The biggest costs and sources of delays to building high speed rail in the UK are legal challenges from people who don’t want any construction to take place anywhere near them.
I’ll believe it. If someone were to try to achieve the same in my area (not even high speed rail), between two metropolitan areas, they’d have to contend with thousands of private land owners.
I lived in the UK for a few years, so I can appreciate and really enjoy a robust rail network, but it’s not an easy thing to achieve.
