Railways have an incredible ability to shape our world whether winding Through the Jungle stretching across a desert or even moving underneath an entire city infrastructure like this has the power to level up economies and transform travel for millions of people here we've rounded up some of our favorite and most epic Railway construction stories from right around the world so step on board sit back relax and enjoy this incredible journey [Music] Mexico if you're looking for sandy beaches ancient ruins and a taco or two then this is your place every year tourists flock to popular sites along this stretch of land called the Yucatan Peninsula but getting here isn't easy and bus rides to some of these hotpots can take several hours at best until now mexic is building a massive new Railway across the peninsula called Tren meire over 1,500 km of track will run through the jungle connecting major ruin sites beaches and hotels but ever since construction began the projects faced a serious backlash and works have even been halted on some occasions environmentalists and Indigenous communities say the train poses a threat to the region and they want the current plans derailed I am not systematic Al against the train I am against the Train the way it's being done right now meanwhile officials passionately believe that the positive economic gains will far outweigh any negatives and are running the project Full Speed Ahead welcome to the $10 billion Railway in the [Music] jungle Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is the place to be nestled in the country's Southeastern Corner between the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico there's white sand snorkeling and Resorts but it wasn't always like this 50 years ago many big cities in the region were still relatively undeveloped and much of the economy relied on agriculture then in the 1970s Mexico began building hotels and airports in cities like KML and Cancun now Millions flock here every year but long before the tourists arrived this area was home to one of the largest Mayan communities a historical civilization of indigenous people dating back thousands of years many of the structures they built like pyramids and temples still exist today and they've become popular spots for sightseeing chichin is one of those M cities full of ancient ruins tourists normally navigate these destinations through Mexico's bus Network starting in Cancun but it can all be a bit slow the ride to chichin is a six-hour round trip at best and that's a lot of time to spend on a bus to sort this all out in 2018 the country announced one of its biggest infrastructure projects yet a 1,500 km rail network called the Mayan train or Tren Maya in espanol it'll start from Cancun airport and loop around the Yucatan Peninsula stopping at places like chichin Tulum and the Riviera Maya a cracking stretch of Caribbean Coastline most of the route will go through areas that have already been cleared for use including over the tracks of a previous rail network that was never fully completed 21 stations 17 stops and 42 trains on its rails the network could transport over 40,000 passengers every day as well as cargo the near 10 billion doll project is headed by the National Fund for the promotion of Tourism or fur a Mexican government agency and it's funded by tourist taxes when it opens passengers are going to be able to ride on one of three types of trains Standard Restaurant and long-term stay trains their exterior design is inspired by mine culture and they can reach speeds up to 160 km an hour that's quite a bit faster than a bus construction started in 2020 and it's going to be completed in seven sections across two major phases with the first aiming to open in 2023 the northern section will connect Cancun and player Del caran while the Southern Run will link the southern portion of player delman to Tulum and this phase will be fully electric construction teams are working on sites that stretch over huge distances contending with remote locations a jungle environment and that extreme heat and humidity now despite being led by Mexico's tourism agency the trains out to benefit a lot more than just the tourists it promises to generate thousands of local jobs and contribute the economic development of the Yucatan Peninsula but not everyone is aboard for the ride some Fair Trend Meer won't economically benefit the smaller communities it aims to connect and will simply serve tourists and the wealthy or the only more established Resorts will seek gains while construction is making use of the previous train Network the tracks are being widened because of new train technology and that's where the biggest controversy lies wider tracks means more people and more landscape being cleared to make way now many locals are pushing back the list of legal issues people have with the project is long over 25 injunctions have been filed so [Music] far despite the train having meire in its name and design many indigenous communities are strongly opposed to it they say it threatens existing and potentially undiscovered historic sites officials are supposed to notify communities about the project but indigenous leaders claimed they weren't fully informed of the extent of the Train's impact and that only the benefits were mentioned they also say many of these meetings weren't presented in the Local's first language the Mexican Government maintains it made agreements with the local communities by holding assemblies and continues to offer a permanent open dialogue as for the unknown sites well a team of archaeologists from fur has been working to document anything excavated along the Route and so far they've recorded more than 19,000 artifacts and 160 burials but artifacts aren't the only thing being up rooted the last year the Mexican Government announced that they needed to um evict about 3,000 families in the whole and Jatan Peninsula um in campe City there were were like 300 families about to get evicted while some have been offered housing many aren't pleased with that alternative the housing in Min communities are different from the Western house they have a different design and different Dynamics sometimes that there are some really strong doubts about the materials that they are used because you can just use any material in any place because you have the climate what are the geography and other factors that you have to really um take care about because that could and compromise the quality of life of some families in their houses meanwhile a Rail Project connecting Mexico's famous beaches to archaeological site has become a major environmental hazard with parts of the Track Running directly through rainforests savannas and mangroves many activists are concerned about it impacts on the peninsula's endangered species if you open up a new Avenue for fragmentation and for colonization by people that is going to destroy the jaguar habitat in that area there's no place for that train to go along that route in the south of the Yucatan Peninsula so far construction has already led to 120 square km of jungle being cleared and nearly 9 million trees being chopped down this is the largest drain Forest North of the Panama ismos the next one is the Amazon we cannot afford to lose it to this kind of thing the government argues that trains are more environmentally friendly than highways and that the railways impact won't be too extensive because most of the route runs through existing tracks officials also say mitigation strategies like overpasses and underpasses will allow Wildlife to cross safely but that's not enough for some opponents a mega project can work and would benefit people it takes like between 55 to 30 years through the design and implementation here is the opposite they are in a rush until recently the project has shown no signs of touching the brakes but then in 2022 Tren meire fac setbacks when the government announced part of it would be suddenly rerouted the hotels in in Cancun and Tulum and all of that area decided that they did not want the train right there because it it was going to disrupt the traffic to the hotels the new route would go over an historic and sacred set of underwater Caverns a move that could put them at the risk of collapsing that aquifer is absolutely the key for the development of uh of life in the peninsula human life or natural life we lose that that's the end of the peninsula people voiced their concerns and a court ordered a temporary suspension not too long after that construction of another section of the track was temporarily suspended while many communities have voiced their opposition to Tren meire several others welcome the Train's proposed economic impact government figures show about 80% of communities are in support of the project with many pointing out that parts of the Jungle have been cleared out before for similar developments the United Nations human settlements believes the project will cut poverty by 15% and double economic growth by 2030 the train would allow local farms to transport Goods more easily it's clear there are mixed opinions on both sides of the tracks but despite the disagreements Rodrigo hopes to meet somewhere in the middle we really need to hit the brakes and and think about a better territorial Arrangement territorial organization of what we want to do with the yukatan peninsula together with the Maya together with every one every stakeholder needs to be part of that [Music] discussion this city has big plans lands and when we say big we mean big skyscrapers the Olympic Games massive new Mega projects pushing the bounds of engineering and it's all happening Down Under the next decade we'll see a transformation on an international scale and it's all beginning right now with the biggest infrastructure project in the state's history a new Metro that borrows under the city itself but this isn't Sydney or Melbourne this is Brisbane Australia's fastest growing city now if you haven't heard of Brisbane before then you're not alone but the city has lofty Ambitions that much was clear when it won the bid for the 2032 Olympic games that the games of the 35th Olympia are awarded to Brisbane Australia Brisbane is Australia's third largest city but it's growing at a phenomenal rate around 1,000 people move into the region every week while the Olympics are a part of brisbane's rebranding as an international destination it won the bid precisely because of the city's commitment to its Ambitions and the massive new infrastructure already being planned that includes the $6.3 billion Mega project Cross River Rail it's a 10.2 km rail line with 5.9 km of Twin Tunnels that dive under the Brisbane River and and Central Business districts essentially they're building a massive new Railway right below downtown Brisbane the project includes four new underground stations and eight upgraded stations plus the development of three new Gold Coast stations beyond that what you've got is uh a network that is hasn't been upgraded for quite some time and so we've got uh stations in the inner suburbs which some of them date back to when they were first buil were in the late 1800s that's Graham he knows a lot about this project so I'm the um CEO of the Cross River Rail delivery Authority it's really the biggest infrastructure project in the city's history in the center and what it'll do is change the way in which people actually move around the city Cross River Rail seeks to rectify a major problem with Brisbane itself you see the city is defined by its River for better or worse and this river is a beast the Brisbane river is quite a large river it's tidal and several hundred meters wide and it's quite deep um so it creates a bit of a barrier and it sort of separates the city um from you know north to south but it's a Meandering River as well too right now there's only one crossing over the river searing the city into two distinct halves in 1979 there was a bridge built across the river but that's really the only Crossing and that constrains the the way which the rail network can can operate um the constraints is to 24 trains per hour Cross River Rail provides a second Crossing of that River but actually goes under the river the new Railway will ease pressure on the current rail network which is nearing capacity and this transformation that we're doing basically unblocks that bottleneck that's in the middle of the city which is is really tied to that historical development so we're really sort of unshackling the core of the city untying this knots will unlock enormous economic po potential as well as revitalizing previously disconnected precincts the construction of the rail itself already provides the city with 1,500 jobs a year there's a business case too one report predicts the Project's benefits will outweigh the costs by 1.9 billion Australian dollars and for every dollar invested the product will return $141 in benefits for queenslanders the development you know in some economic forecasting multipliers take it just a 15 to2 billion do worth of growth and in the order of 35,000 jobs around just basically as a result of the uh interconnectedness that you're going to get out of having the the rail system and then the development around those perhaps the most important reason for the construction of Cross River Rail is the population explosion the region is expected to have the population of Southeast Queensland is forecast to grow from 3.5 million today to 4.9 million in 2036 in just a few years that puts the region on par with Melbourne and Sydney more than 80% of this growth is going to happen just outside Brisbane while at the same time 45% of job growth is going to occur in the Brisbane metropolitan area this means that jobs are continuing to sprout up in the city while people are moving to the suburbs surrounding it and there's a vital need for better public transportation to connect the two the stations really are adjacent to the CBD uh so that means you traveling public have to walk about 10 15 minutes really to get to the center of the CBD on the railway stations not to mention these new stations will link up with the Olympic Stadium transporting the millions of expected tourists in 2032 but building under a major metropolitan area is no easy feat and the engineering challenges themselves have been immense when you see it up close and personal it is an engineering Marvel it's almost like doing you know open heart surgery in the middle of of the CBD digging an excavation down you down about 50 M below the CBD that was to get below all of the services get below the footings of the current um high rise Office Buildings and so forth so it's actually the deepest hole ever dug in Brisbane and uh we're putting the station into that because the tunnels have to weave their way underneath the middle of the city the tunnel boring machines do what they had to do to get under the river uh the rock is very hard they just up the albertt street station sits 31 M below the Heart of the City and in such a densely packed area every bit of space counts that's where these mezzanines come in they make use of these massive tunnels by creating a pedestrian level directly above the train tracks now mezzanines aren't anything new but the way these ones are being built is new with this segmental bridge technique that's a pretty common practice for Building Bridges above ground but constru construing something like this in a tunnel underground is a whole new challenge here's how they're doing it each mezanine beam is preast in massive concrete segments weighing up to 70 tons they're then lowered down through this hole in the Heart of the City into tunnels that will become the new train station because an underground station is a lot more cramped than a wide open space above ground equipment was custom made to fit the site next those three segments are connected into one single beam which is picked up rotated 90° and then placed onto the cavern arches to form the mezzanine level this was all made possible thanks to the early integration of a digital twin of the entire projects it's essentially a virtual version of the Cross River Rail using software from bentle it was even firstperson navigable just like a video game the model is so detailed that those on site can use it in real time essentially as an x-ray to see behind walls or what's behind them it's also meant that other future projects in the city could access the model and plan around the new stations down to the millimeter the digital twin has enabled engineering and construction decisions to be taken quickly and efficiently reducing overall costs design flaws could be spotted and fixed before they even became a problem while the progress of the entire project could be seen from every angle as it happened the model will be used to train future drivers as well as to update members of the public and brief ministers and the premere specialist needs and disability groups are also using the model to ensure accessibility once the Project's constructed the digital twin will be used by operation and maintenance service providers when we started out on doing our 3D modeling which we see as one of the sort of things that we're very proud of there was no single solution that was actually going to give us what we want Bentley projectwise provided the common data environment which is the platform that we're using now and really they've been able to help us adapt and as we've evolved the project and the model Bentley have been part of that Journey with us Cross River Rail is now well on its way to being delivered early Works began back in August 2017 and major contractors commence Construction in late 2019 the project set to open in 2026 well ahead of the 2032 Olympic deadline using the Olympics as a means of a catalyst for that type of ity uh you know is is a really positive thing we need to be Olympics ready the next decade is going to see phenomenal changes for Brisbane and Southeast Queensland and when you look at projects like this you realize those changes have already begun construction projects don't come much bigger than this hs2 is a new high-speed Railway being built right up the heart of Britain with the promise of economic growth low carbon travel more capacity and some of the fastest trains on Earth highspeed 2 is one of the world's biggest infrastructure projects it'll start right here in the heart of London and run across through an under England's Countryside to the Midlands and one day beyond but building it is far from Easy the project has gone several times over budget and face delays and staunch opposition it's now known more for its setbacks and the decisions of those in power then its benefits all the incredible engineering that's going on an idea to bring a country closer together has become divisive hs2 will generate jobs skills and economic growth it is just a waste of money a terrible waste of taxpayers money and that's not just a UK issue we're seeing this everywhere when public money is involved the stakes get much higher the scrutiny gets more intense and when things go wrong it can become difficult or even impossible to stop so how much say do we really have over the massive projects like highspeed 2 built with our money can our governments ever stop once they've started and does they come a point with these projects where they're just no longer worth it we can now travel over land at the rate of 30 m an hour think of it ladies and gentlemen 30 m an hour Houston departure point for 175 trains every day we need to build new railway lines in our country we haven't built a line north of London for 120 years it will redefine the way we travel around our country I'm absolutely convinced finally giving the home of the roadways the fast connections they need and none of that none of it makes any sense without hs2 the way that UK government makes decisions with E and flow depending on the political weather that's not how you deliver major infrastructure we are in a climate emergency we need to be doing sustainable creation not destroying the country this project is absolute Madness in a whole size of hs2 the only thing to do is keep digging hs2 will deliver lots of benefits there's no question about that the question is whether it's worth the costs like many countries the UK is divided there are big economic and social differences between the capital and the rest of the country and there's little sign of anything changing back in 2009 the government proposed a new high-speed Railway to better connect London and the north of England spreading wealth up the country 3 years later that project was approved and billions of taxpayer cash was set aside for it it's called highspeed 2 which is often shortened to hs2 and it's been being built in three stages Phase 1 runs from London to Birmingham Phase 2 a will carry the route to a town called crew and 2 B takes it to Manchester and originally leads high-speed trains would then continue on to other parts of the country at normal speeds using the existing Network so those living in The Wider North in Scotland can benefit too the trains will have a top speed of 225 mph the fastest in Europe now to do that they need a track that's as straight and flat as possible but drawing a straight flat line up England isn't easy some 90% of the phase 1 routes will be up on Bridges and viu or dug below ground in tunnels and cuttings making it an immense feat of engineering a journey North from London will begin here in a new three-story terminal at Houston it'll have the UK's longest Concourse a pre-fabricated geometric roof and 10 platforms built some 8 M below ground this site down here at Houston is where that massive new terminal is going to start to rise in the years to come now it might not look like much right now but just getting to this stage has been tough going and the team has faced all the kind of challenges you might expect them to face when clearing a site like this in the heart of a major city existing buildings neighboring properties traffic services and of course the current love Railway running into Houston alongside them after Houston trains will arrive at oldo common where there'll be additional links to hether airport Wales and and the Southwest the first Landmark outside London is the col Valley Viaduct it'll run for 3.4 km across several waterways and become the country's longest railway Crossing next up is the 16 km Chilton tunnel the longest and deepest on the entire route sitting up to 90 M underground then it's another tunnel but this one is less about length and depth and more about what's above it the UK has over 300,000 hectares of ancient wood Woodland that's trees that have been around since 1600 despite weathering the ages some of those trees Now find themselves in the path of hs2 instead of cutting them all down planners have tried to limit their destruction and one way is to go underneath them like up here at long itchington wood this is one of HS 2's new tunnels and just behind me back there is where construction teams are working a way to dig this route deep beneath England's Countryside now when you're down here you can't help but be blown away by the scale of the engineering that's going into this project in years to come people on trains are going to pass through here in a matter of seconds they'll be drinking a coffee doing some emails and they probably won't even notice but to make that leisurely experience possible construction teams are putting in the grind using 2,000 ton tunnel boring machines like this to cut a path the machines feature a cutting head at the front and a system that quickly take soil back up to the surface in these pipes along the sides of the tunnel this is the very front of one of hs2 Carnel boring machines just ahead of me up there is a massive cutting head that's steadily eating its way through the soil by about 20 to 24 M A Day slowly but surely this machine is building part of hs2 the long itchington tunnel will run for 1.6 km and be the first to complete across the whole route when it finishes in 2023 it's just one example of some of the massive Feats of engineering that are taking place between London and the Midlands to enable this highspeed line to run in time those incredibly fast trains are going to run across the ground I'm currently standing on through this cutting and on towards Birmingham the last stop before Birmingham is the Sol Hall interchange currently built as the world's most eco-friendly railway station with connections to the airport and the Exhibition Center phase one then all culminates at Birmingham keron street it's the first Inter City rail Terminus built in the UK since the 1800s and it'll feature an arched roof inspired by the railway pioneers of that era it's all a lot of work and money to connect London and the Midlands but there's a payoff economic growth the idea is that the billions being poured into this projects will be paid back and that millions of people will have their quality of life improved High-Speed Rail effectively brings major cities and population centers closer together businesses can access larger customer bases Supply chains and labor pools integration and trade are improved productivity goes up and commuting longer distances becomes possible you no longer have to buy a house in an expensive region in order to work there and that takes pressure off the housing crisis hs2 will slash Journey times getting from London to Birmingham will take just 45 minutes 37 minutes quicker than today but better connectivity between regions is about more than just speed there's another key word in all this cap capacity if you take a look at the UK's Rail map you might question whether this project makes any sense London already has a direct connection to Birmingham and Manchester via the West Coast Mainline so why build another well because it's one of the busiest Railways in Europe it's used by Inter City local and freight trains all at the same time and things can get crowded hs2 will be just for high-speed passenger trains it'll mean getting up and down the country quicker and free up much needed space on the existing lines the hope is that this all makes taking the train an obvious choice as compared to driving or catching a domestic flight it's designed to be the world's most sustainable high-speed Railway offering carbon free travel from the day the trains start running it all seems like a good idea but there are some who question whether the UK actually needs this highspeed line at all unlike some other countries renowned for their high-speed round networks the UK's major cities are all much closer together that's a factor that's perpetuated the lack of an extensive high-speed Network in the UK to date and one reason why it hasn't cultivated much homegrown Talent OR expertise good at building it the guy tasked with assembling and leading the team that's having a go for the first time in decades is Mark thirston raes 2 is a once in a generation project which will connect all the major cities on that Corridor uh in our country at high speed clearly make a massive difference to the way we decarbonize our transport system I it is unprecedented over 300 sites alone just between here and the West Midlands but also again if you look around us here in Houston we're right on top of the local community so how do we build this Railway sensitively in a way that respects people have got to kill with their lives you know for some Years yet until this Railway is fully commissioned now you might be wondering who gets the say over whether or not big expensive projects that impact so many people's lives like this get to happen well it's complicated but stick with us because grasping this will help you better understand how your tax money is being spent the UK is a constitutional monarchy The Sovereign is in charge but delegates all their power to a democratically elected government and lower house of parliament called The House of Commons like many countries we elect people from each region to sit on that Parliament and represent us the political party that wins the most seats forms the government they get to control all the government departments and decide which laws are introduced and debated in the House of Commons they pretty much set the agenda now we decide which candidate or party we're going to vote for based on what they say they're going to do and in the UK the two major parties the conservatives and labor both Advocate the principle of a new High-Speed Rail line so in a way the people chose this the elected UK government forly decided to build hs2 back in 2012 after a lot of debate and consultation finally in 2017 Parliament overwhelmingly passed a bill giving the government special powers to build operate and maintain Phase 1 when Boris Johnson then became prime minister in 2019 he commissioned the okav review to advise his government on whether and how to proceed with the project then he made the final call the cabinet has given high speed rail the green signal we are we are going to get this done at that point with powers already obtained from Parliament back in 2017 Boris signed the final notice to proceed with the project permission for phase 2A followed in 2021 to try and get a better understanding of this complicated process and how it's used to approve projects like hs2 I went to see Steven glacer he's ameritus professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London and he was a contributor to that oakave review view the Parliamentary process of course is very important with a big scheme like this you can't build a railway in this country without parliamentary approval the government has made a decision in principle to build this scheme so it's a matter of policy to build the whole scheme the Parliamentary process is to allow people are badly affected to make their case about how their interests should be U dealt with in 2012 when the project was first backed it was given a Target finish dat of 2026 for Phase 1 and 2033 for Phase 2 the initial budget was set at 32.7 billion that's a lot of cash it gets funded by something called a grant in age from the government which in turn gets its money from the taxpaying public people like me and you small amounts gathered from millions of us can create a hefty budget and that's what puts most national infrastructure projects in a completely different budget Galaxy to skyscrapers or other buildings funded by private companies or people even Tech giants like Google Facebook or apple don't spend more than a few single digit billions on their Flagship projects and they're some of the richest firms in the world now you'd think that combining such a big budget with the UK's history as the birthplace of the railways would be a winning formula but hs2 hasn't gone to plan and public opinion now is generally far from positive data from May 2022 shows that only 7% of Brits strongly for hs2 compared to 19% that strongly oppose it so what happened between the original business case when people were sold hs2 and all those benefits made it feel like a bit of a no-brainer and today well the short answer is that the ambitious dream of redefining how people travel has begun to clash hard with the realities of making it happen many are unhappy with the choice of root residents and businesses have had to be moved out of the way thousands of people have been served with compulsory purchase notices and others have seen their properties plummet in value these initial Works Mark the start of years of heavy construction and a crash in the value of property nearby sadly this is often the tradeoff when building infrastructure to benefit Millions a minority are asked to pay a heavy price building a project like this on a route like this inevitably means you're going to have to make some tough decisions at some point point on the way around W to move out of the way yeah I mean if you look at what we're doing here just at Houston alone you know on top of the local community a live railway station just behind us massive demolitions in the background here just to sort of clear the footprint for the station so to your point those tough decisions are made you could point to multiple examples of them all along the Route however some Property Owners feel they've been offered unfair valuations and have criticized how they were dealt with but perhaps the biggest source of contention has been the projects environmental impact even with sections like the long itchington tunnel which aim to protect ancient Woodland as much as possible around 24 hectares will be lost on Phase 1 across 25 sites that's around 34 football pitches hs2 say this only amounts to the partial destruction of these habitats and they're planting millions of new trees in return that they are responsible for maintaining when you put you know Point too City highs speeed Connections in place that has the economic effect but to do that we've had to be really sensitive about the impact on the natural environment got a Target to plant some 7 million bushes and trees along the route we're always we're getting close to north of 700,000 already we're very sensitive to and it's sympathetic to to that natural environment now you could argue that people and businesses might in time adapt and move on from a difficult compulsory purchase of their land but trees that have been around since the time of Elizabeth I aren't coming back anytime soon and that's tough for some to swallow the anger has boiled over into numerous protests from sites way out in the country to the heart of the capital in a park in front of Houston Station some people who want hs2 stopped have set up a protest Camp there are 880,000 people here and they all walk through the open Countryside here and hs2 is a concrete electrified scar that will cut them off from their access to Countryside many also believe the project poses a huge threat to animal and other plant life even though efforts are being made to protect species like endangered bats and the scheme is projected to leave behind 30% more wildlife habitats than exist currently hs2 claims it's been employing more stringent environmental standards than in many other countries building high-speed tracks and right there you have one of the reasons why this project which was already pricey to begin with is now set to become the most expensive high-speed Railway in the world that 32 billion figure from earlier was only the initial budget from 2012 after just one year the estimate had risen to 42.6 billion it then went up to 55.7 billion in 2015 and that's the number that parliament passed the bill on in 2017 2 years later hs2 put the cost at around 88 billion while in 2020 the okav review found the bill could go as high as 106 billion today the government puts the cost somewhere between 72 and 98 billion and with billions more in what's called future cost pressures now being reported that number isn't final the current Global inflation and supply chain challenges could all start to have an impact too 44.6 billion is now going on Phase 1 alone more than the entire project was supposed to cost at first and almost 15 billion of that has already been spent we asked hs2 for comment on these budget issues and they responded that the project remains within budget meaning the latest budget that's been set they added that the original budget was worked out using simple calculations and 2011 rates that didn't take the scheme's full complexities into account whatever your take on this the cost now is a lot more than what was in the budget when Parliament chose to approve it would our elected MPS have made made a different decision if they knew how much it would eventually cost Parliament was asked to make a decision in principle but they were offered a set of costs which are much less than the outturn cost had they been offered at a cost of 100 billion they might have come to a different answer on behalf of us all the Project's been hit by delays too Phase 1 was supposed to finish in 2026 but now it's 20129 at the earliest as for the entire network which was meant to WRA up by 2033 it could now be as late as 2041 2B hasn't cleared Parliament yet so exact details of what it will look like and where it will go remain uncertain a bit of a case of to be or not to be along the Route there have been some unexpected complications which have had pretty dramatic consequences in 2019 ground conditions had become in the words of HS 2's then chairman significantly more challenging than predicted he revealed that the 2015 cost estimate for phase one was made without the benefit of any investigation of ground conditions or similar levels of detail across all areas of scope more time has been needed for ground settlements adding to the delays and there have had to be route changes further north to avoid obstacles like salt mines it's also been revealed that the cost of buying up property for Phase 1 is over three times more than first thought at around £ 3.9 billion that's according to figures provided to us by HS too they added that every home business and piece of land is unique and there are sometimes different opinions between owners their professional advisors and hs2 about the value of a property in all cases we seek a fair deal for both claimants and the taxpayer there have been delays to the stations too including here at Houston the latest designs were only revealed in March 2022 7 years after the first images were made public and after construction here had already begun and yet there's more one major decision has sparked anger and disappointment in the region that was supposed to benefit most from this project London's one of the world's top Financial Centers with a higher GDP across its metropolitan area than anywhere else in Europe and a habit of spending big on infrastructure but many other parts of the UK like here in Leeds haven't seen the same levels of infrastructure and public services Investments creating a north south divide that's only getting bigger the north of England has long suffered with outdated Transport Systems while the capital continues to get more big projects like the Elizabeth line one of the current UK government's big pledges at the last election was to level up the whole country now that involves boosting local economies outside London and building a high-speed train line to them would be a good start to try and really understand the north south divide and what a highs speed raway could do for this part of the country I caught up with Henry merrison from the northern Powerhouse partnership it's an independent body that represents businesses and Civic leaders across the north how much of a North South divide is there in the UK and is it getting better or worse in your view so our analysis of the most recent ons data which is collected for all the regions of the UK shows that London has really bounced back uh and the challenge is that the rest of the country is still lagging behind and in reality under this current government we're not making huge progress it may take longer to see some of the benefits of some of the leveling up projects but they're often too shortterm not focused enough on long-term productivity and to un likely to yield the longer term benefits we need economically but this is exactly the kind of issue that hs2 was designed to fix so now the people of the north can look forward to phase 2B being completed and all the economic advantages it's going to bring then there's Northern Powerhouse rail another major program of upgrades which would link with hs2 as part of a new integrated rail plan for the region sounds like things are looking up at last but there's a big problem when those costs were getting out of hand and it was decided that part of the roof had to be sheld it was the bit that runs right here to leads that took the hit that route we showed earlier going all the way up to leads is no longer happening and that Northern Powerhouse rail scheme has also been downgraded the Eastern leg of phase 2B will now terminate near Nottingham over 70 Mi away trains will still be able to go further north but only on existing non highspeed lines although the intention is to get to leads eventually and ideas have been put forward nothing's been confirmed there's just a study which in itself is set to cost a further 100 million the original plan which was deliver hs2 INF full and Northern Powerhouse rail from here through Bradford across to Manchester is now not being delivered so losing both with no certainty exactly over what will replace it there's a a notional promise from government of some hs2 trains coming to leads well we don't know how frequent or what the capacity will be so we don't really know the value of that so we are talking to the government now about uh the Eastern leg certainly having traveled in around the Midlands and the north a lot on rail you see the Stark difference between the sort of frequency and regularity of services compared to London and Southeast so that's I think where we need to sort of put our Focus next working with the department for transport but that's not all of it the project is still being scaled back and again it's the north that's affected even while we were making this film another key section connecting to the West Coast Mainline was cut it was through here that highspeed trains would have continued on as far as Scotland the government says it's now committed to finding the best solution to take hs2 trains to Scotland and will explore Alternatives deliver similar benefits there's issues to eye now in Manchester as well like the decision to build the main station on the surface rather than underground which has been criticized by some local officials currently a journey from London to leads in the UK looks like this now this trip is taking me 2 hours and 13 minutes under the original plans for hs2 that would have been dramatically cut to just 1 hour and 21 minutes but when Phase 1 completes the difference will be just 20 minutes from what we were promised with hs2 that original Dream this this fantastic Railway connecting all parts of the UK or certainly need the north has has public opinion shifted now I think that the public opinion uh is wary of a government that isn't prepared to keep its Promises to the north of England in this country we are entirely dependent on who the occupants of number 10 and 11 are for whether leads gets a mass transit system or where the leads gets its hs2 station or where the leads gets access to a train line that's supposedly for its own benefit now that doesn't mean the north isn't getting anything at all billions have been spent to upgrade transport links across this region through that new integrated rail plan but for many people up here that doesn't make up for the loss of High-Speed Rail which they were promised by the government the integrate rail plan represented 36 billion of cuts to what had originally been promised and that rather than just being an economic problem it's also a political problem for a government that claims it's leveling up if you had to describe hs2 in a single word what would that word be starts uh and pro the problem is that I don't think this government intends to finish it to their credit those currently working for hs2 are doing their best to move on from the past and politics and just focus on constructing the railway but despite the good job that teams on the front line are doing it's clear that what's currently being built is a long way from what was put forward at the beginning and there's little sign of this project ever being stopped so is it time for a radical rethink or does this Railway now simply have to be finished no matter the cost hs2 might have gone from an ambitious dream to a bit of a nightmare but the UK is far from the only countes who have had a few difficulties when it comes to building new infrastructure in fact many other public funded Railways have also fallen behind schedule and gone over budget California highspeed rail in the US and stutgart 21 in Germany are just two examples big energy projects don't seem to Fair much better either the ooto 3 power plant in Finland and China's Three Gorges Dam both faced big challenges but it's not just the setbacks that feel repetitive infrastructure schemes like these all seem to fall back on the same vague positive sounding and almost unquestionable counterargument to their problems the promise of long-term economic game the almost counter trump card to all the delay the controversy is this this card of economic gain economic growth and actually this is going to be it's painful now but it's going to be worth it in the long run don't worry where's the ly how many more billions how many more cost uplifts how many more unexpected events before we say actually you know what this just isn't worth it anymore it's just too much hassle and we're never going to see the benefits or are we locked into this now whatever it takes there's no mechanistic way of deciding whether or not something's worthwhile or not at the end of the day it is of course a decision of a government on behalf of the nation people do not understand what this is going to cost the tax spare if you take 100 billion and divide that by the population of the country it it turns out to be um over ,000 per head bearing in mind that hs2 will be of use Direct Value to um rather small proportion of the population so there's a real issue there another way of looking at that is 100 million p a week every week for 20 years are there days where you question whether or not the whole thing's worth it uh no not really not really I mean you you've got to believe uh in a project like this to do my job and and all the people that work with me you've got to believe it's an important project so of course as you say there are swings and roundabouts and and all big projects have sort of dark moments but you you you the highs more than outweigh the lows do we have to just keep going and see it through or is there a line where we're just spending too much money and taking too much time for not enough economic gain well ultimately that's a big question for the politicians but but let's be really clear one of the things we did in my first sort of 18 months is reset the budget for phase one I inherited both the budget and the time frame which proved to be undeliverable you know but taxpayers generally can and should have confidence that we've set ourselves up now to deler the project for the budgets we've committed to government when done properly the payoff of big public projects can be huge they have the ability to shape our world and change its course better connectivity between countries cleaner more affordable energy lifting people out of poverty limiting the impact of natural disasters it's all made possible by infrastructure projects that's why so many national governments look to schemes like this and approve them despite their Financial social and environmental costs infrastructure has the potential to make a big lasting impact and enable countless other aspects of our Societies or with the added benefit of creating something very tangible and quite literally concrete to show voters but the bigger the rewards the bigger the risks and the costs the stakes all around get much higher and everything becomes magnified yes things go wrong in other parts of construction we've seen unfinished skyscrapers which usually happens when private developers run out of cash but when it's public money that's on the line that word unfinished becomes Unthinkable I do think that there's a problem in the British system and maybe in other countries too where whereby governments get committed to um a controversial idea and because it's controversial they make firm promises and then if it turns out on further investigation not to be such a good idea they defend the idea rather than being able to to review it I've said many times this this project divides opinion you know it draws a huge amount of public money is disruptive it takes a long time uh and and people struggle sometimes to justify the the investment in it but of course those railes that invested in highspeed rail have never never regretted [Music] it Britain's highspeed 2 is a potent reminder of the power of infrastructure it shows us once again what the construction industry can do and the impact it can have on so much of our Lives the teams pulling off the extraordinary Feats of engineering to create this Railway are quite literally writing this country's next chapter into its land for whatever the mistakes of this Project's management or the discourse around its very existence that's something that can't be taken away from these amazing people and it'll Inspire future generations of Engineers and yet around the world the impact of what teams like this do places them in a firestorm of debate infrastructure schemes almost always face an uphill battle to deliver on their pledges and restore Faith with the people they'll serve we might be the ones coughing up the cash but we're not calling the shots while governments can be voted out once projects like this get going and the train TR has left the station there can be no going back hs2 epitomizes the story of the infrastructure Mega project huge benefits are laid out for future Generations that citizens of today must bear the cost of just as our predecessors did for us the promise of a bigger prize ahead is used to counter painful issues and becomes the lens we see them through fear of stopping drives people on supporters and detractors are selective with their facts WI told that we'll one day forget it all and only experience the benefits but that verdict is cruy deferred by decades Only Time Will Reveal the true extent of hs2 success and whether the decision to carry on was really worth it but like so many infrastructure projects around the world it will undoubtedly leave its mark on This Nation it's not the first massive scheme in history to daunt people with its costs challenges and ambition and it won't be the last it it will redefine the economic geography of our country it would transform the way we think about low carbon travel in our country uh and I think frankly certainly if you're based in the Midlands and you live in the Midlands and the north you you won't realize the true effect it'll have until it's till it's open like so many of the world's biggest infrastructure projects Britain's highspeed 2 promises enormous benefits requires huge amounts of money is grappling with immense challenges and contains enough nuance and trade-off to sharply divide opinion but for whatever you may think of this and other big public projects like it it's kind of time that more of us sat up and took notice of the extraordinary influence the construction sector has on all of our lives and the massive projects being built with our money and in our [Music] names this High speeed train arriving in naning after its 190 mph journey across China on board of people going to work or seeing friends in the city their passengers making use of what's now the biggest highspeed rail network anywhere in the world but that statement doesn't really come anywhere near close to explaining what this actually is 2/3 of the world's entire high-speed rail network is now in China in the 12 years since its first line opened the country has dramatically outb built Every Other Nation and now plans to double the size of its highspeed Network in just the next 15 years travel times have fallen the country's economy has boomed cities have exploded and the rest of the world's been left wondering how they'll ever come close to building at such an insociable Pace this is the Unstoppable highspeed growth of China's high-speed rail network work [Music] explained there are highspeed rail networks around the world but then there's the network in China it's an insanely large web of track that helps to ignite an economic Powerhouse in little over a decade the country's built enough highspeed lines to almost Circle the globe and the system welcomed 1.7 billion passengers in 2019 alone to put that into context the UK built a highspeed rail line between London and the channel tunnel in the 2000s that's equivalent to 0.2% of China's current Network the new hs2 line was first proposed in 2009 and phase one of it is due to complete in 2033 the US has one high-speed line in the Northeast but it's arguably not actually highp speed speed and California's new line won't open before 2029 of course the approach to highspeed rail in these countries is very different and we'll come back to that a little later on to properly understand how this jawdropping network came to be and where it's headed you need to look at the story of modern China since the 1980s the country has roughly doubled its GDP every 8 years more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty and between the year 2 and 2018 over 47% of the population has risen to middle class status cities few had heard of 20 years ago are now vast metropolises across the country skyscrapers sore above your head factories team with activity and trade booms this isn't all down to High-Speed Rail the fast lines have played a huge role in accelerating the country's growth since 2008 but before that train systems were under pressure faced with buckling infrastructure State planning for High-Speed Rail began in 1990 and the first line between Beijing and tangin opened in 2008 cutting travel between the two cities from 70 minutes to 30 other lines were quickly introduced linking the cities of Shanghai Wuhan changdu and more initial trains were imported or built under technology transfer agreements with foreign train makers but since then Chinese Engineers have become leaders in the field the country now has the world's longest High-Speed Rail line between Beijing and guangju the world's fastest highspeed line between Beijing and Shanghai and the world's first commercial maglev line reaching a top speed of 267 mph as of 2021 China's high-speed rail network stretches for 37,900 km while its entire rail track length runs for over 141,000 km by 2035 the high-speed network will have grown to 70,000 km and the total rail length will extend over 200,000 km China's case for High-Speed Rail continues to strengthen the lines it's built have drastically shortened Journey times improved safety reduced carbon emissions and allowed many Chinese people from rural or less developed areas to access the country's massive cities Studies have also found that tourism increases by around 20% in provinces connected to the high-speed Network the plans for expansion are intended to build on this success but also to address the country's wealth discrepancy problem the rich coastal region cities of Beijing and Shanghai have a far higher nominal per capita income sometimes more than double or quadruple that of those living in land Beijing hopes new lines will grow more Regional hubs by 2035 also cities with a population of more than 200,000 will be connected by Rail and those with more than half a million people will have access to high speed rail the strategy also helps Beijing with its desire to unify the country a standard rail line was built from Beijing to Tibet despite its small population while a High Speed Line links the capital directly with Hong Kong a special administrative region in the central government's own words the high-s speeed line to the Northwestern gen Jing Province native home to the RAS was partly built to promote what it calls ethnic Unity so how has China built such a massive high-speed rail network while other countries have been left standing the first reason is demand the US has eight cities with more than 5 million people India has seven Japan has three the UK just one China has 14 the Shanghai Beijing line alone serves more than 300 million people this unprecedented rate of urbanization combined with Rising household incomes creates a need for the fast delivery of people and goods across the country at the same time China's heavily congested airspace often causes flight delays and High-Speed Rail is not only cheaper but also hugely more reliable the high levels of demand allow the Chinese government to make massive investments in high-speed technology and infrastructure the sheer scale of the country's ambition combined with a credible plan to build such a big Network and the fact that nearly all of China's rail is controlled by the state-owned China Railway Corporation means that high volumes of materials can be ordered and produced at once the countryes also standardize nearly every aspect of construction embankments track Viaduct electrification and communication systems are all the same no matter where you are in the country this lowers construction costs enables offsite manufacturing and cuts build times in Europe High-Speed Rail costs around 25 to39 million us per kilometer while in the US it's around $56 million per kilometer in China it's down at $17 million up to 2/3 lower than other countries of course there's a few things that bring the cost of building down in 2021 more than 40% of China's population around 600 million people still live on less than $5 a day and labor costs are low land acquisition is also easier than elsewhere partly due to the country's geography and political system the process of moving people out of the way of a new line in the US accounts for around 20% of the project cost in China that's less than [Music] 8% the countryes also kept High-Speed Rail fars low for the average person tickets are a quarter of the cost of other nations interestingly this often means forgoing making any profit on the lines constructed instead China sees the social and wider economic impact of its high-speed Network as more valuable as he took office in February 2021 us Transportation secretary P bajed said he'd like to see America lead the world in High-Speed Rail while it may be POS possible to set the country on a course towards that during his term the chances of the US overtaking China by building 70,000 And1 km of track in the next two decades feels remote though highspeed rail may seem Out Of Reach to many the current economic crisis could be an opportunity in 2008 China responded to the global financial crisis by investing heavily in high-speed infrastructure stimulating its economy and creating jobs today that network is the lifeblood of this huge ambitious beautiful and complex [Music] [Music] country this is a Japanese bullet train if you want to get somewhere in this country fast then it's got you covered an engineering Marvel formed in the aftermath of the second world war it's carried more than 10 billion passengers at speeds of up to 320 km an hour and help create the world's third largest economy but that's not enough for Japan and the country is now building the world's fastest passenger train a system that'll move at twice the speed of the bullet trains and cut Journey times in half or by doing away with one fairly fundamental component Wheels using magnetic levitation these new trains will hover 10 cm above the track eliminating the friction that comes with being in contact with the rails but the new line has proved deeply controversial grappling with delays skyrocketing construction costs and a fierce debate over environmental concerns now nearing completion the world is waiting to see whether the project will successfully hover above its challenges and make a Quantum Leap for transportation or prove a step too [Music] far Japan kind of knows a thing or two about trains the country was the first in the world to develop High-Speed Rail with the construction of the taqu oan Canon line between Tokyo and Osaka in 1959 back then the Japanese people and indeed the rest of the world were skeptical of the country's massive investment into rail and many thought it would soon be outdated in an exciting New Era of air travel and highways nevertheless the first high-speed line opened in October 1964 ready for Tokyo's first hosting of the Olympics it cut the travel time between Japan's two biggest cities from nearly 7 hours to just under 4 proving an instant success the line served more than 100 million passengers in less than 3 years that same trip on a modern bullet train now takes 2 and 1/2 hours when the new chowen Canon Line opens it'll be done in just 67 minutes at full speed the chaan Canen trains will move at 500 km an hour although a 2015 test run hit a world record 603 km an hour now it's pretty widely agreed that those kind of speeds are basically impossible for a conventional bullet train to hit they eventually will become limited by the friction that's created by their wheels to solve that problem Japanese Engineers looked back in time to a technology that's actually been around since the early 1900s magnetic levitation also known as maglev in fact concepts for maglev trains date back to the 60s and the world's first and so far only commercial maglev line has been in operation since 2004 running between shanghai's City Center and its airport the central Japan Railway company or Jr Central has modernized this technology using superconducting magnets electromagnets are called to- 269 de allowing the trains to levitate higher above the tracks but the trains need to be moving at speed before the magnets come in once the train reaches 150 km an hour by itself maglev kicks in and the carriage is lifted off its rubber Wheels the train then interacts with a set of coils in the track one used to levitate its mass and the other to propel it forward now without the wheels the carriages can travel at incredible speeds the trains are also completely autonomous controlled by the track rather than a driver a measure which it's claimed makes collisions or accidents far less likely the Tokyo tooa line has been under construction since 2014 and is expected to open in 2027 a further extension linking Tokyo to a Saka will begin to be built straight afterwards and open as early as 2037 10 years ahead of [Music] schedule unlike the existing bullet trains whose tracks hug the Japanese Coastline chowen Canen will be 90% underground cutting beneath the Southern Alps 256 km of the 285 km long line will be in tunnels the reasons for this are twofold firstly magl trains work better when they travel in the straightest line possible and burrowing beneath the mountains avoids Japan's more earthquake prone Coast although in taking this approach Jr Central has ended up digging some of the deepest tunnels Japan has ever seen that's raised a number of environmental concerns especially in the shoka prefecture where tunneling threatens the Basin of the oi River a major water source for the region while Environmental Studies have found that the risk of disturbing the Basin is low local governments have criticized those reports for being in their words insufficient and Hasty the incumbent governor of shoka even ran on a platform opposing the railway successfully winning an election in June 2021 where chow and Canen was a key issue this controversy combined with unexpected hurdles in the construction of new stations has taken the Project's cost from 13 .7 billion to a staggering $64 billion making it one of the most expensive Mega projects ever undertaken in the country the Hefty price tags now leading many in Japan to question whether the new line is worth it at all indeed there are quite a few drawbacks to Japan's maglev once completed it'll be more expensive to run than regular high-speed trains because it consumes more energy though you could argue that it will enable greater economic growth the trains also won't be able to hold as many passengers within their smaller carriages and they won't travel as frequently traditional bullet trains run on the Tokyo Osaka line roughly every 3 minutes because maglev track switches take more time it'll only be possible to run a magv train once every 10 minutes Japanese rail companies have also previously been able to make a lot of money by selling their technology over seas but a noticeable new player has emerged on the scene since the Advent of the first bullet train back back in 1964 China it's now the king of High-Speed Rail and the country is home to 2/3 of the world's entire highspeed network while none of its inter city lines are maglev China is beginning to develop its own version of the technology in July 2021 it tested a magav train that reached 600 km an hour almost breaking the record set by Japan that train could theoretically go from Beijing to Shanghai in 3 and 1/2 hours faster than the 4 and 1/2 hours it takes by plane China doesn't need to buy Japan's technology and the rest of the world is still playing catchup with regular highspeed rail so why is Japan so intent on building this maglev line and why did the government grant Jr Central alone to finish it 10 years ahead of shedule if chaan Canton is successful then it has the potential to create a commutable distance between the country's two largest cities linking the regions of Tokyo and Osaka in a pretty profound way it's surprise that's becoming increasingly alluring around the world mega cities are systematically being made of China's Pearl River delta through strategically placed infrastructure while less forly the boundaries between cities in the northeastern United States from Washington DC Up To Boston are being blurred it's the same in Western Europe merging major cities like this has the potential to create economic powerhouses on a scale we've never seen before when the bullet train first began construction more than half a century ago the world ridiculed it but It ultimately allowed Japan to grow connecting regions and sharing prosperity in the decade that followed its opening Japan went from an economy that was just 10% the size of the US to the world's second largest of course we'll need to wait and see if this new line can levitate the country to further success but moving people between major cities in record-breaking time would open up a whole new world say you want to travel across Europe or China Japan India even parts of the US you could take a train if you wanted to but in Africa a large scale train network doesn't really exist and for the fastest urbanizing area on the planet that's a problem to fill this pretty critical infrastructure Gap Africa is undergoing a railway Renaissance and it's being built in large Parts by China .8 billion Chinese built Railway is meant to supplement the current line built by British colonialist these Mega projects are more than just impressive Feats of engineering passing through Safari camps and the East African desert they're symbols of better connected societies Economic Opportunity International alliances soft power and a shifting balance in the world of construction to really understand why China is building Railways in Africa you have to rewind a bit we could go way back but let's start here the bangun conference in 195 55 leaders from 29 Asian and African nations met in the hopes of working together in the wake of Western colonialism from that International solidarity came the tazara railway which opened in 1975 the railroad was financed and mostly built by China and it provided the landlock country of Zambia with 1,860 kilometers link to Tanzania and a way to export its copper to Global Market without Crossing White minority ruled territories since then Chinese investment in Africa has exploded from about 75 million Us in 2003 to roughly 2.7 billion in 2019 now more than 30% of China's investment in Africa is in the construction sector China has become the most important source of development Finance in Africa in the past we talked about railroad imperialism but now nobody's really investing ing as much as China in this railroad connectivity China's built a massive high-speed rail network in a matter of years and it's now bringing that expertise to Africa two of its biggest investments in East Africa are the Addis Ababa Djibouti Railway and the Kenya standard gagee Railway the $4 billion Chinese built line across Ethiopia stretches 756 km from the landlocked cap capital of Adis Ababa to the port of Djibouti with commercial operations beginning in 2018 it's now the backbone of the Ethiopian National Railway Network construction involved modernizing an old deteriorated meter gauge Railway by upgrading it to the Chinese electrified Railway standard making it the first of its kind in East Africa the locomotives are supplied by Chinese contractors and are built to withstand altitude differences of up to 2,000 M daytime temperatures of up to 50 de C and cold nights One Promise of the Railway was to provide convenience air conditioned travel passenger volumes haven't been as high as expected with only 84,000 people traveling in 2019 and the service isn't always reliable but a big part of the railway's long-term potential is in Freight transport more than 90% of Ethiopia's International Trade passes through jibuti and the new line carries roughly a quarter of all Ethiopian imports and exports still Freight volumes haven't come close to reaching their full capacity yet and unsurprisingly the railway is struggling to turn a profit 70% of the project was funded using loans from China's state-owned exm bank and in 2019 both passenger and cargo combined only brought in $40 million well below the $70 million cost of actually operating the line the problem is that if you don't have Freight or passengers that go through the railroad then of course you cannot generate enough income to repay the loans and so this is kind of a Aisha Circle over in Kenya the standard gauge Railway opened in 2017 with a rout length of 480 km the $3.8 billion high-speed Railway is Kenya's largest infrastructure project since it gained independence in 1963 construction led by China Road Road and Bridge Corporation involved building long VOD ducts deep cuttings and long embankments to navigate the rugged terrain along the Route as you might expect building a project of this scale through the stunning natural habitats that Kenya is known for has proven to be a difficult Balancing Act two sections of the railroad running through national parks faced protests from conservationists over concerns that it could threaten the wildlife in response designers added 14 wildlife channels and elevated sections of the track now complete the railway is a game Cher for both trade and transportation in the region the passenger service has cut travel time from Mombasa to Nairobi from more than 10 hours to roughly 5 hours with a $10 economy ticket in its second year of service the Kenyon Railway transported 1.7 million passengers and the Freight Service fed roughly 5 million tons of goods on Chinese supplied locomotives China's approach to infrastructure development is attractive for African countries because China isn't just providing a finance it's also this kind of One-Stop shop that can supply everything for the life cycle of the project when dealing with China things are simple you don't have to balance multiple actors interests or take them into consideration but once again things have gotten messy when it comes to money China's exm Bank financed 90% of the projects and now Kenya is struggling to pay back it loans and because both of these Railways are built to a Chinese standard any major upgrades or even parts that need to be replaced will have to come from China China's investments in foreign infrastructure goes Way Beyond these Railways around the world it's financing and constructing hundreds of infrastructure projects through its massive belt and Road initiative based on their own development experience the Chinese are believers in the power of infrastructure and its ability to catalyze economic activity engaging with partners that have this appetite for infrastructure development works for Africa in Africa alone China's estimated to have won almost half of all engineering procurement and construction contracts but those contracts haven't come without controversy the country's been accused of unfair labor practices in Africa including bringing in its own workers instead of hiring locally some studies have shown that Chinese firms actually do hire large numbers of local employees but the top management positions are still dominated by Chinese staff the construction of the Ethiopian Railway employed roughly 20,000 local workers in Ethiopia and 5,000 in jouti there's no African standard for building Railways so trying to link up colonial tracks with newer Chinese standard lines is a massive undertaking that's all to say that China's involved ment in African infrastructure is a complicated nuanced investment but relying so heavily on a single country to finance your developments is a risky bet you have Africa needing basic industrial infrastructure you know your your Railways your roads your ports your energy plants African countries not having the kind of financial War chess needed and was Western lers kind of reluctant to invest in massive infrastructure and the Chinese kind of coming and saying hey you know we can do this not only can we provide the finance but we can provide the skilled workers we can provide the construction companies you know what option does Africa have China's revenue from construction projects in Africa skyrocketed from the early 2000s to now but it's dropped off a bit since around [Music] 2015 while it's not clear how long the money will keep flowing China's Railways in Africa are laying the tracks for a long-term relationship between the two locations if that partnership lasts then China's Railway Legacy could stretch far beyond its own [Music] borders one of the world's most ambitious construction projects is being built right here in the middle of a desert six of the middle east's wealthiest countries have come together to construct a railway that will stretch for more than 2,000 km and better connect the region but with Desert Sands to cross and mountains to Tunnel through the Project's challenges are immense and matched only by the price tag that comes with tackling them if it works the new line could unite the gulf reshape its Transportation sector reduce its carbon footprint and Kickstart a whole new era of Economic Development welcome to the 100 billion Railway in the desert before we get into how the railway is built it's important to understand why it's being built in the first place let's start here February 1981 in Riyad Saudi Arabia leaders from Saudi Arabia Kuwait the United Arab Emirates Qatar Bahrain and Oman met to form a political and economic alliance called the gulf Corporation Council or GCC as a group they've made a lot of money off oil and gas and that means their economies are largely tied to the oil market now around 2008 2009 oil prices plummeted amid the Great Recession and the GCC economies took a hit that's where the railway comes in diversifying the economies of the Gulf States away from oil and gas will help them develop stronger economies and the railway lines will help for example will connect the nation's ports with manufacturing hubs it will connect Nations ports with purb centers in 2009 the GCC approved a massive Railway project that would link all six member states the cost would be divided among the countries with the entire project estimated to be between 100 and $250 billion US the most expensive elements being Saudi Arabia's Metro project and Etihad Railway an$ 11 billion $1,200 km Freight and passenger Railway that stretches across the Emirates from the Gulf of Oman to the Persian Gulf the country's first national rail network is being constructed in two stages the first was completed in 2016 and spans 264 km from the habshan and sha areas in Abu Dhabi to the port of ruise in the popular perception the Arab Gulf States are flat desert countries and to some extent that is certainly the case but in the Northern parts of the Emirates and Northern parts of Oman they have rugged mountains that reach 3,000 m in parts of this Railway system have been just as challenging as building a railway system in the iry mountains of the US it's a tough working environment to say the least it can get so hot in the summer that some construction sites operate at night when temperatures are closer to a cool 30° C that's around 86 F sand makes for difficult shifting terrain etti had learned from others who'd built in the desert including China Saudi Arabia and morania those Nations found Solutions like turning sand dunes to Clay over many years monitoring the shifting Junes and planting walls of vegetation to block wind and sand EAD rails locomotive design includes a sand filtration system and a sand plow to help it navigate the desert in stage one EAD rail constructed 20 over Bridges two under bridges 10 Road underpasses and 18 smaller underpasses for future use the company also built two factories to produce concrete Railway sleepers made from locally sourced raw materials which form the base of the tracks each sleeper is 2.6 M long and weighs 340 kg they're attached to the main rails with a fastening system and are used to help stabilize the track and ensure the train can travel smoothly at speeds of up to 200 km an hour for passengers services but this first route isn't transporting passengers just yet instead it's carrying up to 22,000 tons of granulated sulfur across 110 wagons each day the element is extracted from the oil field in Abu Dhabi and processed for export at the Port of ruise where it goes on to be used in manufacturing everything from batteries to fertilizers and even fireworks EAD rails transported more than 30 million tons of granulated sulfur for the Abu Dhabi National oil company as of mid 2021 they say that a single train journey reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 70 to 80% compared to if those trips were made by trucks that's pretty significant for an economy with one of the biggest carbon footprints in the world the efficiencies also helped make the Emirates the world's top exporter of sulfur bringing in 679 million million dollar in 2019 much of that sulfur likely went to China the world's largest importer who also happens to be involved in stage two of the project stage two construction began in 2020 and will extend the network 605 km from guat on the border with Saudi Arabia to vajira on the East Coast a $48 million us contract put china State construction Engineering Corporation and South Korea's SK engineering and Construction in charge of the design and building of 139 km of rail line once complete the network will link the country's major industrial ports and trading centers enabling more than 50 million tons of goods to be transported each year a country like Saudi Arabia and Country like the United Arab Emirates there are huge in area and they contain immense potential for other natural resources that could and would be developed in the next few decades and a railway would help these governments tap these so far untapped natural resources even with progress being made on the EAD rail network the GCC Rail Project as a whole hasn't always gone according to plan they briefly blocked katar from the organization putting its role in the railway project into question and the pandemic and oil prices have caused logistical delays and cuts to infrastructure spending which have pushed the completion date back by years the vision of golf leaders has emerged from being uh a vision of uh ambition and sometimes unrealistic ambition to a vision of pragmatism EAD hasn't said exactly when the railway will be open for commuters yet but when it is it might be a tough sell for a country that loves its cars one 2020 survey in the UAE found that 83% of people depend on cars while only 13% use public transport it's primarily an economic value at this point and The Human Side is not fully developed yet and if there's a question around this project it will be about the willingness of the population to jump on the railway line and to go from City to City still the railway is a huge part of these country's plans to become more sustainable and diversify their economies and it's given rise to a new industry which means new jobs both Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have developed rail studies training programs the gulf economies have grown exponentially over the last three decades or so and the railway lines are more of a complement to the immense economic growth that the Gulf States have experienced over the last little bit the Emirates may be known for its oil wealth and glitzy futuristic developments but Eddie had Railway is a glimpse into leaders long-term strategy to build a more connected unified golf cultural shifts take time technological shifts can happen more or less overnight if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction subscribe to the b1m [Music] oh
