Most Expensive Railway Lines to Build

Route Rankings

These railway lines required extraordinary capital investment due to challenging geography, urban tunneling, or advanced technology requirements. Costs per kilometer can reveal the engineering complexity involved.

#	Name	Value	Description
1	Crossrail (Elizabeth Line)	$870M/km (central tunnel)	London's newest railway with 42 km of tunnels beneath central London cost over $23 billion total, the most expensive European railway project.
2	East Side Access (LIRR)	$750M/km	Extension of the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central, one of the most expensive per-km infrastructure projects globally.
3	Gotthard Base Tunnel	$210M/km	The 57 km Swiss tunnel cost $12 billion over 17 years of construction through complex Alpine geology.
4	Channel Tunnel	$190M/km (adj.)	The 50.5 km undersea tunnel connecting England and France cost $21 billion in today's money, roughly double the original estimate.
5	California High-Speed Rail	$185M/km	The US's troubled HSR project has seen costs balloon from $33B to over $100B for the 800 km San Francisco to Los Angeles route.
6	HS2 Phase 1 (London–Birmingham)	$350M/km	Britain's controversial high-speed rail project connecting London to Birmingham with extensive tunneling through the Chiltern Hills.
7	Grand Paris Express	$240M/km	New 200 km automated metro network around Paris with 68 stations, one of the largest infrastructure projects in Europe.
8	Second Avenue Subway	$2.5B/km (Phase 1)	New York's newest subway extension on the Upper East Side holds the world record for per-kilometer rail construction cost.
9	Chuo Shinkansen (Maglev)	$360M/km	Japan's planned 286 km superconducting maglev line running mostly in deep tunnels at 500 km/h, estimated at $100B+.
10	Singapore–KL HSR (cancelled)	$130M/km (est.)	The planned 350 km high-speed link was estimated at $45 billion before Malaysia cancelled it in 2021.

Methodology

Ranked by inflation-adjusted construction cost per kilometer of completed route, based on official government audits and industry cost analyses.

Quick Facts

Category	Route Rankings
Entries	10
Unit	USD/km (millions)

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Most Expensive Railway Lines to Build

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Methodology

Quick Facts