Begin rant……
I discovered last week just how wide the Sydney City Rail Network is.
The network now extends as far as Dungog and Scone (ie North of Newcastle), Bathurst to the West, Goulburn to the South West and Bomaderry (Nowra) to the South.
A quick look at Google Maps indicates (admittedly road) distances of 440km (Goulburn to Dungog), 419km (Bomaderry to Scone), 333km (Bomaderry to Bathurst). Scone to Central is 271km. Goulburn to Central is 193km. Queanbeyan to Central is 297km. Admittedly some of the Sydney Network services are partly, for the time being, serviced by buses.
The interesting part of all of this is that this means that passengers can travel between two points anywhere
on this network for $8.40 ($2.50 if you’re a pensioner).
An economy train fare from Canberra to Central is the best part of $40 (and then you have to pay up to $8.40 to go anywhere else on the network).
Everyone is running around arguing about a fast train network that will never happen in our lifetime