transit system cost $900 million per mile, and 46 years to complete? Spoiler alert – it’s NOT the LA to Vegas gambler’s bullet train . .

$5 mil per mile, $45 mil for labor, $850 mil for "administration" costs....

As a Briton it's interesting to compare and contrast that project with our own "HS2" ("High Speed 2") railway line originally planned to link London to the Midlands city of Birmingham, and further North to Sheffield and Leeds. The latter must be all of 250 miles from the capital!

Very few major civil-engineering projects anywhere ever meet their proposed schedules and costs, and the longer it takes the costlier it is pro-rata due to the rising costs of materials, fuel and labour.

Britain's laws and planning systems are likely very different from America's, but some, especially on environmental, safety and employment matters, are broadly similar to Spain's thanks to our previous European Union membership.

It's quite possible most of the staff physically building HS2 are in trade-unions but that is not a problem these days: UK union/management relationships are usually good.

Nor do we have local schools so rolling in money they can afford hugely over-paid solicitors and (if they come to Court) barristers to pursue illogical claims.


What we do have are politicians prone to changing their minds and intentions; and very complex planning laws with applications numerous enough to create long, expensive backlogs in clearing.

The planning regulations are not there for the sake of it. They have genuine worth but are not easy.

They exist partly because unlike the Californian deserts and much of rural France, Spain and China, England is densely populated with innumerable villages, towns and cities linked by a bewilderingly dense, complicated maze of roads. Many are in areas designated as National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or other protections with their own effects on planning permissions.

HS2 does not pass through a National Park as far as I know, but having to cross the Chiltern Hills has led to much of that section being underground - adding greatly to the cost.



Elsewhere, well-meaning concern for bats enforced a so-called "Bat Tunnel" along part of the route. It is really a long shed, not a tunnel - and I would not be surprised if the bats roost in it as they are not supposed to do! (It is meant to deflect their flights clear of the trains.)

Originally HS2 was to have its own, non-standard track gauge but that absurd idea was rejected.

Most recently it has been the target of ridicule for the intended train speed being cut; but since the reduction is only about 20mph, on a route now truncated in Birmingham only about 120 miles from London; the saving on journey time will be insignificant.


That truncating is recent, years after the original further-North route blighted residential areas around towns it would never have served anyway. Landowners subjected to compulsory purchase orders for something that will not now be built, apparently have no right to buy their land back. I have no idea what will happen to that ground - and am not sure if anyone does.


The OP is about an underground system, named a "subway" in the USA . The world's first such was in London; and that and the national railways network serving the capital have been extended in recent times. To the best of my knowledge there was never any concern about what buildings they pass beneath, even schools, as long they are deep enough not to affect foundations. Both the "Jubilee Line" and the "Cross-Rail" tunnel were very costly and over-schedule, but still succesful in engineering terms.


The moral is never let politicians decide on major civil-engineering projects; or if they must, keep them very well away from the design-engineers and project-managers.

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Was there an "HS1"?

Sort of.

It was "HST 125"- High-Speed Train.

These were Diesel-powered with the coaches between a top-and-tail pair of "power cars" (effectively, the locomotives and each with a driving-cab so no turning needed for the return trips); and designed to cruise at a maximum 125mph, originally on the London - West Country services.

Crucially, they use existing railways, suitably up-graded, not costly brand-new routes; and they and their successors around the country, both Diesel and electrically-powered, have proven very successful indeed.

Anything remotely related to construction in the US ends up as a boondoggle ripoff.