Major infrastructure projects… can still fail economically in terms of opportunity costs either because of excessive costs or insufficient demand but their political importance can be very significant, even momentous.
The guiding principle of the Trans-Siberian Railway was not about the routine moving of people from place-to-place, but sticking a pair of iron rods into bleak territory that had strategic importance in defining Russia’s role in the Far East.
A country’s transportation infrastructure is plugged into other national and supranational networks in such a way as to impact, not just domestic economic interests, but also advance national security and foreign policy objectives.
The Panama Canal began with coercion, was built at tremendous human and economic cost, and for decades operated with little benefit to locals. In many ways, Panama’s experience last century underscores the risks for developing countries of pursuing megaprojects with this century’s rising power: China.
Nowhere other than India is the railway so indelibly connected with the image of the nation. Just as there is no single country on earth that has such a broad cultural, ethnic, and racial mix as India, there is also no railway system that has played and, crucially, continues to play such a fundamental role.