World Rail Investment $162.5 billion/year

[Railway Man]

Capital invested in railways per year by the year 2013, as estimated by International Railway Journal:

Western Europe $49.9 billion
Asia $38.7 billion
North America $32.1 billion
Russia etc. $16.6 billion
Eastern Europe $14.3 billion
Africa & Middle East $4.6 billion
South & Central America $3.2 billion
Australia $3.1 billion

IRJ breaks this down as 59% rolling stock, 30% infrastructure, 11% systems.

RWM

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Well, that's interesting.  Wonder what these figures and ranks would look like on a "per capita" and on a "percentage of GDP" (or similar) basis ?  Display them as a horizontal bar graph and it might be interesting to see who's spending the most towards winning the "railway [arms] race" !

Just by simple inspection (only), I'm surprised by Australia - not that it's last, but with its small population base, on a per capita basis it might be pretty high in the rankings.

Wonder what the breakdown is for freight vs. passenger vs. shared  (e.g., C&S gear) ?  Also, does this include transit such as light rail systems, subways, and other intra-city heavy rail improvements, or just the inter-city routes ?  If the latter are included, I can see why Western Europe leads the pack by a considerable margin. 

Also wonder about how much is private vs. public, esp. for North America.  Until a couple months ago we could have taken it as granted that the share for Amtrak and the US Federal government spending combined would be near $ 0.  Now with the all the "stimulus" spending, I'm losing track of how much might be included in that $32.1 B total - is it the often-quoted $8 B figure, or plus the additional $5 B that will also go that way over the next 4 or 5 years, and/ or other amounts ?  Or are those amounts in addition to the $32 B ? 

Anyway, thanks for sharing.

- Paul North.

[Railway Man]

It's for everything -- freight, passenger, maglev, subway, etc.

Australia is very high in part due to the expectation of substantial resource-railway investment.

Note how light South and Central America is.  I can't see that lasting.

RWM

[overall]

RWM,

Thanks for sharing the figures with us also. A couple of questions;

1) What do you mean by resource railway investment? The way I understand it, Australia uses railroads for mining and extremely large long tandem trcuks for mechandise. Have they discovered new mineral deposits that they want to tap?

2) You say you can't see South and Central America's light investment lasting. Are they too poor or debt ridden to spend that much?

Thanks in advance,

George

[Railway Man]

overall

RWM,

Thanks for sharing the figures with us also. A couple of questions;

1) What do you mean by resource railway investment? The way I understand it, Australia uses railroads for mining and extremely large long tandem trcuks for mechandise. Have they discovered new mineral deposits that they want to tap?

  More capacity to expand production from existing fields and some known fields that have not yet been developed.

2) You say you can't see South and Central America's light investment lasting. Are they too poor or debt ridden to spend that much?

Sorry for being obscure -- I meant that this level of investment is too small and is likely to be revised upward significantly prior to 2013, because these nations will need a much higher investment in railways in order to enjoy the economic expansion of which they are capable.  South and Central America have political and social legacies that have restrained their economic potential that still haven't completely worn off.  I think this estimate is weighted a little too heavily toward what these countries were, rather than what they are now, and what they will soon become.  But no disrespect to IRJ: they should be conservative in this sort of estimate, and base it only on what's in front of them, not what could be the case in the future.  Similarly the number for the U.S. will be much higher if the U.S. decides to embark on high-speed rail at a faster rate.  But who knows if the U.S. will actually do that?  I don't.

RWM