not sure about the value for money, but it is a valid idea, together with a train link to Tullamarine, trouble is there are lots of companies that make lots of money that are stronger in lobbying Governments, to make it a reality.
we should've done it 20plus years ago like japan did, would've saved a ****load of money
Jarryd
I think we should build the Darwin to Melbourne high speed mag lev goods rail line through the heartlands first.
It will reduce the turnaround time of cargo ships coming to Australia from six weeks to six days.
Reckon before any Government launches into such a costly exercise, maybe they would take a long hard look at the States of SA and WA where the Government is electing to "close" down rail in the regional area's because its too expensive to maintain.
Easier to fob it off onto major road networks via heavy haulage, so you and everyone else, wont get too excited when we get hit with a multi million dollar road repair bill in say 10-12 years time, instead of the expected 20-30 year road life. Makes the current mob in power in any State look real flash saving all that tax dollars.
Its a great positive subject for the Gov to drag the thinking away from the carbon tax ...... (or am I just being cynical?)
Watching the ABC mid-day news I had to laugh with the mention of VFT (Very Fast Train), they are claiming the trip would be about just on 3 hours traveling at 300+ km/h... which would be possible as Sydney - Melb is approx 1000km.
In the next section they mentioned the increase to tourism for the towns / cities along the way like Albury-Wadonga and Canberra.
I would have thought it would take a while to get a train up to speed ....and slow down and the last thing you would want is multiple stops along the trip.
For it to work it would need to be EXPRESS Sydney - Melbourne and then return.
If its worth doing, let a private company do it. Let a private company take the risk. If the risk is too high it won't be done. Why should taxpayer money be spent on something that will benefit some at the expense of others?
If they built a very fast train link from Melbourne to Sydney at public expense for example, how would that benefit a taxpayer out at Dubbo or down at Hobart? The airlines will suffer. The truck drivers will suffer. Greyhound Bus will suffer.
If any government assistance is needed then the best way to do it would be to say to any private company willing to do it they would get a tax holiday on any profit they make from the enterprise for 20 years or more.
Yes, especially if you can buy a drive on ticket for your car.
The only problem with a Melbourne-Sydney train is you can only go ... Melbourne-Sydney. If you can drive your car on then you could drive off at Wagga or Albury or Canberra or wherever.
You could also take your boards and other gear without having to lug it around and and hire cars and stuff.
How about a road that doesn't go under water every wet season from brisbane to cairns, so people north of bunderburg don't have to wait weeks on end with empty supermarket shelves and building materials to turn up so people can get on with there lives. .
I don't really care for a train from, Bris to sydney, There are already great roads and lots of planes down there .
How about getting the rest of the country up to scratch.[}:)][}:)][}:)][}:)]
If it was a roll on roll off with a stop in Canberra (so I can go mtb'ing) and a continuation to Brissy (so I can go surfing) I'd back it.
That we have reached the stage of the harebrained ideas, let me put in my two cents worth.
As far as the inland rail route goes, how would you make enough capacity on it to deal with the freight task of Southeast Australia? How many containers can you put on a train? Maybe 50. How many containers go through each container terminal in Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide and Brisbane every day? I'd guess that it would be well over a thousand. So that's a minimum of 20 trains every day. Then you have to add in all the agricultural produce that wants to go north. Grain cars are different to flatbed container cars, and once they've gone north, they have to turn around and come back south. And then there are livestock cars, and I would guess refrigerated tuna cars from South Australia and so on. I think you end up with a train line that is every bit as congested as any suburban line, but without the option of putting in buses every time you want to have a bit of maintenance, or when floods wash the rails away.
On the plus side though, why do we have to have a three-hour trip to Melbourne or Brisbane from Sydney. In Queensland, you've got the tilt train which runs up to Cairns in about 24 hours. You can correct me if I am wrong, but I have the ideas that there was no major realignment of tracks involved, just an improvement of the rolling stock.
Whenever I see photos of very fast trains operating overseas, they seem to be running along a viaduct. So why can't we take the existing alignment of the major railways, and add in an extra set or two of tracks above them on pylons, just like the monorail in Sydney, and then engineer a tilt train to run at maybe 200 or so so that the trip gets down to half the driving time. Surely that would be good enough for the cheaper end of the transport market, especially if you end up close to the centre of the city rather than way out in the suburbs.
And while I have your attention, I really can't see why the north west and southwest rail links in Sydney have to be made as rail links. Why can't you just hang a monorail over the top of the existing main roads, but have it run at a decent speed? Sure, you might have to get off the monorail and on to a train as part of a long journey, but lots of commuters already marry bus and train trips.
