As you’ve come to this late, you might want to read this and other threads about the cost of new railways.
The Borders line wasn’t £10m/mile, it was about £15m/mile when all costs were accounted for. And that was costs incurred between 5 and 10 years ago. It was also very cheap.
The going rate for future reinstatement (ie costs being incurred in the near future) is around £30m/mile. Worth noting that the East West Rail Western section is above that, both for the bit already done (Oxford - Bicester) and the section under construction now (Bicester / Aylesbury to Bletchley).
Thanks for the info on the East-West route; I’ll do some further digging on that. However, unless I’m missing something fundamental, I don’t think we’re looking at an apples to apples comparison here. The line to Hawick would essentially be the same “rail-light” spec used for the Borders Railway:
1. RA3 multiple unit spec
2. Single track with at most 2 dynamic loops (one in the St Boswells area and potentially another one closer to Hawick if pathing dictates)
3. Basic station facilities
4. 2 new stations only (St Boswells and Hawick); there were only 2 intermediate stops in between on the Waverley Route and I doubt either would reopen.
The East West route will be a full double track route, correct? It also requires integration with multiple main line routes on its length, so the cost and complexity will inevitably be much higher. On the abandoned section east of Bedford there are multiple obstacles that need to be dealt with, and the intersection at Bedford is going to add huge cost. For the Hawick extension, the only existing infrastructure integration that needs to be dealt with is the current terminus at Tweedbank, and at least 15 of the 17 miles east and south is largely unobstructed. With the basic railway spec, £30M per mile seems excessive.
On the existing Borders Railway Cost, construction cost was £294M. For 30 miles (+/-) of new line that works out at £9.8M per mile. There were additional costs up front of £59M for land purchase and preparatory works (moving utilities in the Galashiels area and remediating subsidence in Midlothian, for example), but much of that up front cost was eaten up by the abortive DBFO model that Transport Scotland was pursuing before the tender was let to Network Rail. Letting that slide, your total cost was £353M or £11.8M per mile. The section south to Hawick does not have to deal with old mine workings; there will inevitably be some challenges but this section does not have many of the complex issues the Borders Railway project had to deal with.
I recognize that costs have gone up since this line was built, but a jump from £11.8M to £30M per mile in a few years seems excessive. Nevertheless, thanks for the info and I’ll investigate further.