Britain is building one of the world’s most expensive railways

Mismanagement aside, HS2 required 8000+ different permits along its route [1], as well as years of opposition and legal battles from environmental groups and NIMBYs.

This is a significant portion of the cost, huge amounts of 'green tunnels' and cuttings are being created where they are not needed.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/07/cost-of-shed...

Im sure Regular rail like WCML would've been much cheaper and less disruptive.

Not sure if this is sarcasm.

Assuming not.... No. The premium cost on the project related to its running speed is not significant. Planning and engineering a brand new 125mph railway doesn't cost much less than planning and engineering a brand new 250mph railway.

The article suggests that the flexibility of route afforded by slower speeds would have reduced cost significantly.

This is wishful thinking at best.

The route is not expensive because of speed. The route is expensive because the powerful NIMBYs wanted a huge amount of it tunnelled. No amount of mild wigglyness leeway gets around that fact.

For all the howling, I've yet to see any specifics about how and where the route could have been changed if it were only built for 125mph running, and how that would have saved any significant cost.