7 November 2007

Green Trains

| Joe Canberran
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ABC online is reporting here that the Greens are supporting a high speed rail network, in particular linking Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra.

Their angle is rail is more fuel efficient.

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Pandy, I would assume its because I had a run in with a blow in a couple of days ago and the admins haven’t been bothered to turn it off yet.

Why is it the VFT or nothing?

Can’t they upgrade the current tracks and at least give us a faster smoother ride to Sydney.

Gungahlin Al9:28 am 08 Nov 07

“Mag Lev is great but we don’t have the population to support it.”

I always thought MagLev used electricity to support it…

Although I guess a train running over a population would be a fairly smooth ride?

It’s the freight, stupid.
Mag Lev is great but we don’t have the population to support it.
There is an equation between rail and road feight that needs to be sorted out first, and the obvious answer is to first upgrade rail to tilt train efficiency, which will gradually allow road freight investment to decrease, with both systems specialising in particular freight (no more tankers on the roads)

Why LM are all your posts being moderated?

Lord Mælinar7:10 am 08 Nov 07

I don’t agree that there is a bloated government bureaucracy – ever tried to get something done only to find that the only person in the department that is capable of signing or confirming, or whatever, just went on a 2 week holiday ?

I will agree that the systems in place are redundant, and there is very little backup. There are a lot of organisations that are doing some very stupid things. I would consider a more appropriate term for the public service at the moment to be ‘stretched to the limit’.

Yes, fresh for the Liberals to talk about infrastructure now, just a couple of weeks before an election, when they have been ignoring it for 11 long years (in favour of things like political advertising, a bloated government bureaucracy and vote buying middle class welfare tactics).

Mike Crowther11:29 pm 07 Nov 07

looked at this idea some time ago. Syd-Canb will cost somewhere around $3.5 billion. (Which is 1.5b more than John Howard has spent on advertising in the last ten years.) If Sydney based Pollies & travelling Public servants were forced to take the VF train it would reduce pollution and help keep the thing viable. If added to an expanded international airport, then Canberra would pick up a lot more tourist dollars. But then, what sort of crazy government puts money into infrastructure?

VFT needs a very straight track like shown

Why can’t they just run it next to the old slow train tracks in the existing corridor?

“The last time I drove to Melbourne it was grazing country cleared in the 19th century most of the way.”

Along the Hume, you’re right, but the preferred route for the High Speed train, (coz speed is the key to make it work)is through Cooma.

The VFT route to Melbourne was to go south via Orbost.

I think there are some pesky National Parks in the way.

The solution to the sparks is wide gravel beds for the tracks. I thought they had to go slowly due to the poor state of the tracks.

Country link has wound down it’s Canberra-Melb and Canberra-Syd services so far that they are unviable. It was great when the train went to sydney twice a day.

The last time I drove to Melbourne it was grazing country cleared in the 19th century most of the way.

Heh heh heh

I wonder whether the Greens will still support it when the developers tear a massive path for the train through the prestine woodlands between Canberra and Melbourne

This would be a pleasant change from the shitty shittiness of CountryLink. Though I wonder: at the moment CountryLink lowers the speed of their trains when it gets warm, due to the fire risk of sparks by the rails. What’s the solution for this with a high-speed train?

Good idea – not to mention the train is actually a pleasant trip, unlike driving.

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