LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Is there evidence to suggest it will be ?
Why don't we ask Germany or France how they manage to fund theirs - oh, forgot, this is Britain and we are financial geniuses.
Well actually, high speed rail has crippled SNCF, DB, FS and Renfe (Adif the infrastructure part).
It's the reason SNCF is restructuring, with the French government writing off €25 billion of their debt but they have to manage the other half.
Recent lines have been built with contractor funding, much like a PFI deal.
FS is still spending because the Italian government wants to break the EU limits of government debt.
Spain is reduced to building single-track high speed lines to meet the political promises but to cut the costs.
They also have partially built new lines that start and end in the middle of nowhere.
DB is selling Arriva to attempt to balance the books.
Maybe only Japan has a high-speed funding model that seems to work (but the fares are not cheap).
China outstrips them all, of course, but then the west is paying for that with its collective trade deficits.