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High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive, especially in urban areas. When BART was planning on a high speed branch out to silicon valley, it was budgeted to

High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive, especially in urban areas. When BART was planning on a high speed branch out to silicon valley, it was budgeted to run $120,000,000 per mile of track. Part of the cost is that you cannot have any at-grade crossings, every road crossing has to be an over/underpass.

masklinn 16y ago
> High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive Expensive yes, breathtakingly no. The recent LGV Est (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est) has a budget of 4b€ for 406km (252 miles) or about $20m/mile. London's M25 projects £6.5b for 117 miles, so urban motorways are not cheap either. Completely urban stuff is very expensive, but usually HST is mostly out of urban systems, only getting in to land at a given stop and getting out just as soon.
- thingie 16y ago
  In Germany, there is also a problem that many of these new lines are expected to have mixed traffic on them, meaning both fast passenger trains and freight trains. This makes them much more expensive than they would have to be, as both types of traffic have quite different expectations. Passenger trains need curves with very large diameters (~ speed^2 relation, even 7 km diameters) in order to allow the high speeds. Freight trains aren't that fast, so they don't need such a large diameters of the curves, but they can't handle as steep gradients. 4% slope is perfectly OK for an HS passenger train, but at least impractical for a freight traffic. French HS train lines are for passenger traffic only, they can be (and are) built adjacent to existing highways and so. And of course. They are built as whole new lines, instead of the (not only) German patchwork. Btw. you are missing HS railways in Spain, where it is built in a similar manner to France, there are already complete operational routes, and the service seems to be very successful as well. http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/images/cab/ln1rampe.jpg http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/images/cab/ln1rampe.jpg
  - masklinn 16y ago
    > French HS train lines are for passenger traffic only Not 100% correct, the postal service have a pair of trainsets they use for mail. But yes, mostly the french HST is for people, not freight. > Btw. you are missing HS railways in Spain, where it is built in a similar manner to France, there are already complete operational routes, and the service seems to be very successful as well. Correct, the AVE (which is built in a similar manner to France because Alstom got the contract for the first generation "Class 100" AVE in fact the class 100 is basically a Eurostar) and the two network should be linked (so you could take HST from Madrid to Paris) by 2013.
Retric 16y ago
That's still fairly reasonable compared to interstate construction costs in a city. For ~30 Billion you could build a DC to NY line that runs through Baltimore and Philadelphia. "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S.[2] Although the project was estimated in 1985 at $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006[update]),[3] over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars)[3] had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006[update].[4] A July 17, 2008 article in The Boston Globe stated, "In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig PS: It was probably not worth the cost: "The result was a 62% reduction in vehicle hours of travel on I-93, the airport tunnels, and the connection from Storrow Drive, from an average 38,200 hours per day before construction (1994–1995) to 14,800 hours per day in 2004–2005, after the project was largely complete.[28] The savings for travelers was estimated at $166 million annually in the same 2004–2005 time frame.[29] Travel times on the Central Artery northbound during the afternoon peak hour were reduced 85.6%.[30]"
- Tangurena 16y ago
  It is 3x the cost of light rail (which only goes 50mph) construction in a city. It is 4x the cost of highway construction in a city. In an urban environment, land acquisition is the most expensive part of the cost of large construction projects. We've had one successful large construction project (T-REX) here in Denver that involved both highways and light rail. It was completed 4 years ago, on time and under budget. At that time, the light rail construction costs were about 20 megabucks/mile. The cost of construction materials have shot up since 2006 and the next large (FasTracks is almost all light rail) construction project is currently running about 50% over budget (official estimates) to 100% over budget (unofficial estimates). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRansportation_EXpansion)# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRanspo... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks Construction costs for rail go up sharply with the speed of the trains. Once one gets into "high speed rail" categories (which in the US means average speed > 90 mph between cities), grade crossings have to be replaced with overpasses, as the European experiences with HSR is that the time taken to stop a train is greater than the visible horizon for the train - so a "stuck" vehicle on the tracks will be hit as the train cannot possibly stop in time. To get some perspective on costs, rural freight lines run about 1 megabuck/mile, with passenger lines running about 2x that. Paving interstate highways runs about 1 megabuck/mile/lane. Disclaimer: I ran for election in 2008 for an office related to this.

masklinn 16y ago

> High speed rail is breathtakingly expensive Expensive yes, breathtakingly no. The recent LGV Est (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est) has a budget of 4b€ for 406km (252 miles) or about $20m/mile. London's M25 projects £6.5b for 117 miles, so urban motorways are not cheap either. Completely urban stuff is very expensive, but usually HST is mostly out of urban systems, only getting in to land at a given stop and getting out just as soon.

thingie 16y ago
In Germany, there is also a problem that many of these new lines are expected to have mixed traffic on them, meaning both fast passenger trains and freight trains. This makes them much more expensive than they would have to be, as both types of traffic have quite different expectations. Passenger trains need curves with very large diameters (~ speed^2 relation, even 7 km diameters) in order to allow the high speeds. Freight trains aren't that fast, so they don't need such a large diameters of the curves, but they can't handle as steep gradients. 4% slope is perfectly OK for an HS passenger train, but at least impractical for a freight traffic. French HS train lines are for passenger traffic only, they can be (and are) built adjacent to existing highways and so. And of course. They are built as whole new lines, instead of the (not only) German patchwork. Btw. you are missing HS railways in Spain, where it is built in a similar manner to France, there are already complete operational routes, and the service seems to be very successful as well. http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/images/cab/ln1rampe.jpg http://www.trainweb.org/tgvpages/images/cab/ln1rampe.jpg
- masklinn 16y ago
  > French HS train lines are for passenger traffic only Not 100% correct, the postal service have a pair of trainsets they use for mail. But yes, mostly the french HST is for people, not freight. > Btw. you are missing HS railways in Spain, where it is built in a similar manner to France, there are already complete operational routes, and the service seems to be very successful as well. Correct, the AVE (which is built in a similar manner to France because Alstom got the contract for the first generation "Class 100" AVE in fact the class 100 is basically a Eurostar) and the two network should be linked (so you could take HST from Madrid to Paris) by 2013.

Retric 16y ago

That's still fairly reasonable compared to interstate construction costs in a city. For ~30 Billion you could build a DC to NY line that runs through Baltimore and Philadelphia. "The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S.[2] Although the project was estimated in 1985 at $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006[update]),[3] over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars)[3] had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006[update].[4] A July 17, 2008 article in The Boston Globe stated, "In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig PS: It was probably not worth the cost: "The result was a 62% reduction in vehicle hours of travel on I-93, the airport tunnels, and the connection from Storrow Drive, from an average 38,200 hours per day before construction (1994–1995) to 14,800 hours per day in 2004–2005, after the project was largely complete.[28] The savings for travelers was estimated at $166 million annually in the same 2004–2005 time frame.[29] Travel times on the Central Artery northbound during the afternoon peak hour were reduced 85.6%.[30]"

Tangurena 16y ago
It is 3x the cost of light rail (which only goes 50mph) construction in a city. It is 4x the cost of highway construction in a city. In an urban environment, land acquisition is the most expensive part of the cost of large construction projects. We've had one successful large construction project (T-REX) here in Denver that involved both highways and light rail. It was completed 4 years ago, on time and under budget. At that time, the light rail construction costs were about 20 megabucks/mile. The cost of construction materials have shot up since 2006 and the next large (FasTracks is almost all light rail) construction project is currently running about 50% over budget (official estimates) to 100% over budget (unofficial estimates). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRansportation_EXpansion)# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRanspo... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks Construction costs for rail go up sharply with the speed of the trains. Once one gets into "high speed rail" categories (which in the US means average speed > 90 mph between cities), grade crossings have to be replaced with overpasses, as the European experiences with HSR is that the time taken to stop a train is greater than the visible horizon for the train - so a "stuck" vehicle on the tracks will be hit as the train cannot possibly stop in time. To get some perspective on costs, rural freight lines run about 1 megabuck/mile, with passenger lines running about 2x that. Paving interstate highways runs about 1 megabuck/mile/lane. Disclaimer: I ran for election in 2008 for an office related to this.