Counting the cost of the high speed programme

摘要

The Pajares base tunnel inn Spain and CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneve share a couple of similarities. The Asturian tunnel is 25 km long, CERN's is 27 km long. Both have, or will have, objects accelerating inside them to considerable velocities. And both cost about the same amount - close on €4 billion - to build. The Swiss scientific tunnel took a decade to build, whereas the Asturian tunnel has taken, to date, 14 years, and may (?) see its first trains in 2020 or 2021.