Why is high speed rail in the UK so expensive to construct?

[Bald Rick]

It's been said before, but worth saying again, that the UK (and England in particular) is a very crowded country - a huge percentage of the country is either built up or national park / AONB etc - Pretty or City if you like - both are expensive to build rails through. This is not necessarily true of the other countries on this list - Spain and France in particular.

Indeed. IIRC there is more tunnel on HS1 than there is on the combined length of the LGVs from Calais to Montpellier and Paris to Strasbourg.

 

[The Ham]

It's been said before, but worth saying again, that the UK (and England in particular) is a very crowded country - a huge percentage of the country is either built up or national park / AONB etc - Pretty or City if you like - both are expensive to build rails through. This is not necessarily true of the other countries on this list - Spain and France in particular.

National parks make up 11% of the land whilst urban areas* (which account for 85% of the population) makes up about 7.5% of the land (and not all of that is actually built on).

* Urban areas - a settlement with a population of more than 10,000 people, so whilst there'll be lots of smaller settlements they'll often not actually take up that much land.

Of course quite a lot of the rest of the land space within Great Britain is then within Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and so if you're trying to build a new railway that land probably isn't that useful.

 

[Grumpy Git]

The alignment south of Manchester tells you all you need to know about why it costs a fortune to build railway infrastructure in the UK...........

A route through Tatton Park m'lud, not a chance.

 

[Meerkat]

National parks make up 11% of the land whilst urban areas* (which account for 85% of the population) makes up about 7.5% of the land (and not all of that is actually built on).

* Urban areas - a settlement with a population of more than 10,000 people, so whilst there'll be lots of smaller settlements they'll often not actually take up that much land.

Of course quite a lot of the rest of the land space within Great Britain is then within Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and so if you're trying to build a new railway that land probably isn't that useful.

Add AONBs to National Parks and you are up to 22%, before you start adding SSSIs, NNRs, ancient woodland etc etc
And they and urban areas don’t need to cover the majority of the land - try riding a bike in a reasonably straight line if potholes randomly cover 22% of a road……

 

[snowball]

The alignment south of Manchester tells you all you need to know about why it costs a fortune to build railway infrastructure in the UK...........

A route through Tatton Park m'lud, not a chance.

Would a route through Tatton Park have been cheaper than the chosen route west of the A556? I suggest that's far from obvious.

Also bear in mind the need to get back to the WCML near Wigan as well as get to Manchester.

 

[LOL The Irony]

A route through Tatton Park m'lud, not a chance.

I mean for starters, the National Trust would've had 2 words for HS2. The 2nd one is off.

 

[The Ham]

Add AONBs to National Parks and you are up to 22%, before you start adding SSSIs, NNRs, ancient woodland etc etc
And they and urban areas don’t need to cover the majority of the land - try riding a bike in a reasonably straight line if potholes randomly cover 22% of a road……

The point I was reply to was saying that a huge percentage was protected or built on, whilst about 1/3 would be a significant percentage I wouldn't say that it's huge.

Yes it would be troublesome to try and cycle along a road with potholes covering 1/3 of it of there was other traffic or it was dark, however if it was light and there was limited other traffic then it would generally be fairly easy. Yes it may not be very straight, but you could still go fairly quickly over quite a lot of it.

However unlike cycling around potholes, it is possible for rail to go through such areas - although often to great objections, and far more than road schemes.

 

[Meerkat]

whilst about 1/3 would be a significant percentage I wouldn't say that it's huge.

It is when you have to thread through that patchwork

Yes it may not be very straight

Bit of an issue for high speed rail

although often to great objections,

Exactly - more objections than somewhere with fewer such areas equals greater cost , both in dealing with the objections and being unable to take the engineering optimal route

 

[squizzler]

Indeed. IIRC there is more tunnel on HS1 than there is on the combined length of the LGVs from Calais to Montpellier and Paris to Strasbourg.

With the HSR costs visualisations I linked to on post 265, the proportions of each line in tunnel (graph 4) or the national average in tunnel (graph 5) is shown by the colour - the darker the blob or bar is, the more intensively engineered the route. I commend the design of that site, it allows the user to visually compare building costs, which is perhaps hard for many of us, such are the telephone number figures of cash involved in infrastructure provision. Britain is in fact very average in the amount of tunnel.

So why does HS1, with all those approach tunnels into London - have a cost half that per mile of HS2?

It's been said before, but worth saying again, that the UK (and England in particular) is a very crowded country - a huge percentage of the country is either built up or national park / AONB etc - Pretty or City if you like - both are expensive to build rails through. This is not necessarily true of the other countries on this list - Spain and France in particular.

The national parks and AONB might necessitate more tunnelling, but the cost comparison shows many and cheaper to build lines that have higher proportions bored than in the UK. And a tunnel is a tunnel - so why would it be more expensive to tunnel under a national park? The TBM doesn't know or care whether the rock its chewing through is under a landscape some romantic poet wibbled on about a couple of centuries ago.

It is easy to be drawn into a bipolar debate HS2 where you have to be either fully in support of the project or fully against it. With some of the anti HS2 camp calling into question the price, there exists the danger of supporters being drawn into playing the game on the malcontents' terms by feeling that they have to defend the cost against any criticism.

Actually the supporters of HSR in the UK who should be critical of the costs. I suspect the opponents of HSR on ideological grounds, whatever outrage they gin up over the price estimates - don't actually hate HSR being expensive - they love them, as it proves in their mind that HSR is a money pit. Supporters of HS2 must not be suckered into defending British HSR costs.

With the GWML electrification, even the most vocal supporters of rail conceded the costs of wiring were unacceptable. This "bending with the wind" has paid off as all parties agreed something had to be done about the price, the industry took stock, and we are now seeing electrification back on the agenda. If the industry and its supporters insist on defending HS2 costs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it might be more harmful in the long term than acceptance was with electrification.

The graphs on Transit Costs Project show HS2 is double the price per mile of HS1. If HS2 was economically viable even at its vast cost per mile before the pandemic, then with half the passengers (if the present post-pandemic depression of passenger numbers were to persist - very unlikely!) if then cost were also halved in line with benchmark projects then clearly it would again be viable.

 

[Bald Rick]

So why does HS1, with all those approach tunnels into London - have a cost half that per mile of HS2?

Unfortunately the website you linked to won’t load properly for me so I can’t judge. What I do know is that the cost of HS2 ‘per mile’ is significantly affected by Euston, OOC and Birmingham Curzon St, the first two of which are an order of magnitude more expensive than their cousins at St Pancras and Ebbsfleet respectively, because their scope of work is similarly larger.

 

[The exile]

Unfortunately the website you linked to won’t load properly for me so I can’t judge. What I do know is that the cost of HS2 ‘per mile’ is significantly affected by Euston, OOC and Birmingham Curzon St, the first two of which are an order of magnitude more expensive than their cousins at St Pancras and Ebbsfleet respectively, because their scope of work is similarly larger.

and there is effectively no equivalent of Curzon Street for HS1, because all the expensive stuff at the non-London end was already there. OK - so there's Stratford to throw into the equation, but I'm guessing quite a lot of that went in under other budgets and is not of the same order anyway (as it wasn't covered by the original CTRL Act, is its cost even included in HS1?)

 

[BayPaul]

It would be good if HS2 Ltd were to publish some cost comparisons of their own, on a like for like basis, to help defend their position, for example giving the per km cost of HS2 with the items that the Spanish don't include removed, or giving an estimate of the cost hikes due to government dithering for example.

 

[Bald Rick]

It would be good if HS2 Ltd were to publish some cost comparisons of their own, on a like for like basis, to help defend their position, for example giving the per km cost of HS2 with the items that the Spanish don't include removed, or giving an estimate of the cost hikes due to government dithering for example.

Well they’re not going to do the last point! And getting a comparison means getting full cost data out of other projects - notoriously difficult at best.

In a past life I have done a review of HS1 costs, and it was rather interesting. On a like for like basis very similar to building LGVs in France, which is hardly surprising as that is what it is in all but name.

 

[BrianW]

It would be good if HS2 Ltd were to publish some cost comparisons of their own, on a like for like basis, to help defend their position, for example giving the per km cost of HS2 with the items that the Spanish don't include removed, or giving an estimate of the cost hikes due to government dithering for example.

Biting the hand that feeds- probably not a good way of 'winning'. Biting the tongue and helping the government win its arguments a better proposition.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Unfortunately the website you linked to won’t load properly for me so I can’t judge. What I do know is that the cost of HS2 ‘per mile’ is significantly affected by Euston, OOC and Birmingham Curzon St, the first two of which are an order of magnitude more expensive than their cousins at St Pancras and Ebbsfleet respectively, because their scope of work is similarly larger.

They have always been there not some scope creep that has just materialised and like other posters saying it passes through AONB, Ancient Woodland etc has necessitated more tunnels none of this new and broad scope has been nailed down for 9 years yet HS2 couldn't produce an accurate estimate. They've expended 100's millions on consultants with several used just for cost estimating and not as if they didn't have projects to benchmark against like HS1 and even Crossrail managed to get the tunnelling element built largely to plan and cost it was stations that spiralled out of control.

 

[HSTEd]

Ultimately if construction inflation continues to grow faster than nominal economic growth then we have a serious problem in the long run.

First building new infrastructure will become too expensive, and then eventually even maintenance and renewal will become too expensive and our society will collapse.

It is thus essential that infrastructure inflation be gotten under control.

 

[The Ham]

Ultimately if construction inflation continues to grow faster than nominal economic growth then we have a serious problem in the long run.

First building new infrastructure will become too expensive, and then eventually even maintenance and renewal will become too expensive and our society will collapse.

It is thus essential that infrastructure inflation be gotten under control.

To highlight the first point, November last year a ton of paint cost us £15 (not on offer), by Easter the same tin of paint cost £18.

£3 may not sound a lot but it's a 20% increase, even if that's double the rate of increase seen by industry (spoiler, they've seen it bad too - try and get a builder to honour a quote for more than 2 months to see what I mean!) then scale that up to a project like HS2 and even a 10 year build program (even if the following years it falls back to 4% after year 1) and your costs will have risen by 56.5% compared to normal inflation which might get as high as +28% (10 years of 2.5%).

In "real terms" your construction costs have gone up by 22.2%, which is quite a lot.

To balance this out projects put in contingencies, IIRC HS2 had a figure of 60%. However as between 2009 and 2034 is a 25 year period, of we see too much construction inflation there's no spare slack for any other cost over runs.

 

[hwl]

To highlight the first point, November last year a ton of paint cost us £15 (not on offer), by Easter the same tin of paint cost £18.

£3 may not sound a lot but it's a 20% increase, even if that's double the rate of increase seen by industry (spoiler, they've seen it bad too - try and get a builder to honour a quote for more than 2 months to see what I mean!) then scale that up to a project like HS2 and even a 10 year build program (even if the following years it falls back to 4% after year 1) and your costs will have risen by 56.5% compared to normal inflation which might get as high as +28% (10 years of 2.5%).

In "real terms" your construction costs have gone up by 22.2%, which is quite a lot.

To balance this out projects put in contingencies, IIRC HS2 had a figure of 60%. However as between 2009 and 2034 is a 25 year period, of we see too much construction inflation there's no spare slack for any other cost over runs.

Crossrail ran into major construction inflation issues as as the London construction inflation figures were >10% continuously for 5-6 years post 2010. Hence when NR started looking at surface station design and tender at the end of that period the budget was very different to actual costs.
The first tunnel station station contract to be let in 2011 was Bond Street and the contractor also tried some early cost cutting that as then com back to haunt with more delays and rework (they ditched the original (renowned) electrical and systems contractor to save money but ended up costing the project far far more).

 

[BrianW]

Crossrail ran into major construction inflation issues as as the London construction inflation figures were >10% continuously for 5-6 years post 2010. Hence when NR started looking at surface station design and tender at the end of that period the budget was very different to actual costs.
The first tunnel station station contract to be let in 2011 was Bond Street and the contractor also tried some early cost cutting that as then com back to haunt with more delays and rework (they ditched the original (renowned) electrical and systems contractor to save money but ended up costing the project far far more).

That last point- late changes in order to 'save costs' means increased costs- should be well-enough known by now. There needs to be 'stiffening of the sinews' on this, speaking truth to power, telling it how it is, instead of 'yes sir'. Wise contractors know what might be cut and price those elements accordingly low, whereas groundworks only ever increase as more unknown unknowns become known and create costly delays and extensions of time for all the subsequent works, ie just about everything else.
Stop-go costs. Rolling programmes increase certainty and reduce risks and costs. All this is well known. Maybe this is a case in which the word 'fact' might be appropriate (usually!). Lowest price = biggest error?

 

[hwl]

That last point- late changes in order to 'save costs' means increased costs- should be well-enough known by now. There needs to be 'stiffening of the sinews' on this, speaking truth to power, telling it how it is, instead of 'yes sir'. Wise contractors know what might be cut and price those elements accordingly low, whereas groundworks only ever increase as more unknown unknowns become known and create costly delays and extensions of time for all the subsequent works, ie just about everything else.
Stop-go costs. Rolling programmes increase certainty and reduce risks and costs. All this is well known. Maybe this is a case in which the word 'fact' might be appropriate (usually!). Lowest price = biggest error?

It wasn't a late change it happened over 7.5 years ago! They were aware of cost pressures early on but still hoped to make a profit...
As everyone wanted a station contract or 2, the earlier CR stations tenders were much more competitive on cost.

 

[BrianW]

It wasn't a late change it happened over 7.5 years ago! They were aware of cost pressures early on but still hoped to make a profit...
As everyone wanted a station contract or 2, the earlier CR stations tenders were much more competitive on cost.

I was imagining, perhaps incorrectly, that what you referred to as 'some early cost cutting' by the contractor were reductions to the agreed design produced in accordance with the agreed brief, so late in the context of the design and procurement process. 'The system' encourages over-optimism and subsequent 'cuts' to meet budgets that were unrealistic from the start, or they would never have reached the starting blocks.

 

[gallafent]

I mean for starters, the National Trust would've had 2 words for HS2. The 2nd one is off.

… and the first one? … I'm thinking “signed”

 

[hwl]

I was imagining, perhaps incorrectly, that what you referred to as 'some early cost cutting' by the contractor were reductions to the agreed design produced in accordance with the agreed brief, so late in the context of the design and procurement process. 'The system' encourages over-optimism and subsequent 'cuts' to meet budgets that were unrealistic from the start, or they would never have reached the starting blocks.

No, they decided it would be far cheaper for them to directly manage the electrical and systems fitout than have a very competent (but pricey) subcontractor do it at two stations* - nothing to do with scope or design. thus restoring the contractor's potential scope for profit overall at the point they did it.
*both have been major delay issues with press article covering the rework needed.

 

[BrianW]

No, they decided it would be far cheaper for them to directly manage the electrical and systems fitout than have a very competent (but pricey) subcontractor do it at two stations* - nothing to do with scope or design. thus restoring the contractor's potential scope for profit overall at the point they did it.
*both have been major delay issues with press article covering the rework needed.

Thank you hwl- I'm learning so much.

 

[hwl]

Thank you hwl- I'm learning so much.

Plenty of coverage in the construction trade press and elsewhere, and likely to be in future investigative reports in into Crossrail construction (once it is operational.)

 

[quantinghome]

Unfortunately the website you linked to won’t load properly for me so I can’t judge. What I do know is that the cost of HS2 ‘per mile’ is significantly affected by Euston, OOC and Birmingham Curzon St, the first two of which are an order of magnitude more expensive than their cousins at St Pancras and Ebbsfleet respectively, because their scope of work is similarly larger.

I'd have thought OOC would be more similar to Stratford than Ebbsfleet.

How much more scope is there in HS2 than HS1? I'd say roughly 5 times - 330 miles / 67 miles; 8 stations / 3 stations (and HS2 stations being that much bigger as well).

HS1 construction cost was £5.8billion. Multiply by 5 and double again for construction inflation and a higher spec (higher speed, higher frequency usage) gives £58billion as a rough estimate of what it should be costing.

 

[JamesT]

I'd have thought OOC would be more similar to Stratford than Ebbsfleet.

How much more scope is there in HS2 than HS1? I'd say roughly 5 times - 330 miles / 67 miles; 8 stations / 3 stations (and HS2 stations being that much bigger as well).

HS1 construction cost was £5.8billion. Multiply by 5 and double again for construction inflation and a higher spec (higher speed, higher frequency usage) gives £58billion as a rough estimate of what it should be costing.

The Oakervee Review did a cost comparison of Phase 1 with HS1. The HS2 estimate in 2015 prices is for Phase 1 to cost £36.1-38.4bn. If work was done at HS1 efficiencies then the cost would be £31.7-35.0bn (at 2015 prices).

 

[Ianno87]

I'd have thought OOC would be more similar to Stratford than Ebbsfleet.

Stratford was only the HS1 station.

OOC includes the GWML station too.

 

[HSTEd]

Stratford was only the HS1 station.

OOC includes the GWML station too.

Stratford is also enormous because it has a huge flyover for a depot in the middle of the station box.

 

[Ianno87]

Stratford is also enormous because it has a huge flyover for a depot in the middle of the station box.

More of a ramp that the station was built around.