Track construction will not require heavy earth-works, particularly when existing routes are followed. It will involve foundations, prefabricated support columns and track spans. It will be largely an industrial process with little site work.

With single track capacity being equivalent to fifteen motorway lanes, a trade-off of reduced capacity for lower construction cost could be made on many lower speed routes where bunching into trains offers little energy saving. Providing capacity equivalent to three motorway lanes, by automatically enforcing greater vehicle spacing, will, for example, for one ton vehicles, reduce the maximum load on a thirty metre span from ten to two tons. This may reduce construction costs by a factor of three for these routes.

Assuming that a full capacity single track costs half as much to build as a single lane of motorway, and that a total of 100 miles of three lane motorway or similar is built in the UK each year then, diverting the whole new road budget to double-track construction will fund 150 miles of full capacity track plus 1800 miles of lighter capacity track. Ten years completes the whole UK track system.

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