I have not added to this website for a year and a half, but there seems to be an epidemic of new vanity projects at the moment, and some of long-running major infrastructure projects have come up against major difficulties resulting in delays and added costs.
In Britain, CROSSRAIL, due to have opened at the end of 2018, is now not expected to start running until the end of 2021; difficulties with completion of some of the stations, and of running trains over a route where three different signalling systems, have been well documented. Estimated costs for HS2, the high speed line to the north, are now several times the original figure which was given as the basis for allowing the scheme to proceed.
In Sweden, the Västlänk tunnel in Gothenburg is now far behind schedule, with an estimated opening in 2030, four years after the 2026 date advertised on the hoardings around the construction sites; construction costs will rise accordingly. This promises to be a repeat performance of the Hallandsås tunnel which took 23 years to build. When complete, it will result in a worse service than is currently provided – a remarkable achievement.
However, looking through back numbers of Modern Railways, I came across an even more dubious project in the May 2019 issue: a 50 kilometre underwater tunnel across the Gulf of Finland between Tallinn and Helsinki.
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