Britain is building one of the world’s most expensive railways

Cost and Western Infrastructure Challenges

• Many see HS2 as emblematic of the UK/Anglosphere’s broader inability to build infrastructure cheaply, contrasting with continental Europe where major rail projects have proceeded more successfully.
• Some argue construction looks expensive because sectors like manufacturing and retail got big IT-driven efficiency gains, while land, education, and construction did not. Others counter that house/rail costs have far outpaced wages, so it’s not just inflation.
• Multiple commenters stress that even “regular” rail and small tram projects in the UK are now extremely costly, so target speed alone isn’t the main problem.

Mismanagement, Politics, and “Kicking into the Long Grass”

• A recurring theme is deliberate political dithering: redesigns, scope changes, and partial cancellations that burn money “on not building” (e.g., Euston redesigns, demolition then cancellation).
• Some claim the Conservatives knowingly sabotaged the project for political reasons; others respond that key politicians had openly opposed HS2 earlier on cost/merit grounds and argue the real sin was not cancelling cleanly in 2016.
• “Kicking into the long grass” is described as a UK tradition for controversial projects (nuclear, runways, decarbonisation), shifting decisions to future governments.

Purpose: Capacity vs. Speed

• Several emphasize HS2’s real goal is capacity, not just faster London–Birmingham trips:
  • Move fast intercity services off the West Coast Main Line (WCML) to free capacity for freight and stopping services.
  • Avoid trying again to “upgrade” the Victorian WCML, which has already been expensively modernised with years of disruption.
• Original concepts contemplated metro-like frequencies (up to 18 trains/hour/direction) as a decades-long capacity solution. Later watering-down is seen as yielding high costs for limited benefit.

Alternatives and Design Choices

• Alternatives floated: encourage remote work and cut business travel; expand “regular rail”; build a new freight line; upgrade WCML; or spend similar money on fixing bottlenecks elsewhere.
• Counterarguments:
  • Upgrading existing lines is hugely disruptive and sometimes physically constrained.
  • A freight-only route might be even harder to approve and engineer (needs flatter alignment, less local benefit).
  • Medium-speed alignment flexibility is argued by some to cut costs; skeptics say NIMBY-driven tunnelling, not speed, dominates cost.

Planning, Environmental Constraints, and the Bat Tunnel

• HS2 reportedly needed thousands of permits, with extensive “green tunnels,” cuttings, and mitigation features.
• The £100m “bat shed/tunnel” becomes a symbol:
  • One side sees it as insane overengineering and misallocated funds (arguing the money could have gone to hospitals, alternative bat measures, etc.).
  • Another side notes it’s a large, long-lived structure serving mixed traffic, designed by HS2’s own ecologists, and not mandated in detail by the environmental regulator.
  • Several say the bat tunnel is mainly an example of fragmented state actors (rail company, environment body, local planners, treasury) each able to delay/reshape projects, driving up cost.

Governance, Legal Checks, and Central Power

• Discussion of UK constitutional specifics:
  • Parliament can, in principle, legislate away many constraints; judicial review mostly checks executive legality, not Parliament’s lawmaking power.
  • In practice, local planning authorities, environmental rules, property rights, and judicial review still significantly constrain big projects, and governments fear electoral backlash from steamrolling them.

International Comparisons

• China’s enormous HSR network is cited as a contrast. Some hail it as efficient and transformative; others highlight massive debt and alleged safety/oversight issues, questioning its economic rationality.
• California’s high-speed rail and UK projects like the Lower Thames Crossing are mentioned as parallel examples of Western megaproject overruns.

Rail vs. Cars, and Broader Urban Policy

• Some posters argue the UK is “obsessed with trains,” claiming they’re overcrowded, subsidised, and unreliable, and advocating more roads and private cars.
• Others strongly defend London’s public transport as frequent and relatively affordable versus car ownership, and point out that roads and motoring are also heavily tax-subsidised with large negative externalities.
• Debate continues over who subsidises whom (drivers vs. rail users), with no consensus reached in the thread.

Geography, Regional Equity, and Radical Ideas

• HS2 is seen by some as reinforcing London-centric development; others argue it would effectively make Birmingham a “suburb,” boosting regional economies.
• One suggestion: move the capital and core government institutions to the Midlands to rebalance the country and reduce London-centric infrastructure pressure. The crumbling state of the Palace of Westminster is cited as a potential trigger, though political will is doubted.

Overall Sentiment

• Strong split between those who see HS2 as a necessary, forward-looking capacity and decarbonisation project crippled by politics and planning, and those who view it as a catastrophically mismanaged, gold-plated vanity scheme that should have been radically redesigned or cancelled much earlier.