According to Agility Trains, the £4.5 billion package covers the supply of 596 carriages. The Railway Gazette report refers to an "overall package", with "financial close" covering the supply of 369 vehicles, and "commercial close" for a further 227 vehicles for the ECML. So presumably the £4.5 billion is for 596 vehicles, but this is not exactly clear.
The Guardian has published a couple more articles against HS2, one by specialist rail commentator Christian Wolmar, and another today by journalist Simon Jenkins. The main arguments in favour will doubtless be wheeled out by the commentators: the need for capacity and the disruption caused by upgrading existing routes. HST itself will severely disrupt services to Euston during the construction period. Capacity can be increased at a fraction of the cost by a variety of measures, provided that it is accepted that the additional traffic will run at existing speeds. It is not generally known that the Midland main line is, or was, four track all the way from London to Trent Junction, between Nottingham and Derby. This is because the additional tracks are separate, having been added for coal trains which trundled down to Brent sidings, on the edge of London, from a collection point at Toton in Nottinghamshire, where the Midland Railway build a huge marshalling yard. Beyond Derby, the main l...
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Search for "Hitachi secures largest UK train order" Mark Odell and Jim Pickard, financial times or try http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b949d9c8-d4f2-11e1-9444-00144feabdc0.html#axzz22U6iUxjJ
This roughly matches the £2.1bn financing recently got by Hitachi from various japanese banks eg see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-25/hitachi-s-u-k-train-venture-said-to-plan-2-1-billion-pound-loan.html "Hitachi’s U.K. Train Venture Said To Plan 2.1 Billion Pound Loan"