Meet the Bullet Trainers

joingler said :

The Sydney-Melbourne flight path is one of the busiest in the world ranked 4th I last heard. Surely that is evidence enough that a bullet train can be viable. Add stops in Canberra and Albury/Wodonga and it would be amazing. And given how QLD is expanding, extending it up to Brisbane would be worthwhile too.

And seriously, if they win a seat or two what harm is it going to do? They’d probably do a better job than most of the others in at the moment. Please feel free to correct me but I’m sure that the Bullet Trainers would realise that roads like GDE needed 2 lanes from beginning or that $400,000 on public art isn’t the smartest investment. I also reckon that they could help improve ACTION services and maybe provide useful information on what the public health service is like.

I suspect that the planners’ assumption has been that Australia’s growth would take place in the Top End, due to agribusiness and mining booming, and that the south-east corner would never sustain a population big enough to pay for the bullet train.
I think business people will still fly Sydney-Melbourne rather than spend three hours on the train.
I’d LOVE to see a fast train Brissy-Port Macquarie – Newcastle-Sydney-Goulburn-Canberra-Albury-Melbourne – but there would have to be some pretty nassteh road-tolling before people would pay for tickets. Most punters who aren’t on business time will do their sums and take a Murrays bus for $25 rather than spend $150 on the fare to Sydney for a two-and-a-half-hour time saving. Unless a rabid toll is engineered that will make that Murrays option nearly as expensive. Comparisons with fast trains being built in say China need to take account of cultural and historical difference – China doesn’t have a commuter sector accustomed to flying, and the state can subsidise tickets to their heart’s content and charge the subsidy to the peasants. In Australia, it will be user-pays. Japan is no comparison because of the population and distance differences.

While I’d love to see a fast train – I don’t think it will happen unless we introduce “big Australia” (which raises other issues, such as that a Europe-type population density would wreck the south-eastern Australian environment, and frankly I don’t want to share the water).

breda said :

joingler said:

“I have nothing for you but the toll that was meant to cover the Sydney Harbour Bridge costs, wasn’t repaid until the 1980s, around 50 years after it was complete. I highly doubt that anyone now is complaining that the bridge exists. It is a vital part of Sydney. A bullet train between Melbourne and Brisbane that travels through Canberra and Sydney would be a major investment, linking around 10 million people, nearly half of Australias population with HSR.”
—————————————————————
There is no comparison with the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At the time the Bridge was built, the only alternative was a ferry, or a very long detour out west to get across to the north side from the CBD.

A Bullet or other high speed train would be competing with well developed existing services – i.e. private vehicle, conventional rail, air travel and commercial road services which already link those places and provide a lot more flexibility in between – you can’t have too many stops on fast trains or it defeats the purpose. Apart from the astronomical capital costs of land acquisition and construction, there would have to be a lot of passengers lured from road, rail and air to even approach breaking even – and to break even, fares would have to be high.

The sums have been done many times, and while there are always people who fantasise about it, it simply won’t come close to paying its way, and does not provide anything that is not already available at less cost and with more flexibility for most travellers.

If done right, The Bullet Train will be cheaper than flying but take a comparable travelling time to Sydney and Melbourne once you take into account travelling from airport to CBD. I suppose the big thing is that it’d have to be done right. Governments have a track record of stuffing up major infrastructure so perhaps it is all a pipe dream. I wasn’t trying to compare it to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, just showing an example of how something can take a while to be paid off but still be worthwhile.

The Sydney-Melbourne flight path is one of the busiest in the world ranked 4th I last heard. Surely that is evidence enough that a bullet train can be viable. Add stops in Canberra and Albury/Wodonga and it would be amazing. And given how QLD is expanding, extending it up to Brisbane would be worthwhile too.

And seriously, if they win a seat or two what harm is it going to do? They’d probably do a better job than most of the others in at the moment. Please feel free to correct me but I’m sure that the Bullet Trainers would realise that roads like GDE needed 2 lanes from beginning or that $400,000 on public art isn’t the smartest investment. I also reckon that they could help improve ACTION services and maybe provide useful information on what the public health service is like.

Cost of train.. in the billions..

Vs

Cost of Roads including the Iron Price.
Increased tourism of Canberra
The frequency that people will travel to Sydney will increase.
The frequency that Sydney people will move to Canberra and also bring jobs.
If you can get a bullet train to Canberra how many companies are going to setup offices in Canberra instead of Sydney. If they need to meet clients they just take a train in the morning and back at night. Space in Canberra will be much cheaper.
Cost of fuel will increase.
Increased town size along the route will increase property value, the government could sell the land to private investors to raise funds. If you lived half way, your 30 minutes to Sydney or Canberra.

What about just dual line electrification of the current line, new alignments and signalling?

joingler said:

“I have nothing for you but the toll that was meant to cover the Sydney Harbour Bridge costs, wasn’t repaid until the 1980s, around 50 years after it was complete. I highly doubt that anyone now is complaining that the bridge exists. It is a vital part of Sydney. A bullet train between Melbourne and Brisbane that travels through Canberra and Sydney would be a major investment, linking around 10 million people, nearly half of Australias population with HSR.”
—————————————————————
There is no comparison with the Sydney Harbour Bridge. At the time the Bridge was built, the only alternative was a ferry, or a very long detour out west to get across to the north side from the CBD.

A Bullet or other high speed train would be competing with well developed existing services – i.e. private vehicle, conventional rail, air travel and commercial road services which already link those places and provide a lot more flexibility in between – you can’t have too many stops on fast trains or it defeats the purpose. Apart from the astronomical capital costs of land acquisition and construction, there would have to be a lot of passengers lured from road, rail and air to even approach breaking even – and to break even, fares would have to be high.

The sums have been done many times, and while there are always people who fantasise about it, it simply won’t come close to paying its way, and does not provide anything that is not already available at less cost and with more flexibility for most travellers.

It should be a three way contribution – A.C.T., N.S.W. and QLD taxpayer contribution in addition to successful marketing aimed at high profile (company wise) Australian investors for the major shares; that is the primary reason it has not been done.

Many people (companies and privately) in Australia have been lobbying, conducted studies and placed pressure on Governments in N.S.W. and the A.C.T. to get the V.F.T. or Bullet Train under way for at least 15 years to no avail to date.

Congratulations Candidates for your selflessness, motivation, determination and of course diligence creating a Bullet Train party for election.

You have my full support personally and at some stage this forthcoming week I would enjoy contributing to your campaign suggesting a couple of innovative concepts you may wish to consider for both the election campaign and down the track when elected.

So what’s this about that bloke who advertises ambulance chasers?

I’ve asked these lunatics three times via FB who exactly is meant to pay for this and am yet to receive one reply. I’m all for the Bullet Train but I don’t see the whole program being economically viable at this point in time. And especially not the Canberra leg which would be the least cost effective part of the whole network.

Idiots will vote for them because they believe doing so will get them a bullet train. Wrong. This will be a federal government program if and when it happens. And I’d be surprised if it happens within the next 20 years.

Vote for a party that has actually policies, not pipe dreams.

Conan of Cooma said :

zippyzippy said :

Oh good, the chance to ask my one simple question: What can the bullet train party actually do in the ACT Parliament?

Probably more than what is already happening. Which is very little.

But…what? What can they do?

Ok, so they say ‘hey federal government, build the train! It would be great!’. And I really agree it would be great. But the other 364 days of the year, don’t they need to be dealing with all the other issues in the territory – the issues that the assembly actually has responsibility for, and control over?

I just kind of feel they should run in the federal election on this issue instead. It’s like having a ‘national broadband network party’ in the ACT assembly.

I’ll vote for them…………………as long as we also get the escalator to nowhere.

ex-vectis said :

I initially warmed to this. After hearing the same old same old tired burble, dishonesty and shoulder sloping from the Libs/Labs/Greens/Whatevers it was a bit refreshing to hear some transparent honesty.

I would also love to see a high speed train between Canberra and Sydney (even Melbourne & Brissy!). Flying is just expensive, humiliating (taking my shoes off for x-raying; what next, an internal body search?!) and prone to weather issues. The coach is cheap-as-chips but it takes 3-4 hours. The current train is really just little more than a tourist thing.

However, the figures for the bullet train are what really needs looking at.

Going by the Bullet Train for Canberra figure of $10B to build it, that would mean a return on investment of (a conservative 4%) $400M a year. Or $1.1M a day, over and above the operating costs. Has there been any study done to estimate what the passenger and goods income can be expected to be? In reality, a passenger ticket must be less than a flight ticket and the cost of transporting a container must be less than by road.

Admittedly, other than the $10B investment cost , my figures are pulled out of the air; so, does Bullet Train for Canberra have some more concrete figures we could see?

I have nothing for you but the toll that was meant to cover the Sydney Harbour Bridge costs, wasn’t repaid until the 1980s, around 50 years after it was complete. I highly doubt that anyone now is complaining that the bridge exists. It is a vital part of Sydney. A bullet train between Melbourne and Brisbane that travels through Canberra and Sydney would be a major investment, linking around 10 million people, nearly half of Australias population with HSR.

I would like to see who they’d support if they were asked to form a minority government (something that is not that improbable) but can understand them not saying that at this stage.

caf said :

The bullet train in the background looks a quite affordable.

Just fashion a pointy noise out of papier mache` and it’d be a good bullet train.

The bullet train in the background looks a quite affordable.

I initially warmed to this. After hearing the same old same old tired burble, dishonesty and shoulder sloping from the Libs/Labs/Greens/Whatevers it was a bit refreshing to hear some transparent honesty.

I would also love to see a high speed train between Canberra and Sydney (even Melbourne & Brissy!). Flying is just expensive, humiliating (taking my shoes off for x-raying; what next, an internal body search?!) and prone to weather issues. The coach is cheap-as-chips but it takes 3-4 hours. The current train is really just little more than a tourist thing.

However, the figures for the bullet train are what really needs looking at.

Going by the Bullet Train for Canberra figure of $10B to build it, that would mean a return on investment of (a conservative 4%) $400M a year. Or $1.1M a day, over and above the operating costs. Has there been any study done to estimate what the passenger and goods income can be expected to be? In reality, a passenger ticket must be less than a flight ticket and the cost of transporting a container must be less than by road.

Admittedly, other than the $10B investment cost , my figures are pulled out of the air; so, does Bullet Train for Canberra have some more concrete figures we could see?

I’m wondering if they’re a stealth party put up by the Canberra Airport. CAG takes over Canberra…

joller said :

The idea for one-issue parties is not to win the election and govern.
– the campaign allows them to raise awareness of their issue in their electorate, at the time when the electorate is open to listen to political arguments
– it allows them certain campaign related privileges in terms of advertising etc.
– if they generate enough interest and commitment fro the voters, one of the major parties is more likely to pick up their idea, invite one of their candidates or do a deal with the party to get the support of their voters.
Think of labor and greens.
Do you think the greens would be able to govern Australia? and their certainly more than just a one-issue party.

So running for the election is really just a cover for lobbying on a specific idea. And that’s meant to make me want to support them?
And no the Greens would not be able to govern Australia, which is one of the reasons I dislike them so much.

Deref said :

zippyzippy said :

Oh good, the chance to ask my one simple question: What can the bullet train party actually do in the ACT Parliament?

Beat me to it.

Are they proposing that the ACT Government should build it?

build it, and they will come… fast.

zippyzippy said :

Oh good, the chance to ask my one simple question: What can the bullet train party actually do in the ACT Parliament?

Probably more than what is already happening. Which is very little.

zippyzippy said :

Oh good, the chance to ask my one simple question: What can the bullet train party actually do in the ACT Parliament?

Beat me to it.

Are they proposing that the ACT Government should build it?

So, is there some hidden code in the flyer they’ve put out or are the random bold characters throughout, just a bug with Google Docs?

chewy14 said :

I can’t really cop one issue parties.
(…)
Seeing as we have no idea what their other policies are, how do you justify giving them your vote?

The idea for one-issue parties is not to win the election and govern.
– the campaign allows them to raise awareness of their issue in their electorate, at the time when the electorate is open to listen to political arguments
– it allows them certain campaign related privileges in terms of advertising etc.
– if they generate enough interest and commitment fro the voters, one of the major parties is more likely to pick up their idea, invite one of their candidates or do a deal with the party to get the support of their voters.
Think of labor and greens.
Do you think the greens would be able to govern Australia? and their certainly more than just a one-issue party.

Let’s hope their campaign doesn’t go off the rails.

Oh good, the chance to ask my one simple question: What can the bullet train party actually do in the ACT Parliament?

Their Lego build would have been nice and straightforward.

I can’t really cop one issue parties.

What are they going to do when they get in the LA and realise that a bullet train won’t happen without the Feds chucking in billions which is extremely unlikely at the moment?

Seeing as we have no idea what their other policies are, how do you justify giving them your vote?

A political message with no lies, hyperbole or swivel-eyed ranting. I’m warming to these guys

Nice idea, but will be very expensive and take a long time to implement. Have there been any talks to attempt to get in principle agreement for the proposal from representatives from the NSW, QLD and VIC state governments?

Wait, Mal Meninga’s running?