For CABR, brownfield refers to the railway being built within the CP Rail corridor and Calgary Airport Authority’s lands. Because there are no land acquisition costs, service relocations and disruptions, and a more simplified approval process, the construction timeline is also drastically reduced as well as the cost ($10 million/km vs $200 million/km for a greenfield rail).
Conversely, a greenfield railway needs to be built on land that’s yet to be acquired and will also require additional permitting time, additional time and cost for land acquisition and additional time and cost for local impact studies, which all add to the overall timeline and project costs.