Cost of UK's HS2 rail project may soar to $138 billion, minister says

LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) - The ​bill for ⁠Britain's new high-speed railway line, HS2, could ​climb to as much as 103 billion pounds ($138 billion), transport minister Heidi Alexander announced on Tuesday, revealing ​the ‌latest cost overruns to the beleaguered infrastructure project.

HS2 was originally designed to add capacity and ⁠help Britain catch up with other European countries which ⁠have extensive high-speed networks.

But its spiralling ​budget and project delays, meant successive governments significantly scaled back the length of the new line, putting the whole future of the project at risk.

On Tuesday Alexander said new ​analysis showed ‌cancelling now would cost as much as carrying on.

She said the line, which will link central London and Birmingham, was now estimated to cost between 87.7 billion pounds and 102.7 billion pounds and services would not run until between 2036 and 2039, ​more than 10 years later than originally scheduled.

"Taxpayers, passengers and communities along the route ‌have been let down by years of mismanagement on HS2," Alexander said, adding that she was confident in a new ‌management team which had previously delivered London's Elizabeth line.

NO CENTRAL LONDON STOP UNTIL AT LEAST 2040

Trains into central London's Euston station will not be operational until between 2040 and ​2043, and services running before that will terminate at Old Oak Common in west London.

Alexander blamed ‌previous governments for their decision to build a bespoke and highly engineered railway with the world's fastest trains, and said inefficient delivery, underestimation and inflation were behind the soaring costs.

HS2 ⁠was designed ⁠to improve connections between London and northern England, as ‌well as modernising Britain's mostly Victorian-era railway network. It was expected to cost 32 billion pounds in 2011.

But ​connections to the ​northern cities of Leeds and Manchester were scrapped in the ‌early 2020s as the bill ballooned. It was estimated at 56 billion pounds in 2018, with multiple reports since putting it closer to 100 billion pounds.