Fact Sheet 7 - Road versus rail -
Capital costs of track
This facts sheet compares the unit costs of upgrading the
West Coast Main Line and the unit cost of the proposed East
Coast Main Line upgrade with the cost of rebuilding the M1
from scratch and with the A43 dualling south of Northampton.
- During the Public Inquiry into the WCMLM the cost of
the project had the range 6.3 billion to £9 billion
for modernisation plus essential renewal. Simon Maple for
Railtrack said that the expenditure was concentrated on
the core 1000 km of track. Hence the cost per track-km was
between £6.3 million and £9 million. Now the
cost is said to be £10 billion, excluding enhancements,
so the cost per track-km is £10 million.
- The East Coast high-speed rail proposal is to cost £36 billion providing 4 tracks over 495 miles at a unit cost of £11 million per track- km. The cheaper
alternative costs £8 billion and provides 200 miles
of double track, yielding a unit cost of £12.5 million
per track km. (Source is the SRA)
- In contrast to those rail costs:
(a) The Independent of 17th February 1999 reported a Treasury
study which estimated the replacement cost of the M1 as
£2.1 billion for all works and land. The lane length,
assuming 3 lanes all the way from the M25 to Leeds, is 1800
km. Hence the unit cost is £1.12 million per lane-km, about one tenth the value for the East Coast High Speed line and one sixth the value of the West Coast Main Line Modernisaton Programme (b) The recently completed A43 dualling south of Northampton
consists of Siverstone bypass, Syresham bypass and sundry
other lengths. In total the construction provided 18.9 km
of dual 2-lane carriageway along with many overbidges several
two level junctions plus and 7 km of side roads etc. The
contract price was £56.6 million yielding 0.74 million
per lane-km, close to 15 times less than required for rail
track.
- However the product of building a road or a railway is
not the track but the passenger and freight flow. Here we
note that the density of use achieved by Motorways and Trunk
roads is 3 to 5 times that achieved by rail, reference previous
facts sheet.
August 2002
Extended January 2003
Updated December 2005
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