High Speed Rail

I’m sorry justin which way to it?

I would love to see the greens get some of these projects up, if they are that hell bent on balance of power.

I would like to see a large intake of refugees, resettled into the some of the small country towns. Examine Rail nationally.

Sadly, it does sound pie in the sky, but if I know the greens, it is a policy because;
A Someone or a group of people want it.
B The major parties have said no
C The people who have asked for it have very good reasons but no money so the liberals aren’t interested.
D not enough people want it badly enough to vote for it.

It is fine to through up Dreams, if you are only every going to aim for the balance of power.

If they did build it, Labour would neglect it (if national infrastructure is any example to go by. The Coalition would hock it to their buddies, to be authentically green, it would have to be free, and a public/government asset, so the filthy greedy liberals could not sell it to themselves.

Do it, do it from government Bob.

All voting Liberal will get you is a feasibility study and only if it’s not a non-core feasibility study. Voting Labor will also get you a feasibility study. The only reason the Labor press release doesn’t mention Canberra (while the Liberal one does) is that they don’t need porkbarrel Canberreans (while the Libs do).

If you’re keen on rail then vote Greens, that’s the best chance on making whoever gets in power think about running trains.

Yeah, for sure. This will happen right after the dragway that ha been promised for years.

Forget about upgrading the existing track from Goulburn (Yarra/Joppa Junction) to Canberra. It is beyond all hope. Build the new route from Gunning to Canberra that has been proposed oh-so-many times, and then work on realigning the main line.

On the main line, the most important part is to build yet another bypass between Mittagong and Douglas Park, running via Pheasants Nest instead of pottering around Picton backwards like the current route. Straightening out the curves would be good too.

Xplorers can run at 145km/h. It’s enough, but there just aren’t enough Xplorers to run an hourly or better service, so they’ll need new trains too. 180km/h is fast enough. Faster than 180 and you start needing extremely large amounts of diesel or electricity to overcome wind resistance, and very specialised safety and other equipment requirements that push the price up by an order of magnitude. If they could get it up to a 180km/h service, four train sets plus one spare would provide an hourly service.

Also, the folks in Goulburn would also love being able to commute to Canberra by rail, so long as the line goes to Civic instead of having to bus it in from Snowtown or Kingston. The irony though is that they’ll probably end up commuting to Sydney. It now costs the same to commute to Sydney from Goulburn as it does from, say, South Cronulla (MyMulti 3).

but can it beat $25 greyhound/murrays to sydney

Popular support for fast train proposals will falter when it becomes clear that there would be huge injections of taxpayer funds, PLUS huge long term tax concessions and profit guarantees for the infrastructure developer PLUS windfall gains for developers of residential land along the corridor; land that may be compulsorily acquired with below value compensation for current owners. And then, ordinary folk who have contributed either directly with their taxes or indirectly through reduced government investment on other government services, cannot afford the likely fares.

All of these problems are a reflection of the low user population per train kilometre. Sad but real. Fuel price rises will force people to be more frugal with their travel, take a bus or accept current train infrastructure. In the meantime, the fast train feasability study industry will thrive. Guns for hire will be paid a fortune to eventually give the goverment the ammunition to shoot down the hopes that were cynically promoted by the same politicians. At most we might end up with a fast train from Newcastle to Wollongong, so let’s spend planned Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne VFT feasability study money on upgrading the existing track.

bobbatty said :

I’d pump for a light rail experience to Qbn where we could catch buses to Yass to connect the Very Very Fast Train.

Who would you pump for it? Will put the video up online?

I’d pump for a light rail experience to Qbn where we could catch buses to Yass to connect the Very Very Fast Train.

Will it go through the Multifunction Polis?

Sure will! You’ll be able to look out your window at all those shuttles NASA will be launching at the new Space City, too!

Will it go through the Multifunction Polis?