They don't seem to break down the labour costs of building the tube/pylons very well. In my experience watching big government projects, that's where the massi

They don't seem to break down the labour costs of building the tube/pylons very well. In my experience watching big government projects, that's where the massive overages start coming in. It's easy to say that something will cost (eg.) $1bn if it's built in 2 years, but when most of that is labour and bureaucracy starts getting involved, the labour gets put on hold for a year or two whilst still getting paid. Suddenly the overall cost of the project has tripled without anything actually changing, except some bureaucrat sticking their oar in. Maybe I'm just cynical, but the labour costs seem to be one of the least well defined aspects of this proposal. It's easy enough to make it look cost effective compared to existing rail projects when you don't factor that in. Afterall do you really think that the HSV with two steel rails is costing $80bn+ because of the price of the components? Although I don't really know the specifics, I find it hard to believe that the rights of way cost that much either. It's usually down to contracting an entire company worth of engineers for 10-20 years that ramps up the costs.