Electrification Costs and Confounders

A presentation by the Bavarian Ministry of Housing, Construction, and Transport (StMB) about expansion plans for the Nuremberg S-Bahn includes several branches to be electrified. Naturally, the presentation includes costs and distances. However, dividing the cost by the distance has little hope of giving us the normal electrification costs in Germany, because all of these projects include other things as well. This is typical of line-by-line electrification: it comes as part of a modernization plan, and the headline cost will include other items, which may be signaling, double-tracking, station upgrades, bridge and tunnel modification, and junction upgrades. The lines in question are as follows: Neustadt an der Aisch to Steinach bei Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a 30 km line. The cost of the project is 142 million €, including electrification, 8.3 km of noise barriers, and alignment modifications at the two ends of the section. This is expected to reduce trip times by 14 minutes and raise…