Why doesn't Australia have high speed rail? | ABC News
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2021
- We look at the depressing history of Australia’s attempts to build a high speed rail network and the reasons that it has never got off the ground. Is this sort of technology viable on a continent as big and spread out as ours?
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The population density of Australia is a misrepresentation of the facts. You need to take into account the population density of the corridor, not the country. If the population density were 3.3 people per square kilometre you wouldn't have the second busiest air corridor operating. Of the 8 million people in Australia that don't reside in a Capital city they are pretty much spread in 3 key regions, 1 the Queensland Coast, 2 The South East Corridor BETWEEN SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE and the rest are pretty much scattered across the continent. While population density across the corridor wouldn't exact beat France's 119 people per square kilometre, 3.3 people per square kilometre is a misrepresentation of the facts.
From my own calculations, across the corridor NOT including Greater Sydney and Greater Melbourne, I get a population density of around 35.9(people per square km (p/km^2)) using the councils of Wollondilly (21.1p/km^2), Goulburn (9.8p/km^2), Greater Hume (1.9 p/km^2), Wagga (13.6 p/km^2), Albury (180p/km^2), Wodonga (98p/km^2), Wangaratta (8p/km^2), Benalla (6 p/km^2), Strathbogie (3.3 p/km^2), Mitchell (16.6p/km^2). This population density is 10 times that quoted by the ABC and isn't covering the full catchment of regional population, and when Sydney and Melbourne are added you'd be much higher. Only one council area has a population density less than that quoted for the corridor and one more has equal to what was quoted.
Political will is the issue, nothing else. Like any project in Australia, it will need government backing. A rail like to North West Sydney wasn't profitable for a private company, so the State Government built it. This area now has the highest population growth in Australia. A rail link to Melbourne's Tullermarine airport isn't profitable for a private company, but the government stumped up funding and started building one! Even the small extension from Glenfield to Leppington in Sydney produced a massive boom in those suburbs turning them from farm land into suburbia. This won't happen along the whole corridor, but you can see the potential for population shift to occur.
It should start with a Sydney to Canberra link, leveraging the tunnelling technology that was have used so much in Sydney with Metro and road projects.
you did a much better job than the video at compiling and interpreting the data. This really should be pinned to the top of the comments section well done sir.
@@wraithel3704 😆 This was only well researched for 3 reasons. 1. I like trains, 2. I like statistics, 3. The data for population density is readily available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Solar panels, two way flow of electricity and how batteries can help with the whole problem is for someone much smarter than me sorry! While I whole heartedly support Solar power and Battery banks, I'm no where near as up to scratch to comment! I'd probably risk being wrong on the internet.
My understanding was that the new proposal was for a different corridor going via wollongong, nowra, canberra as it woudl service more population.
The density was very misleading
Agree and I don’t see why you can’t add the populations of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra to those stats as they will be the majority users of the line.
90 billion+ for submarines but not for high speed rail? :(
exactly 😐
big arms dealers are more generous than those train makers. you know what i mean.
Thats excluding operating and maintenance costs which are projected to be a furthur $145 billion. And these subs will only 'benefit' us for the next 3 or 4 decades at most? While a train line can be used for centuries.
Could easily placate the French by giving them the contract...
Australia needs a solid navy with the Chinese knocking about....your submarines will last a lot longer than 4 years.....you need strong security....you don't need trains! Airliners are just as good!
Build and invest in high speed rails to benefit ordinary Australians rather than buying useless submarines to benefit the US military industrial complex.
It will only happen if Scomo can use it to get reelected and to wedge Labor, like with the sub deal....oh, and if the Americans ok it!
Oh no, we couldn't do that! ....... Australia wouldn't look good to the International community if we didn't keep haemorrhaging billions of $ we don't have on useless shit that will end up costing 10 times it's initial stated cost.
I worked in rail for years bosses only see chainige per day rather than quality just ask
John there’s something you don’t know mate, those politicians will line their pockets with the submarines, just imagine with those billions spent how many infrastructure can be built for the benefit of the people.
@@petratherock908 I hear you mate.. it is so sad to see our corrupted politician sell this country to benefit a foreign power and companies rather doing something to benefit Australia and Australians. Just heard on the news they are spending billions more on US helicopters. When will this madness end?
The real reason is QANTAS, truck, housing, toll operators lobby. Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane corridor is one of the busiest air passages, high speed rail is feasible and environmentally friendly. They're just mad their profits will drop.
side effect of a developed economy, pension funds hijacks everything lol
Conspiracy theories don't help the argument.
@@gregessex1851 it’s not conspiracy theory, Australian pension funds have huge stakes in the aviation industry and subsequent energy corporations
@@xionglin2009 Qantas was owned by the government during early studies and it still didn't stack up. There is zero evidence to back your claim.
@@gregessex1851 That's not a conspiracy theory. That's the actual stated reason the VFT joint venture gave for abandoning the project.
QUANTS got special tax concessions, free infrastructure and yearly grants from the government. In order to compete the VFT wanted tax concessions too or for the government to revoke the subsidies they give to airlines so they could all compete on an equal playing field. The government refused and so the project was abandoned. Every proposal since then has faced opposition from airlines, automobile lobbies and toll road operators. These lobbies (which the Grattan Institute represents which is why they lied in the video) are the principle opposition to HSR in Australia. Every study ever done since 1984, including those by the Howard and Rudd government which the ABC deliberately misrepresent here, says that HSR is viable on Australia's East Coast and recommends starting construction ASAP.
Answer the question with another question. When has Aus ever been ahead of the curve? Our NBN is still being installed yet it’s as fast as what the rest of the world had 20 years ago. Nothing happens fast here.
People voted Liberal and the Liberals were paid by Foxtel to trash the project. They have since realized oh shit, we could have sent pay tv down fibre for 1 tenth of the cost. They only wanted to pay off their satellites.
@@fourbypete or we could have spent nothing and waited for 5g
@@AussieZeKieL 5G is flaky and very short range. If it wasn't for dark fiber you wouldn't have 5g.
It's about protecting the business monopoly.
I think if we went back to dial up with modum this may well prove to be quicker than the BS current Australian NBN.
Less money than the Submarines, and the High Speed rail would make money & friends as well as providing a real opportunity to live in Canberra & work in Sydney. But nah thats sensible!
Nah that makes too much sense for liberals
Logic and sense has no place in the Liberal Party (e.g. Liberals are not liberal! Got it?)
@@beesplaining1882 it's like when u call the redhead of the group bluey, it's ironic.
@@joshsmyth130 i think you're being too kind. It's deceptive!
@@beesplaining1882 wilful ignorance more like. We enjoy our insular view for some reason. Many are proud of it.
You're giving the answer at the start: airliners lobby.
Only one corridor in Australia can benefit from HSR That is Brisbane to Adelaide via Sydney and Melbourne
Qantas supported HSR in the 90s
If QANTAS owned a share and ran the high speed rail, they can still profit from it.
@@qjtvaddict I think you re in dream land connecting Adelaide at this stage, they can't even do Sydney-Canberra.
Fast trains,, slow government???. Just build the fkn thing.
It's almost as if Governments all around the developed world have forgotten what infrastructure actually means. It you have roads you can build a train.
Many developed countries have hsr. Much of western Europe, Japan, South Korea have good rail, I don't know if you include China as "developed" but they have the most extensive network. Even the UK is getting on with HS2.
No one wants to invest in Australia. Look at what Scott no friends did to France after they found out that China is paying for a rail trail from China to France.
The difference is, your petrol is 30% tax that pays for the roads and you don't have to build a destination or buy so much land in one lump sum.
@@fourbypete Australia does not have the population centres or density to support it. It’s just like the French sub deal. Useless technology delivering no benefits. HSR is useful in countries with many population centres and high density. Australia is too large and too much distance.
@@penguinlin85 I agree.
Its funny how the only time the govt speaks about carbon emissions is when its trying to prevent high speed rail
Sounds like that air planes or trucks don't send out less carbon emission!
Even a conventional speed train, around 150km/h, could do Sydney to Melbourne in little more than half the current 11 hours, if we got serious about improving rail infrastructure.
Even a tilt train, such as the Class 390 used in the UK, would allow faster speeds over the current CAL train coming in 2023. Queensland has a successful diesel tilt rail service as well. The issue is governments in Australia don't care about rail, never have, and don't look beyond the next election.
Unless you can beat trucks by 8 hours with overnight container trains people would keep using road transport.
that is the way I approach it too. Upgrade existing rail infrastructure. Bullet train speeds come at prohibitive expense. We may never see them. A 90- minute trip from Sydney to Canberra ought to be feasible. and affordable, though..
@@arokh72 I wouldn't totally agree. Tim Fischer for one, was a Nats leader in the ministry with enthusiasm for railways . And was considered a bit eccentric for that.
@@arokh72 i wouldnt look ino the class 390 for australian use. TGV's make more sense, as well as ICE's from ice 3, ice 4, ice velaro d because these are good trains at handling gradients. im not sure about 390, but please do let me know! we also need safety systems installed on the tracks ofc
It’s crazy how Australia’s fastest railways are located in QLD and WA entirely large areas with less population (less density), than in denser areas (SE mainland Australia, SE QLD to Adelaide, via Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney).
Because Sydney is surrounded by mountains, hills, a harbour, the Hawkesbury and doesn't have the space anymore to build more rail lines.
@@youngpookookoo2854 it will cost, but different lines could share the tracks for their network for example Sydney trains has 2 tracks, commercial network has 2 and the project has the rest, also tunnel construction could be diverted from the Blue mountains project to passing mountains, land use is possible.
Because that's the point of long distance rail? And they probably use the rail more to transport coal then people cause I can fly mfking Jetstar $79 and get where I want in 60 mins.
@@jont2576 it's more the vehicle than amount of destinations reached by rail, spirit of qld has a pretty new fleet, compared to NSW XPT 1990s fleet.
So has Japan and Europe...but they made it happen. China has now joined in too.
Australia is sooooo behind in technology, its a shame.
So is Canada and United States
I completely agree.
By the time we do finally get HSR and we wave a medal above our heads thinking we've just built the world's most advanced and futuristic system, the rest of the world will have already moved onto newer rail technologies.
It's always the same thing in Australia. Anything we do is 50 years behind the rest of the world
very true@@c.d.c9425
Because Howard was too interested in ruining the chances of future Australians to own their own home, his opening up of the Australian Residential Market is still to this today a National Disgrace, we don't have Good Leaders, we don't have good infrastructure and we can't afford our own homes.
Spot on...Howard.....one of the most destructive leaders we have had.....visionless.....little twirp....
In Victoria we have the V line running on DIESEL… absolutely dreadful and shameful in 2021. Not very nice to be gassed with a huge cloud of diesel carcinogenic smoke when I’m waiting for my train into the city and a crappy V line passes by. Upgrade to ELECTRIC trains please Australia. We can talk about high speed trains once we get the basics right, shall we?
There are thousands of projects that need to be completed in Australia before you would dream of spending $140 billion on a train.
Geelong electrification will come not that far in the future, with Ballarat and Bendigo likely to follow soon after. Many parts of the V/line network e.g. Bendigo - Swan Hill or Traralgon - Bairnsdale will never justify the cost of electrification though.
@@MetroManMelbourne Spoke to someone at the rail project information centre. I think it could be while before we see electrification of the V/Line network. Making newly-built diesel railmotors obsolete would not be a good look for any government. I would hope that it will happen some day though, if Queensland can electrify the rail line between Brisbane and Rockhampton (some 700km) there's no reason that at the very least we cannot electrify the lines as far as Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Seymour and Traralgon, if not all the way to Warrnambool, Ararat, Swan Hill, Echuca, Albury and Bairnsdale.
@@paulorocky Geelong electrification is a high priority (within 10 years)
They will be running on bio diesel soon.
Let's be real. $90B would be far better spent on public infrastructure like this. Rather than a handful of Subs that will never fire a shot.
@@soulsphere9242 a handful of subs in 20-30 years is not preparing shit
@@soulsphere9242 lol which of these government contracts arent severely delayed, it will definitely be more than 20 years. And what would we need them in 20 years for? Why would we go to war with china, and if we do go to war with china in 20 years whats a few more subs gonna do
@@soulsphere9242 Yes we are a nation whose building a navy to protect our trade from our number 1 trading partner. In the event of WW3 our best strategic bet is just to remain neutral and not be a target. There is no point in turning ourselves into nuclear target in a fight between 2 super powers we have literally nothing to gain. Allies are but temporary but geographic neighbours are forever. Need I remind that the US became the super power it is today because their mainland was essentially unscratched after WW2 whilst the rest of the world was in ruins
@@soulsphere9242 How much do you love your murdoch media mate?
How would it be ruinously expensive? It's cheap compared to somethings we've paid for.
Like the stupid F35 project... waste of money.
A little over 1 trillion if we did it today. OH and S, labor problems, a lack of investment money and being incompatible with cargo transport means it's a no go into the foreseeable future.
@@fourbypete 1 trillion isn't runiously expensive though.
@@grantbuttenshaw It's not really about the cost, it's about the time required to pay it back. It needs to be profitable from the get go. Only passengers would use it, (not compatable with frieght transport) it would have to link to or be close enough to metro and would have to be cheaper than taking a plane and cost less than taking a plane. Which it wouldn't.
Because it's pointless and will never come close to making money?
Meanwhile we can spend $1 billion per major intersection on the Pacific Highway.
We spend $20 billion on roads per year in QLD alone. Why can't we afford a national $40 billion project?
Your point is valid. Also, how many billions are slated for a second airport for Sydney? That doesn't mean we need to go to Shinkensen speed trains in one huge project. But electrifying and upgrading inter-city passenger trains to travel at twice the current speeds would be transformative. Once demand and feeder network has grown, go full TGV/Shinkansen.
@@MrDisasterboy absolutely, perspective is key. Syd-Cbr followed by Newcastle, Melbourne and last of all Brisbane over 20 years. In the meantime we could straighten out the entire route and aid rail freight and increase pax services. West Lander in QLD is booked months in advance, quality services get pax.
I always thought a 90-minute rail trip between Sydney and Canberra would be feasible on existing track, much upgraded. It would come at a price. I daresay the ticket price would be no cheaper than air travel.
@@chrisyorke6175 Because the existing line is circuitous, it's hard to upgrade it to compete with aircraft. The distance is close enough that a dedicated fit for purpose fast train line could compete with flying in time and price. And compete with road coach. Obviously,I haven't done the modelling, but the population sizes make it look that way.
That's because roads are not a direct competitor to the airline industry.
Flattest continent on the planet with most unbuilt open space can't afford HSR? Tourist trade would boom. Less reliance on cars, planes and trucks! Politicians are too short-sighted to bother.
To logical Roger......generous to say shortsighted....they dont give a fhuck...
@@noway5347 Thank you No Way ... maybe we need to be a little less restrained 🙂
As an American, I can tell you Aus is too remote for major tourism.
@@GUITARTIME2024 we get many tourists from Asia and the US.
We need high speed rail in Australia! We can live in towns and travel to the city for work.
Australians need to spread out, can’t cramp everyone into big cities.
HSR costs too much to maintain that is why China is going maglev which at 700 km/h can only stop every 200 km but at least we would be spread out a bit more between Sydney and Melbourne.
@@edwardbarnett6571 Really, there is no talk of new Maglev lines in China. The only major maglevl project is Between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan, and its need being built just for speed, its being built because the the Tokaido Shinkansen is at capacity, the Maglev option was chosen because it will offer a premium alternative.
@@zoltrix7779 Well they keep saying they have one which is faster than the Japanese one although at present they only have the German airport one and a slow one and they think it will go 620km/h in five years with 1 cm clearance and good luck with that.
@@zoltrix7779 actually China has the only commercially operated Shanghai maglev to its airport line. 30km in under 8 minutes at 431km per hour.
China has also built its first maglev train on local technology that will go at speeds upwards of 600km per hour, with plans to start on the first low pressure vacuum system test line by 2025 able to exceed 1000km per hour.
Plans are in place to utilise locally grown maglev technology first in short connections to satellite regional cities no more than 200km away during the first half of this decade to later upgrading the Beijing to Shanghai rail corridor in the second half of the decade.
@@edwardbarnett6571 Japan is now building an intercity Maglev, because capacity of intercity planes, highways, and existing Shinkansen have all maxed out. They plan to open the route from Tokyo to Nagoya by 2027.
60 billion on nuclear submarine. The Australian gov.wants Australian to go underwater by submarine. Good luck. Hahaha.
How could this 'report' make no mention of China? Hilarious! Even countries like Turkey and Taiwan have high-speed rail... Meanwhile, in NSW it's actually faster to drive from Sydney to Newcastle than to catch a train...
Yes Good point - I'm in Shenzhen, China (for the past 7 years) - where HSR connects almost every city now. By far the largest in the world.
But the thing is... not only population and city size... ANY kind of rail still needs to compete with air travel. What that means is - the rail tickets don't discount, while airlines are constantly competing with each other so prices are almost always being discounted, often to be CHEAPER than train tickets. And while HSR trains are faster than old trains, they're still a lot slower than flying long distances.
What I and most people here do is use HSR for anything upto about 500ish km, and check flight prices after that. For anything more than about 1000km, almost NOBODY uses HSR.
Also, there's the argument that getting to and through a train station is a lot quicker (at both ends) than airports. In my experience using this for many years now, that's... not really true. Even if the train station is right in the city center (which is not the case anyway), you still need to get to the city center, and once inside, still need to go through ticketing queues, security queues, and boarding queues... Basically - the same thing. On the other hand, in their favour, they ALWAYS run exactly on time (here in China anyway).
ABC == LNP's mouthpiece == only bad news come out of china.
@@hellothere2469 Er, what does this have to do with bad news?...
@@PeterReefman HSR in china is NOT a profitable business, in fact, it is costing Chinese government a lot to keep it running, doubt federal or local governments here want to pick up the bill, just look at the new quarantine facilities in qld.
@@PeterReefman lol, doubt you are in AU. the point is, when MSMs mention china, always say bad things about china, if not, you can't sell.
The craziest thing is that debt is so cheap now, so if you ever will do it, it would be now......
It's myopia. We fail to see further ahead than the fog that covers our view. It's a shame, but it's also typical.
Not really. $128Bn plus typical 40% overrun would burden future generations in a significant way.
@@MI2003 The 10k-per-person metric is just dumbed-down propaganda. If you spread it out over 50 years, that's $200 per person each year. Much more manageable. It also has economical benefits that would counteract the short-term costs incurred.
We are too stupid in this country to make it happen
We need better public transport and city planning in Australia, improve health and happiness for all, remove bad and drunk drivers from roads, grow the economy.
If we didn't waste money on useless submarines we would have this built already!!!
Bingo!
Investing on military and boosting our capabilities is not stupid, completely depending on other countries for our security and sovereignty is stupid. What good is infrastructure if other countries can hijack your future for generation.
@@NickG_ you're genuinely clueless
@@yakm5385 And perhaps you are a naive hippy who thinks the world is all fair
@@NickG_ such archaic thinking! We need defence? From whom? And why would they bother? And infrastructure is also used in defence! Not to mention EVERYTHING else!
Allow the Chinese to build it at a third of the labour costs. They're experts on high-speed railways.
Nah, that is too sensible.. let's buy useless sub to pleased our American master instead.
And they'll gladly do it, so long as you kindly sign off on ditching all environmental and labor protection standards or private property rights, and agree to pay on their terms or else give them control of your mines and ports in perpetuity.
This issue is a great example of one of Australia's greatest weaknesses: conservatism. Conservatism stifles forward thinking and building for future generations. The fact is, Australia's population density will increase, but if we wait until the pop density number is favourable, the cost of materials will make it unviable. The lack of investment over the last 100 years is the reason it would cost so much to upgrade now. The other issue with justifying the cost is that the focus is always on passenger rail. The biggest benefit of high speed rail would actually be for freight. At the moment Australia transports most of it's freight inland on roads with some being transported via an 19th century rail system. It's slow, inefficient and dangerous. The cost of road transport can be counted in lives, something that wouldn't be necessary if high speed freight transport were available to make shipping across vast distances fast, cheap and safe.
What bothers me is the sheer amount of freight between Melbourne & Sydney is just destroying the current railway infrastructure. We use very light rails for instance & the 2 km long trains are destroying it. Then the companies who maintain the track use the cheapest technology to maintain it. The result look at videos of freight trains, the track is ridiculously uneven filled with dips & mud holes . It is just waiting for a massive derailment in a larger country town that could cause a lot of fatalities in the towns alongside the track. Tim Fischer was the only politician interested.
It's not conservatism, it's neoliberalism
It is because we are an aging consertive nation and while it would not work everywhere a maglev, which is the future of rail, Sydney/Melbourne would get freight 8 hours faster than trucks and save 5,000,000 tonne of jet fuel per year.
Not all things are a good idea however and even though the Sydney Opera house cost 14 times the original price people love it now ha ha.
@@beagle7622 Only 4% of palletised freight goes between Sydney and Melbourne and the rest goes mainly by overnight trucks so to keep daytime fares low it must have a seperate 700 km/h maglev line that can take an overnight container train with some of the profit patching the existing slow bulk rail perhaps.
The big unanswered question is whether this sort of project will be initiated by private enterprise or by government. Government takes on projects when the private sector considers them too risky. Political history shows that it is hard to funnel public money into such large projects without solid popular support. The old story: political achievement depends on getting the numbers. . If HSR is to compete with existing transport modes, private enterprise will approach the project with hard-headed cost-benefit studies. Is that what you mean by conservatism?
high speed rail to the node
Smaller high-speed rail networks which connect capital cities to regional centres in the same state is the only feasible option in my opinion. It'd be an excellent way to de-centralise the cities and bring huge economic benefits to the regions, especially in-land regions.
It will also benefit many many more people more frequently.
A staged approach is the way to go. Just make sure those services have common standards and the railcars are interoperable. In time the network would connect up and become comprehensive. Newcastle-Sydney-Canberra and Geelong- Shepparton would be a good start. Once those routes have proven themselves...
Would need to start by separating passenger and freight lines.
@@MrDisasterboy Sydney-Canberra seems a very difficult leg engineering, and cost, wise due to the dividing range. And Canberra having nowhere near Civic to put a suitable station or lay track. Heading west from and eastern seaboard city is probably the hard part. It is mad that its about an hour faster to take bus between Canberra and Sydney than take the train.
@@TheGreatLordDufus sure, a faster route would be different to the current one built for steam engines. An expensive but worthwhile investment.
Because Australia follows America
It seems a race to the bottom but soon there will be nobody who wants to drive a truck worldwide.
Don’t be surprised if Australia ever does build a high speed rail, NBN Co will be in charge of the project.NBN Co has a lot of experience in building fast and efficient infrastructure.
hahaaha
The NBN Co was supposed to deliver until they decided to kick out Huawei.
who cares how much it will cost. it will build cities all over the east coast bring it on I might be able to afford a house.
Hell yeah I'm right with you on that!
That's the thing though - the liberal govt don't care about the common individual. The business people it looks after can afford to fly.
Sounds like it will add to climate change. Better stay indoors and shut up. Sheep.
@@diegomontoya8095 they even pointed out that it uses less then planes every yeah yes it will produce a lot in construction but that it a onetime thing eventually we will need to build it and with the smaller number of flights it will pay off its carbon foot print
@@------837 does the construction footprint overtake the air travel footprint in 10 years? By then it will be too late. How many people live in Australia? How much footprint is created by the amount of goods shipped to and from Australia? Seems selfish for such a small group of white colonizers.
Australia can afford $300 billions on missiles and subs, but cant afford whats good for the people. Bahahahahaahaha too funny that China has the most advance system in the world and is not mentioned. I have been in one and it is so awesome and very smooth ride. Kevin Rudd is right!!!!!
I got an idea instead of giving US billions for subs , give the money to China they will build for you high speed rail , no fuss , no bull , within time and budget.
Hey win win 😂
I've been on those trains in China , fast , clean , safe , comfortable, a lot of leg room, and they run on time!
China has 35,000 ks of high speed rail .
Better than waiting for a bloody plane.
Hello from NZ.
Nah, your idea is too sensible and only benefit ordinary Australians. Let's waste money to buy submarines and enrich a few US billionaires instead.☹️
Beginning to sense a narrative coming out of the Grattan Institute. Their arguments online the other day about how bad electic cars are were laughable and full of the most glaring omissions, obfuscations and conflations. This representative talking about steel and concrete as if we don't already make steel and concrete and ignoring the fact that emissions free steel and concrete can be made seems to be pushing the same narrative. The fact is, there are big vested interests in this country whose toes would be trodden on if things changed. Whenever a perfectly rational project is not executed, there's pretty much always a good reason why: vested interests.
Don't forget those studies were done in the 90s, we have much lower carbon emission steel and concrete now. Is it cheaper to produce, NO. Way more expensive in fact. A Brisbane to Melbourne via Sydney rail will cost over 1 trillion now.
@@fourbypete $1 trillion, are you high?
@@Kvothethe Think about dude. 4000klm of high speed track. Very little of the current tack can be used, they have to buy land, pay lots of people to build it. Also, they have to find a straight route that runs close enough to major towns that will use it. In 5 years it could be twice that cost. It's not that much money when you consider 1klm of tunnel in Sydney's Mroads cost 1 billion. Brisbane to Melbourne via Sydney dual lanes most of the way will never likely be profitable.
Almost like they're bought and paid for stooges of the fossil fuel industry.
@@fourbypete 1trillion dollars of 1billion/km tunnel is 1000kms worth of tunnel. Even if we tunneled the entire length of the line between Melbourne and Sydney at that cost estimate it would still be less than half that price. Use your damn brain when you suggest things like this.
well there is akways enough money for Submarines..
Aussie labour is not the same as the Japanese or Chinese labour. What they build in 5 years would take Australia 25 years.
And have you seen the quality of a Chinese building?
@@phuckpootube6231 lol, have you ever bought an apartment in VIC? whenever it is raining outside, there is a lake in the basement.
@@phuckpootube6231 lol buildings collapsed in melb in a 5.8 degrees of earthquake
@@doopski 豆腐渣工程
@@phuckpootube6231 have you seen the quality of Australian buildings nowadays? Opal towers, mascot building, Auburn Chatswood?
In Britain they had steam powered trains running at 90-100mph 90 years ago, one of them did 126mph in 1938.
And the British terrain is much more complicated and cramped than it is in Australia or America.
yep! but im worried about the tracks getting screwed over from the heat. hopefully we get an ICE 3 or a tgv in some years ;)
The UK isn’t the best example. While we were still mucking about with express steam locomotives, the rest of Europe was switching to electric locomotives.
@@OvercookedSteak Railroads operate in Saudii Arabia and Egypt just fine in the heat. The rails are air conditioned.
@@davidjackson7281 correct, but we have an unproductive government who probably would never fund the tracks that much money. If Australia had a unified rail network (take for example Deutsche Bahn), we could probably see more efforts to high speed rail. Interstate gauge issues wouldn't be a thing either because the high speed trains would be utilising their own tracks. But to be honest, I don't see any efforts going towards that. Each state owned railway company has already been investing an ENORMOUS amount of money into their own projects:
Queensland Rail: NGRs, Refurbishment of SMU and IMU, cross river rail, ETCS installation, station upgrades
NSW: NIF D sets (and the alterations done to the network to service these trains), ETCS installation
VIC: Don't know to be honest
TL;DR State owned operators have already put their money towards other stuff, and our government probably wouldn't fund us something like that.
@@OvercookedSteak That's interesting about the level of Australian passenger rail service.
Looking at the distance from Sydney to Melbourne and the metro populations there may not be enough need for an expensive true high speed rail system. A more economical fast speed (aka semi-high speed) diesel Brightline-like train from Florida may be better suited.
Using 110 mph and 135 mph track the 550 mile trip may take as little as 5hr30min. Similar rail lines in SEA (Laos) have a top speed of 100 mph and average up to 75 mph.
The XPT between Coffs Harbour and Sydney, travels at about the same average speed that Stephenson's Rocket did at the Rainhill Trials held in 1829. So, 192 years after the Trials, we now have a service whose average speed is the same as the Rockets, what a great leap forward we have made in the main line servicing the East Coast of Australia!!! The Rocket reached a maximum speed of 48 kilometres per hour. I we divide the distance from Coffs Harbour to Sydney, by the travel time of nine and a quarter hours, we discover that the average speed of the train is approximately 48 kilometres per hour. Just imagine if Sydney could be reached in say two hours. This would be so much faster than air travel where 90% of the time is spent getting to the airport, parking, and paying for a parking space, having to arrive at least one hour before the flights departure to check in, go through security, be swabbed for explosives and then sitting on our bums until we are told to board. Boarding can take up to twenty minutes. The aircraft crew farts around doing prefight checks in case it decides to have a computer failure, we are shown how to blow a whistle if the plane falls into the sea (God know what use the whistle would be, unless they were all pitched for different note and with a little practice the drowning passengers may be able to play a few hymns such as "Nearer my Gawd to thee". and we are finally airborne. One and a half hours later the plane does a controlled crash and lands at Sydney airport. A two-kilometre hike along long hallways, down to the first floor where hopefully, within ten to twenty minutes, our baggage will start to appear. Another trek to the exit door of the airport, conveniently located about100 metres from the baggage conveyer where one hopes a taxi, or a friend will be waiting. If a friend is waiting it is another long hike to the car park where the car owner has to pay a parking fee that makes him shudder and cause his/her Visa Card to start to smoulder. Now, Train travel. Arrive about ten minutes before train arrives, board through door, that is where a spot on the platform is marked, put baggage in bay provided at the end of the carriage and take a seat. by this time the train is under way and when the train arrives in Sydney, we collect our luggage from the storage bay, disembark and find that a friend or family member has been able to park near the platforms for a reasonable fee. Now just imagine, if you will, if the same trip took two hours instead of nine and a half hours. these travel times over long distances are achievable and use a hell of a lot less power, and thus pollution, than an aircraft does. Sadly this will not happen in my lifetime. The French were the first, then Japanese, Chinese, and just about every other first world country in the world has high speed trains, except for Australia and the USA. What is wrong with our country that we can't have high speed rail? OH, so someone is suggesting that the corrupt politicians running the place don't have the imagination or the will to even consider high speed rail??????????
It's crazy how you guys have a version of the British HST (A train that could travel at 125mph and shortened Paddington to Penzance from 8 hours to just under 5 hours) yet it runs so slow.
i aint reading all that, happy for you though... or sad for you
Imagine all the foreign tourists hopping on the XPT at Central not realising how slow it is....embarrassing!!
I have had people tell me they would come to Australia just to experience a Sydney to Melbourne maglev and I happened to sit next to a lady from Albury going Melbourne/Hobart who thought a maglev that stopped there would be great.
And China's 18,000km High Speed (350kph) rail or we aren't allowed to compare with the best?
Political correctness does not allow it as well as that five-letter "C" word.
Unless you can take overnight container trains Sydney/Melbourne 8 hours faster than trucks to reduce daytime fares the economics do not stack up in Australia.
@@edwardbarnett6571 The new dedicated HSR tracks will leave the current line for industry/Container shipping only to increase the profits. Generally, HSR tracks can not be used to run heavy freight.
@@iqbang9236 So where is China going to use a 600 km/h maglev.
There is an editorial ban on providing anything approaching positive coverage on China by the ABC.
We need a national government rail operator to make anything major happen with intercity high speed rail and not privatise the operator.
Never happen too many self interrest groups
OMFG finally! yes, we need a nationalised operator, but i have little hope.
Who needs a high speed trail, when we can put our money to buy some shinning nuclear subs, which we can use to attack our biggest customer in the future?
You mean the customer who wants to rule and take over Australia and that has already been attacking Australia through hacking our institutions.
@@carisi2k11 Oh, man, you got brain washed so much. Australia is not that an important country, all China need there is some iron ore, and China keeps paying a good price for buying that. Why on earth China plan or need to rule that country?!
China is afraid of a blockade and Australia needs freedom of navigation let us all hope common sense will prevail.
@@edwardbarnett6571 Enlighten me how Aussie's freedom of navigation was affected by China? Actually Aussies biggest profit was introduced by shipping iron ore to China! Talk about common sense, how funny is that, Aussie keeps doing it best to annoy its biggest customer, so all the replaced China business shifted to Us!
@@haizhizhong Australia is just as afraid of China threatening free passage which I have heard warnings as China is afraid of a blockade
Because Howard decided it would be a better investment to build a rail line from Adelaide to Darwin.
Is that a joke? The Federal contribution to the Adelaide to Darwin line was half a billion as I recall. The VFT proposal is estimated to cost up to 128 billion, or $10000 per taxpayer 3:40..
It kind of is. Not to mention the Ghan that line ferries huge amounts of goods to and from the NT and the rest of the country
@@chrisyorke6175 paid for over 35 years it would have been affordable. That number does not take into account return on investment and use by tourists.
It was from Alice to Darwin. The Line existed from Adelaide to the Alice.
I lost hope for this long time ago coz we (Vic) still dont even have a train to airport.
Its expensive to build i get it but Scomo is about to spend 66 billion for submarine......
Is there any reason why Chinese high speed rail is not even mentioned? That's the longest rail network in the world.
Xenophobia and myopic thinking. We are an insular country with not many people who are intelligent and forward thinking.
1.5 billion people. Massive tax base approx 60 times ours.
Because the money had been used to buy submarines.
It would lower Sydney house prices consequently the liberal government will block it at all costs despite the fact that the economic stimulus of building it would help the covid recovery.
No it wouldn't. Building high speed rail around Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane that could be used by commuters would reduce house prices.
@@gregessex1851 Ye no! Housing prices will skyrocket as land value is much higher if you have public transport.
@@Mgameing123 They will reduce across the city if you increase supply.
@@gregessex1851 True but if we want to build houses! The best way to build the railway first. Then get it running even though its going to the middle of nowhere then in no time the middle of nowhere will become huge developments!
@@Mgameing123 As part of proper land use planning, yes. My point is that good faster trains around our capital cities will be a much better way to spend money than high speed rail connecting those capital cities.
*It would be nice to have high speed rail. our rail here in Australia is embarrassing*
We need it. Imagine working in Melbourne & living in Albury. Would be great...
I think start with a line from Melbourne to Albury. The alignment is relatively straight and the terrain doesn't pose too much of a challenge. There are no scheduled air services with the major airlines on that corridor so you would only be competing with motor vehicle traffic. If it works out, then extend it to Canberra and Sydney.
@@paulorocky If it is all done in a 14m, 11psi, 700km/h single tunnel there is no disruption or surface expenses.
Also Canberra is in desperate need of a Sydney 20 minute connection so it could be done at the same time.
High-speed rail is the solution to solve our housing crisis. Just build it, and people will use it.
Lot's of successive governments burned the idea because not enough people will use it to make it profitable. The only reason they are building metro is because workers that don't need to drive to work will save money and time using it. Long distance rail is dead until they can make it for a fraction of the cost.
If you have 50 cities along the route it will hardly be high speed to get anywhere will it?
@@Munrubenmuz Stopping trains and non-stopping trains is quite a thing, you know.
@@fourbypete There's more than enough people to use it in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne alone, let alone all those between Brisbane and Sydney.
@@philroberts7238 But will they? The studies into HSR say no.
Why doesn't the US have high speed rail?
Same reason as us, because of the airline industry.
Because they're busy building nuclear U boats for mass destructions! 😂
Because creating wars and selling submarines to the gubbible LNP are more profitable 😄
The US got a high-speed train of Shinkansen underway .
The development of the very fast train is a very slow process in Australia.
1 submarine or a fast train?
The longer it’s put off, the more expensive it’ll get. Jet fuel isn’t going to remain cheap forever, even if it takes a very long time for that to happen. I think it’s bound to happen eventually, but currently no government wants to step up to the plate.
Nah! We got real estate and mining.
High speed rail isn't supposed to make money, not in the narrow view taken by private organisations. The profit of HSR is in the (external) benefits it provides. Reduced road traffic (fewer road injuries, road maintenance, pollution etc etc) is just one of them.
I dislike that we talk about rail subsidies being bad, but forget that roads are 100% subsidised.
Actually, if all overnight freight betweenSydney and Melbourne go by maintainence free maglev there would be hardly maintenance on the Hume.
If separate states want to make a start that's great. Just make sure that the rail gauges and various systems are compatible.
That’s been fixed since the 70s.
Wholeheartedly agree and I would suggest a maintenance free international maglev guideway designed by many nations that take ISO carriages and overnight container trains to make it economically viable in many parts of the world.
Because of its beaurocracy and bad administration.
Welcome to Australia we are behind the rest of the world we might as well have horse and cart compared to other countries
Why do Australians seem to hate hyphens so much? It's "high-speed rail", "cage-free eggs", "fat-free milk", etc.
Edit: 0:45 At least the graphics person knows how to use a hyphen. Maybe you should hire them to do your proofreading, too!
Because it's not necessary to use it in any of those? Convention is not automatically the only correct notation.
@@benjaminmcintosh857 yes, it is. Example: “cage free eggs” could be taken to mean one should cage up free eggs. Hyphens matter, people!
@@electricmaster23 you'd have to be pretty dull to misinterpret any of the examples you gave that badly
3:40 wouldn't that be the average? And that ignores private investment... this feels like it's missleading the audience into thinking this will take 10k from everyone which simply isn't how it would ever work. Besides saying it would only benefit business travelers ignores countless demographics who would use it, the wider economic impacts (which academics universally agree are sound), and the fact that the alternative (air travel) is already a high cost industry doing the same thing which makes the audience think it's an entirely new investment rather than a reallocation of funds - whoever the person 'refuting' the benefits of high speed rail is either poorly read on the literature of high speed rail or blatantly misrepresenting the case for Qantas' sake lmao
What does the annual petroleum excise equate to nowadays? 20billion or so? So maybe a few years of funneling the funds and its paid for. Do it!
Are you implying the putative rail project should take a huge amount of traffic off our roads? It is only supposed to replace some of the air-borne traffic between Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
@@chrisyorke6175 Well it all depends on the economics and I would imagine as cities grow bigger and tunnels get cheaper with experience and innovation, I feel Parrahub to Brisbane would be next especially if the big transport operators want to get their freight faster and cheaper overnight to ensure the daytime fare is below that of planes.
Building high speed trains is the easy and cheap part.
What costs the money is high speed rail lines and that will need a new rail corridor with very bery gentle curves and high quality track.
Also providing overhead line equipment called catenary at 25kv AC.
And the airline lobby wouldn’t have anything to do about it would it?
Just imagine if we could smooth out the trackage of the main south, XPT's that can do more than the piddly 40kph in long stretches on the country parts of the state....
I don't know about you guys, I don't care about high speed, just make the current trains a little faster and a lot more reliable...
Totally the start. If its implemented so that its ready for future HSR its an even better investment. But a 6 hour Sydney-Melbourne train would take a lot of travellers off rail, car and coach. Even if its in net time, slower than flying, the comfort is preferable for a lot of people.
@@MrDisasterboy Particularly if it was comfortable as an overnight journey. Finish up at the office, have dinner, hop on the train and be in the other city for breakfast.
There is no point fixing the current alignment, that will still be needed for freight anyway. HSR is such a no brainer. It is to serve the nation, don't care if its profitable.
Isn't the Grattan Institute right wing aligned supposedly independent liberal democrat think tank.
We shouldn’t be building just for the current generation (or even population), we should be building for the future! Sydney Harbour Bridge was built with 6 lanes, when there were hardly any cars on road. Now we have outgrown them! Tracks built for bullet train now can function as something else in the future.
Increased train speeds can only be achieved if the rail corridor is upgraded, in NSW the existing rail corridors were built to a formula of the cheapest cost per mile, as a result the distance between two towns by this formula was longer because it was cheaper by the mile to wind the rail corridor around tight curves & steeper gradients than a straight line through a mountain or hill via a series of cuttings or tunnels, a prime example is the North Coast corkscrew rail corridor, it has so many tight curves on it that the XPT is a waste of modern rail design from the 1960's, the Sydney Melbourne rail corridor could be improved by new track alignment to remove once again the way the line was built back in the 1880's, instead of winding its way over a hill, go through it by a tunnel or deep cuttings, or increase the track gradient, using momentum of the train speed to negotiate the grade, as practised in Europe, it works well with high speed electrified passenger equipment, but does present a problem for the existing out dated freight equipment, and thats where the problem arises, you cannot run higher speed passenger trains if you are constrained with the slower moving freight trains, that currently dominate the Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane rail corridor, the inland rail corridor when completed will go some way to remove this problem for freight moving between Brisbane/Melbourne, but will have no effect on the freight train movements between Sydney/Melbourne, and this then leads back to a new rail corridor for high speed passenger trains.
This needs to be done, not just to bring our infrastructure up to date, but also for environmental reasons. We need to discourage as many people as possible from flying. We can do this by levying a small tax on all airfares in south-eastern Australia. Bingo! We'll have paid for high speed rail in no time.
It's not about the cost. Seriously, the government will spend an unknown amount on Nuclear submarines which will have a lifespan of 30 years and will probably never be used in combat. High speed rail to major regional towns on the east coast would also cost a lot but would actually benefit the community. It's a nation building project which would unite the 3 biggest states and the capital territory together. Will probably never happen though because we live in a third world backwater prison island.
@@MrRatclima I’ve lived in Japan and know the Shinkansen well. 20 years ago the Hokuriku line only went to Nagano. This was recently extended all the way to Kanazawa. It’s absolutely transformed that city. People who have jobs in Tokyo can live in Kanazawa and can commute when they’re needed in the office. Tourism from Tokyo has taken off. It’s a technology that is transformative to the communities that it runs through.
However Australia may soon have a high speed rail service if the Geelong line electrification and upgrade project goes ahead which also preposes for high speed electric trains to run between Melbourne and Geelong while also preposing for Geelong services to run through the new Metro Tunnel that’s not too far from completion! :)
Because the Americans/Canadians don't do it should never be a valid reason. Americans don't do roundabouts, gun-control, employer/consumer/environmental/health protection regulations either.
The Americans and Canadians don't do it because its the same reason why we don't do it. We keep bailing out the airline industry. Until it becomes a day where the airlines don't own the governments any money and get no more bailouts that is when we will see a high speed rail network. Until then we will never see such a thing.
@@muckman5509 If it stacks up we vote.
The track we have in a lot of places, it is curvier than a Kardashian photoshop fail.
*Let's fix the current rail we have first:* straighten and weld the track joints between Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide, so we can have *tilt* trains that can go a lot faster on these tracks (such as that which exists on the Brisbane to Rockhampton line), and do anything else that's necessary (like adding maintenance and overtaking track) so the time distance between the major east coast capitals is reduced from 12 hours to 6 hours, for a fraction of the cost of Japanese style bullet trains.
Even if we ever do get Japanese style bullet trains on dedicated high speed rail, for them to be effective, they probably will only have maybe 1 stop (3 at most, though possibly even no stops) between Sydney and Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane.
Love Australia and can’t understand why there isn’t a high speed line linking Melbourne. Canberra and then Sydney (and the up the eastern seaboard to Queensland if that is doable). There is so much land and the cost shouldn’t be crazy high like in the UK.
So much of the cost involved is in project costs. Places like Spain and China manage to keep those costs under control by building capacity instead of building railways. China was able to build the world's most extensive HSR network from nothing in two decades by putting systems in place that mean they can always be doing something. China in particular just lined everything up and got to it. If you were part of a track-laying crew, you'd be assigned to a particular section to go and lay the track for it, and whenever you finished there was almost certainly another section that was ready to have track laid that you could be assigned to almost straight away. Even if you take out the ease with which the government can just ram through plans with very little consultation, the efficiency of the model in eliminating startup and shutdown costs on project infrastructure keeps the numbers down.
Like Western Sydney neglected because everything is focused in eastern suburbs. No jobs western Sydney when majority population is in western Sydney. Idk wtf government not being forward thinking. Build a city out west.
They're doing that in badgery's creek around an airport lol
Build Parrahub.
It's a fact that creating high speed high capicity transport will increase economic movement. within 10 years the train will almost pay for itself. and cars and car infrastructure are a terribly inefficient.
Because they tore up Victoria's belt and road agreement, that's why. Duh.
Bullet trains would be used greatly by overseas travelers, make tickets cheaper for Australian citizens and more expensive for tourists.
Hello is that you Pauline
@@travl8138 ?
4:25 yeah no kidding, that's why it's proposed in the equivalently dense section (the east coast) rather than from Perth to Broken hill, that blatantly misrepresents the issue
yes, HSR in the Geelong -> Traralgon corridor or the Wollongong -> Newcastle is expected because of the density, we aren't talking about nation wide Perth to Brisbane
Most of this report was based on a conservative think tank's ideas by the looks of it...
For countries like the US, Canada and Australia, I think High Speed Rail is perhaps too big a step for now. It would seem more sensible to work on upgrading/electrifying the existing infrastructure to meet a consistent reasonable pace (100-125mph) rather than going straight for brand new HSR alignments. Then just get some extra funding for more frequent service, new rolling stock and you could get up and running much quicker that way - then as works are completed in a piecemeal fashion, the improvement will be felt almost immediately.
HSR is probably a good idea for 20/30 years time once these systems have proven themselves to be popular and begin to reach their capacity limits, but I think for now it's best to just run a competitive, consistent service.
HSR is never a good idea as it costs too much to maintain and is unable to be available 24/7
It is better to go to slow and fast maglev for local and intercity respectivly.
@@edwardbarnett6571 That's not true - HSR networks tend to be much more resilient than existing railway networks as they are designed from the ground up for the service pattern being run on them.
In terms of Maglev - that's a way of truly burning a significant amount of money without much in terms of benefit. Maglev just isn't THAT much faster than HSR and ends up being stuck with the same air resistance issues at high speed, leading it to have very similar power consumption problems above around 300-350kph. Plus Maglev can't work with existing infrastructure.
@@joshlikescola France spends one third of the fare on maintenance and Japan closes up every night to do it
True the tunnel resistance is what limits the Japanese maglev so that is why I suggest a bigger tunnel at 11psi the lowest pressure people breath comfortably while allowing the maglev to go 700 km/h
High speed rail will only ever work between Australia's closest and most populated cities - Newcastle, Sydney & Wollongong
I think slow maintenance free maglev would be better.
and Gold coast, Brisbane, Sunshine coast very dense.
The influx of people to regional centers and the rise of working from home maybe... just maybe moved the conversation a millimeter towards doing this. 😕
Now that thought brings back a lot of memories to a time when those regional centres had excellent connectiviry via rail networks.
Even just an upgrade of existing would be good. Eg the XPT doesn’t get up to speed until Tarana heading west because the route that the western line has followed since it was first built.
There are almost no profitable HSR lines in the world. It's a vanity project. That's why there is no HSR.
Beijing-Shanghai line is quite profitable and that is considering the Chinese government forcing the company to make its tickets cheap
Profit is not important in public transport. Not a single suburban or regional railway system in Australia makes profit, they are all heavily subsidised. The question is more about the economic benefits it would bring, and whether those are sufficient enough to outweigh the costs.
Pretty much every transport mode is subsidised. But the economy gains net benefits. Passenger rail can save on public investment in airports and roads. The basis is relative costs, not absolute costs.
@@MetroManMelbourne more importantly, how does it rank against competing projects. I would say that 14 new $10 billion metros in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane would deliver 100 times the benefit of a $140 VFT project.
I would rather High Speed Rail, than useless submarines.
@@soulsphere9242 well I guess 1 nuke will solve the problem!
@@soulsphere9242 There are 10m people going between Sydney and Melbourne every year and if the fare is cheaper and just as fast as planes they would use trains
@@soulsphere9242 Anoyher comment said the big transport operators would be against and it got me thinking at $100,000 per train and getting to a freight siding 8 hours faster than any truck they may want to kick the can especially as it is getting harder to get truck drivers worldwide.
Oh there you go, no mention of the largest high speed rail network in the world, namely in China. Then again I forgot China bad!
Yes china is bad :)
In the 80's the Fed Govt had not only mapped a plan for Melbourne to Sydney (and north?) and had put elements of it into action. The route was identified, parts of which were fenced off, a tech group was working on signalling programming. We were very close but it caame to a halt. Same as what happened to the Maldon Dombarton line which could be a Godsend for western Sydney airport.
Why do these people "in the know" always seem to say that something "does not appeal to", or Australia "does not have the needs" at this time?
The project will take many many years to complete at which time it quite probably will appeal, or Australia will have the need. As a country, Australia always seems to suffer because our leaders and those in the know are always living yesterday and never thinking about tomorrow.
high speed rail - the only form of passenger transport which runs a service every 3 years when a federal election comes around
also, building inland cities to “back-fill” HSR passenger numbers surely defeats the fundamental purpose of HSR if that train stops and starts every 80kms or so? or is that really about land banking and property developers to be able to capture the uplift in land value after zoning changes?
finally, wouldn’t HSR track infrastructure need to be separated from metropolitan trains to get passengers into the city at high speed, but where’s the land reservation or a buffer for new tracks ? nope - there’s apartment buildings all along the rail corridor near the CBD area.. so HSR is going to have to share track & signals with existing trains? or just dig tunnels until you’re outside the city area? or perhaps build the tracks above the existing track on elevated bridges etc? 😂🤔
Couldn't we connect Newcastle, lake Macquarie Wollongong and other coastal cities already existing thus allowing people to be able to access affordable housing and still commute to Sydney?
are we shipping teddy bears on those 150 flights per day between sydney and melbourne? those are people, those are demands
@@legendaussie465 That would also require affordable prices for high-speed train commutes, which seems impossible given that the government has no intention of subsidising the program.
@@rickyy7802 this government that is
I caught a high speed train in china from Shanghai to sucho it's not that spectacular it's really not a big deal
Imagine opening up the central coast , Newcastle, even as far as Forster what good that could do for society
HSR stopping fairly frequently is common. Go look at stop distance on lines like the Shinkansen or TVG, they're actually shorter than any proposal for Australian HSR I've ever seen.
It's pretty standard to multitrack and run some trains as stopping all stations and some as express or partial express.
Building it's less challenging than you're making out too, we'd almost certainly want to bore a tunnel, although a long viaduct is also viable. I don't know why you'd assume if we were going to build a viaduct it would follow existing rail though. It would almost certainly be built over a pre-existing road. This is probably the way we'd actually opt to built the rail link in Sydney, since it can easily mirror the M4 the majority of the way through the city. Since no such easy option exists in Melbourne it's far more likely the tracks here would follow a bored tunnel the length of the city, which really isn't a crazy long tunnel compared to some of the tunnels that have been built on HSR. Even the other thing that you listed, sharing the last leg of tracks with trains into one city is an option, it would only add ~5-10 minutes to the trip. We could only do this for one end of the trip however due to the fact that Melbourne uses wide gauge while Sydney uses standard. Standard gauge is probably the better option for HSR so if we wanted to use our viaduct we could just deflect onto Sydney's main rail network near Burwood. Or we could not and tunnel the rest of the distance of about 10km from where that highway goes underground.
It's always funny to see these posts count out things that many other countries have done to build HSR as silly though.
How ridiculous here in Melbourne the infrastructure of roads and rail date back to the 1950s1960s they have built New suburbs with 30'000 people and the roads are not even updated ...The roads are 3rd world and riffled with pot holes.
And if they did built the rail fast train welcome to Melbourne southern cross rail station... Believe me it's a diesel fume trap ... Ugliest architecture...the amenities are apaulling the surface is bitchem ..dark and dingy.
Please don't build anything in Australia if your a foreign investor.
Australia is a Racist country which is built by migrants...
Yet look how the treated the Sydney Opera house architecture Utzon.
He left in disgust how the treated him and went back to Northern Europe.
Most recent we gave a contract to build submarines and they nobodies tore the contract with France.
Australia has never had any vision and has always relayed on outside help or assistance....All the while they are have their prejudice ingrained in their DNA.
Australia should be a 3rd world country.
We sent all our manufacturing overseas.
investors have a better chance at a casino win than dealing with Australians.
I'm born here and I have never been accepted or fitted in.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Indonesia has built the first high-speed train in the Southern Hemisphere countries, named Whoosh!
claims the greenhouse gas emissions will be offset by steel and concrete. but I guess you're just going to ignore the fact that roads and cars are still significantly worse and will NEVER offset their emissions. Also if people can take the train, less people will fly and drive which will contribute to emission reductions.
Japanese Shinkansen connected nearly 20m people together (Tokyo-Kobe-Osaka) but it lost money for 40+ years. Giving Eastern Australia is having half the population and 4 times longer, I bet we all go bloke.
Airline lobby working hard.
So it's super-cheap compared to the $360bn we're about to spend of 8 submarines...
that woman interviewed about why they don’t want it was a little out of touch with reality…