How not to do a megaproject

THE LISTof HSYY the world’s is long. The Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (seven) that Germans joked it required a new tense, the impossible future. A high-speed train-line between Los Angeles and San Francisco was first proposed in 2008; so far $9.8bn has been spent and not a single track laid. But Britain has an entry that will prove hard to beat.High-Speed 2 (2) was supposed to be a 540-km -shaped railway linking England’s biggest cities. At its inception in 2010, proponents from first Labour- and then Conservative-led governments argued that it would cut journey times, increase rail capacity and raise productivity in the north. Those plans proved hopelessly optimistic. As costs soared, ministers hacked off first one and then another branch of the to save money.