HS2 and compulsory purchase

A rail network requires land. Often this land is privately owned and must be purchased without the owner’s consent. In this article, Helen Paul considers the externalities, negative and positive, associated with constructing and maintaining railways

Helen Paul

Birmingham’s Eagle and Tun pub is demolished to make way for the HS2 line

government intervention in markets, market failure, externalities, economic efficiency, public goods and infrastructure, cost–benefit analysis

Britain was the first nation to develop a railway network. Steam-powered engines were used to carry heavy freight loads, such as coal. The first public passenger railway was the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the northeast of England, which was opened in 1825.