Rail Factoids - 8: Light Rail Construction Costs

In a useful and interesting article this week, RAIL Magazine contained a table listing the costs of building various tramway and light rail lines in Britain.  Here are the figures, adjusted for 2010/11 prices:

Project	Date	Cost/mile
Tyne & Wear	1980	£19.8m
Docklands	1987	£20.0m
DLR to Becton	1994	£77.4m
Manchester	1992	£11.7m
Manchester	2000	£41.6m
Sheffield	1994	£19.9m
Midland Metro	1999	£14.6m
T&W to Sunderland	2002	£10.4m
Nottingham	2004	£23.6m
Average		£25.4m

There are some interesting details in this list. The two most expensive projects were the DLR extension to Beckton at £77.4 million a mile and the Manchester Phase 2 project of 2000 at £41.6m a mile. These were both only 5 miles long, the shortest of all the projects. Costs tend to rise swiftly for short routes.

In comparison, the Edinburgh project is expected to cost £100million a mile. RAIL Magazine describes some of the background to the fiasco.