V/Line seems to be doing alright, trains are far more frequent today than 20 years ago and lines are being upgraded all the time. Melbourne to Warrnambool now sees more trains than Sydney to Canberra.
Victoria has no excuse not to have good regional services. It's a fairly flat place. NSW does have an excuse; really shit topography in every direction out of Sydney, meaning the old steam age tracks are winding and steep in places. ('Steam age' rail culture doesn't help either.) Possible but expensive to correct. Could be done in stages, just like how the Hume Highway got converted from a winding two lanes to a four lane motorway. A good place to start would be to do a new rail corridor parallel to the motorway from Menangle rejoining the existing tracks near Pheasants Nest, then improve it all bit by bit. Good luck. The other thing is, it's not just the passenger services, the Sydney to Melbourne route is primarily a freight line, and the public and industry would benefit even more greatly from its improvement. Could be in the same corridor (but not the same track as higher speed passenger services).
@@tacitdionysus3220 the legacy line could be relegated to freight and sleeper services, but a new set of rails - preferably HSR - would be needed for the daylight services
It's better than it was, but it still needs to improve. Check out the Wikipedia list of places in Victoria by population size and see how far down the list you get before you find a place you can't catch a train to. (Hint: it isn't far.)
@@spdfatomicstructure So do nothing for faster freight, so it remains uncompetitive against trucks for all except bulk, and pay for two separate systems? Yeah, nah.
@@shrikelet you get to 9, which is understandable as Mildura is so far from everywhere else in Victoria it’s further north than Canberra, and further west than Warrnambool. After that the next place that’s more than 20 kms from a station is Portland at 32nd, with a total population of about 10k.
Anglo nations may be known in modern times for their extremely poor rail despite being big pioneers of it; but to me Aussie regional rail is the worst of the worst. Like the yanks; seems we've had a big problem with too many overpaid chiefs hiding behind the senate; for the amount of Indians actually building and servicing the lines. America were lucky to create Amtrack back when their federal government was still mostly trying to do its job, rather than just dancing for corporate donors.
i dont think you can really compare tbh, cost could easily be reduced, the thing is the train is a luxury train not a train designed to take people from A to B,
Are you looking at journey beyond there a private tourism operator not government run. Actual government run lines are usually fairly competitive in price with planes. I actually get sleepers cheaper then planes with pension discount.
@@RealNotOrrio Whilst I agree with you in the sense that the Indian Pacific is a luxury tourist train, would Australians be prepared to travel from Sydney to Perth in a seat or accept Russian style cheap sleeping accommodation?
XPT Melbourne to Albury is not too bad as the track has been improved heaps but after that is where the speed drops because of bends and track restrictions. Melbourne to Adelaide is a trip for tourists at best.
@@cabbagepatch8947And the Sydney to Brisbane "XPT" gets depressing with all its meandering to, and the fact it doesn't service many towns that would welcome the service on the coast
Important to hammer home the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@cabbagepatch8947 ikr i want to go to adelaide for a music festival later on and it is more expensive to travel by train than plane so im definitely staying away from that It is $80- Plane and it was $120- Train and not even on a close date i need
Another big issue with travel to regional towns is that those towns are very car centric - so if I got the train from Sydney to Dubbo, it would be hard for me to get around Dubbo without a car... At which point I might as well drive the whole way. But more trains between smaller towns could be a winner - like why can't someone in Dubbo do a day trip to Bathurst or Orange by train? These are easy fixes, but will require a much bigger fleet to run these services.
it’s a pity all of the tram systems got torn up, because in the modern day they would be a great asset, e.g; bendigo - tram went to the hospital or past weeroona to the school, thales factory (which is next to a train line and a perfect place for a station), botanical gardens, down south to lansel square, etc. If places like Bendigo kept their trams as a way to commute more people would probably catch the train
@@createdforthemoment6740 pretty much every town that has had a train station has a railway hotel. Most of those towns you would avoid those the railway hotels haha
I recent spent Easter at conference in Parkes and went by xpt it was a great ride, but with a walking difficulty I had to rely on car pooling for transport.Parkes has almost no public transport system. If it does I couldn't find it.
100% agree. they used to have the adelaide melbourne service twice a day for about 40 dollars each way, sure beats 300 bucks there and back in petrol and having to drive or the hassle of going to the airport, yeah the flight is an hour but then you have to get to the airport, check in, wait around, airport beers, get off the plane, wait for luggage, get taxi or uber into town, etc so that is quite a few hours and expense there. on the train you get from the centre of one city to the centre of the city where you are headed. That overnight XPT is top shelf. on a side note one of my buddies used to live a couple of streets away from the puffing billy bridge. good times!
Personally, I use V/Line services on a regular basis, and I believe that they are a generally viable option for getting around regional Victoria. Of course, there are some things which could be improved: weekend frequencies, lack of comfortable long-distance facilities on the latest train orders, the privatised mess that is Southern Cross Station, etc., but every major system has its drawbacks. It's also good to see that the Victorian government is investing in our regional rail services, by duplicating single track and making other infrastructure optimisations which allow for more efficient train operation. It would also be great to see electrification of the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines, but this doesn't seem to be something that is going to happen any time soon, nor is the Geelong fast rail project. Both of these projects would've boosted capacity on the trains between our two biggest cities, providing a more comfortable trip for people on the train, and helping encourage more people out of their cars! I'm also going to be taking the daytime XPT from Sydney to Melbourne later this week. A range of factors contributed to my decision to do this: arriving and departing from the central railway station in each city provides more convenient transport options at a lower price than arriving at the airport. You also get the opportunity to see more of the countryside and regional towns while travelling by train than you do by air, and you can get up and walk around at your leisure. Of course, these benefits probably aren't so notable if you commute regularly on the service, but as a tourist to Sydney and NSW, it is certainly a selling point. Finally, I personally can't stand airports and anything related to air travel, so travelling by rail gets me out of that, and as a bonus is much better for the environment!
Nothing mind-bending about it. Railways were great in the 1800s, then a new form of technology overtook it - the automobile, which could take anyone from anywhere to anywhere else. Then along came planes, which could take people between cites at unthinkable speeds. Railways went the way of the dodo just as they themselves had made the horse and carriage obsolete.
Our prime minister in the 70's, Gough Whitlam, attempted to create a national operator called Australian National. Commonwealth Railways as well as those from Tasmania and South Australia all signed up but the other states didn't. The subsequent federal governments didn't invest in AN and forced lines to close, and John Howard sold off the AN's passenger operations such as the Overland, Indian Pacific, etc. These services are now essentially tourist trains.
*Not... quite* "Australian National was a re-branded "Commonwealth Railways" which was started around the time of the First World War, not in the 1970's In the 1970's, the South Australian govt jumped at the chance to offload it's trains onto someone else as did Tasmania, which then became "Australian National". That "subsequent federal government" you mention was Paul Keating's cut-backs (as Treasurer then Prime Minister). Paul Keating began the Privatisation Process by re-branding "Australian National" as National Rail, which eventually was combined with NSW government railways, the whole lot being eventually put up for sale, after a very complex process. Paul Keating started the Privatisation process for Australian National, a suggestion that cost him dearly in the subsequent election (1996). John Howard said he'd reverse such if he was elected; he was elected and did not reverse the privatisation process, the sale being completed in 2002.
@@ozsteamer2755 "In November 1996, the Federal Government announced a major rail reform package that included the sale of Australian National.[15]" - Cited from Wikipedia, that was Howard's government. On 1 July 1975, the Australian National Railways Commission took over responsibility for the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways and branded itself Australian National Railways. It wasn't quite a re-branded Commonwealth Railways either, it's purpose was integrating state networks such as SA and TAS which it did successfully.
I just returned from a trip in Japan, and it's honestly astonishing how practical their train system is. Every major city has its own rail network and the cities themselves are either connected by bullet trains or limited express trains, both of which runs at least twice an hour from what I've seen. Unlike traveling by airplane, you don't have to go through the hassles you get at the airport, and you end up saving time even though the train technically takes longer (especially if you live close to the station.) Not to mention, sightseeing during train rides in Japan is really fun.
Yeah. I went to Japan in May 2023 and I really enjoyed the bullet trains there. It made me really wish for faster travel within the Sydney Trains suburban network to and from the Sydney CBD, something that was lost for about 7 years now following the timetable change in November 2017. I know it's not related to regional travel but I though I'd share this experience of mine that I've been unhappy with for many years now. As for regional travel, I've done a few in 2022 and most of them were not on time. The most eggregious one being from Tamworth back to my home in Sydney. It was about a four hour wait for a replacement bus due to flooding on the tracks, then a slower intercity service back to Central Station. It was extremely frustrating. It made me not want to go back to regional travel until at least we have more modern trains that are more reliable than the XPTs and Xplorers.
Tiny country, massive population, they are in a very different situation than Australia. I remember going there and the train culture is so different, the respect and ease of use is insane. Here in Australia I swear most regional train users are just people getting out of prison
@@100StepProgram Exactly. These threads always fill up with people saying "I went to Japan once blah blah blah". Japan is a small country, and yet there are 83m people living along the main Tokkaido route. That has zero relevance to Australia, where millions of sheep and kangaroos are the potential customer base outside of Sydney and Melbourne.
I live at the literal halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney (Junee)… the XPT travels through here four times a day… but the night trains arrive very late at night. The morning trains departures from Melbourne or Sydney are far too early. There is a mid week train that leaves Sydney at lunchtime, comes to Junee around 6pm and then heads out to Griffith… it is an ideal train for my needs… but as mentioned is only once a week at that time. So more frequent trains through Junee would help… perhaps restore the Riverina Express but say have it run to Albury four days a week and out to Griffith three days a week. Also upgrade the trains so they have wifi available the entire trip (mobile coverage is non existent outside the towns it travels through. Have 20W USB charging ports at each seat… maybe even 240v power. Have an on board entertainment system with movies and tv shows that play on your own device (just like many of the airlines do now) Offer more leg room in between seats Offer small cabins that can be either bedrooms (with longer beds rather than the shorter than singles they have now) AND/OR small workspaces… I’d gladly take a laptop on board if I had the table space and wifi to do work while travelling Have better food options and not just one service time for cooked dinner meals. Follow Victoria’s lead and reduce the cost of tickets!
Not that this is incredible, but it is a 100% improvement...the Griffith train is now two days a week, on Wednesday and I think Friday, or Saturday - one of the two. Small wins
My hometown of Armidale (~30000) is a university town and is as of mid2000s the end of a northern train line. You get 1 8.30am train to Sydney a day and that’s it it doesn’t get cancelled. Bad luck to all the communities past that have no other connection than poorly maintained highways to syd. I can’t speak for other State Governments but NSW it seems has especially underfunded regional rail for many years and would sooner rip out the rail for a bike trail than improve service
I'm also from Armidale and take this route on occasion. I don't think it's ever going to be upgraded to higher speeds so I think what would be ideal for this route is a night train.
The Gold Coast train will eventually terminate at Coolangatta, as well as the G-Link tram, right on the state border. When this happens, will people of northern NSW feel left out? Tweed Heads, Ballina and Lismore are much closer to Brisbane than Sydney.
Most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
A single national passenger operator would possibly help, but the states would never do that now. It would probably end up privatised anyway and we saw how badly that’s worked in the past on freight.
Rather than that, I think it would be better for a national funding system to funnel $$ into the state rail systems. Either by subsidising new services, or, by funding infrastructure that aligns to longer term benefits. Probably both. That gives some autonomy to the states, but still funnels the $$ into the right areas, rather than roads.
That's one of the Things the US does well because we have a single fast Fully Electrified passenger rail corridor through the most densely populated part of the country run by a nation passenger rail carrier (although they do get bullied by private freight railroads like Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National, Union Pacific, and BNSF) but they do own that section of Electrified track they inherited from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1971 after Penn Central fell apart
@@leonkernan I think that's where better federal funding would solve those issues. Having states still manage the regional rail systems doesn't mean you can't use fed funding to fix that.
The very limited public transport within regional towns is one of the main reasons people rarely take inter-city trains. Example: Geelong with over a quarter million people has buses that on a sunday usually stop running by 6 and even on a weekday services are infrequent and very indirect. for most people they're just unusable unless you're desperate.
my town has 4 whole bus lines D: and only one of them runs past the train station (none at the moment) all of which stop running at 4 and dont run during school end times, its so frustrating as a non driver
Trains between Sydney - Melbourne - Brisbane are the NSW Rail XPT, operated by the State Government. Trains between Sydney - Adelaide - Perth (the Indian Pacific), Adelaide - Melbourne (The Overlander) and Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin (The Ghan) are operated by a private company who sells a journey, not a means of transport.
IIRC the Overlander is an outlier, as though it runs by GSR/JB, it does recieve subsidies from VIC and SA state governments to operate the route. For a long time, I think federal govt provided subsidies for low cost seat class coaches on the Ghan and Indian Pacific as well, but they got pulled years ago.
Victoria will be quite interesting if they do run new lines again, they just spent a fortune converting a ton of our out of use passenger track to standard gauge (we use broad gauge for passenger rail here) for the grain trains, I think it creates an interesting prospect for a private operator to lease or purchase older rolling stock, and set up an alternate transit network using those lines, since they’re not used during the daytime (or really at all right now) Seeing as tourist trains have been able to run services on the lines it’s clear the possibility exists, it’ll just take someone with the right money to restart it. Because they’re using the standard gauge, it would even make it worth interlinking the network across the border with NSW, simply extend the Mildura line up to meet the Broken Hill line, suddenly you have a second route into NSW, and if routes to Adelaide could be opened up, that could also interlink too. I actually believe that the removal of the rail services up in the Mallee region at the start of the 90s actually likely contributed significantly to the decline of all the towns on that route, people living in Mildura have been screaming for a train line to reopen for over a decade now. And the other big problem with regional rail especially here is the fact that all lines lead down to Melbourne, and there are no cross links, for example if you were to specifically take a train from Bendigo to Shepparton, that can take up to 14 hours, despite the cities being less than 2 hours apart by car. You’re forced to travel to Melbourne, wait for one of the infrequent trains, and then travel back up the specific line. The fact the network has no interconnection also means that if a section of track is damaged or out of service, the entire line goes down, and the only alternative is bus transit, which is uncomfortable and cramped. There is no redundancy and there is no consideration that people outside of Melbourne have a right to reliable and frequent public transit. The only reason it’s not in demand is that people can’t even imagine what services would be, as we’ve spent decades not even having access.
melb - syd - bris is an obvious candidate for much faster rail, i think most people would prefer to avoid the hassle of security, waiting, delays, no wifi / phone reception and cramped conditions of flying. But travel times would need to drastically reduce. Sadly a new line would be needed at great cost.
In addition, high speed rail is a long term proposition and takes a lot of political will (as we've seen with HS2 in the UK) to see it through - our election cycles mean that even if one party ran with this, there's a risk that it would be cancelled when there's a change of office (particularly given the high costs involved). So you really need a bipartisan approach.
First, we definitely need night sleeper trains to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. That should be a priority since we are getting sub par XPT replacements. Second, we should look to upgrade the windy track in places to get faster trains rather than straight to high speed rail. Although we should reserve the land corridor for high speed rail asap.
@@TheGreatUnwashedThing CAF civity hybrids, fine for a few hours but poor choice for the interstate runs I believe (based on others opinions too). ua-cam.com/video/eOzRPynRgoM/v-deo.htmlsi=AFHHoPZcpKYZk_VC
Good video. I would argue Victoria is something of an exception to this, having invested quite a lot into upgrading the regional rail network and fleet, reducing travel times between Melbourne and key cities. The result is that patronage has massively increased. (I know some people will argue that there are many lines that have been closed down or left off; or that they hate VLocities but relative to other states, Victoria has an impressive regional rail network). The other challenge with all of this is our car-centric culture (similar to the USA). Most politicians don't see passenger rail as a vote-winner and hence, and when combined with short political cycles, we end up with poor decisions and focus on short term projects rather than wholesale improvements in the network. Out of interest, where did you get the B-roll footage (ie drone shots of cities etc) you used in your video?
Victoria haven't done didly. What they have is a diesel run intercity network instead of an electric one and they call it regional rail. They have very few actual long distance lines like NSW has and the new lines they have built have been to separate these intercity services from suburban services.
@@carisi2k11 I guess it's all a matter of perspective. If you call spending $750 million on the Regional Fast Rail project followed by $4 billion on the Regional Rail Link project, plus the billions spent on the VLocity fleet, insignificant, then sure. Yes a lot of that to separate regional and suburban rail, as you say, but there's no denying it's improved service and reliability (I'm not trying to say any of these projects are perfect - far from it, and I appreciate stuff went over budget etc etc). But everything is relative. I live in a state with no real regional rail services (South Australia), so to me - the SA Government is the one doing didly (other than chucking a few dollars towards The Overland). Sadly.
@@carisi2k11 they have less long lines because Victoria is so much smaller, but almost every city or town with at least 10k population is within 20kms of a passanger rail service running multiple times a day both ways, and most have service direct to the town centers.
@@carisi2k11not sure if “haven’t done didly” means they have or have not done much. I think Vic has done OK in the last 15 years. V/Locity trains do 160kph, and is much faster than driving from where I live (Castlemaine) than driving.
I live near Castlemaine (Bendigo line) and commute the 120km or so to Melbourne regularly. The trains do 160kph (100 mph) most of the journey, much faster than driving - especially at peak times. I agree that frequency is an issue. There is 1 train per hour outside of peak times. All in all I think Victoria has done well with Bendigo, Ballarat, Bairnsdale and Albury V/Locity services and deserve praise. Another issue is the debt run up to pay for it, but let’s not talk about that here!
One important thing to mention is the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
Double Tracking, then Electrification, straightening curves, adding more siding loops. Commuter Services, Regional Services, Overnight Services with bunk beds. Connecting regional towns with 4x a day service to major cities and capitals. Giving National importance & priority to Adelaide-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane link along with regional towns.
Some time ago the Victorian government developed the regional fast rail network for Victoria. While the system only has a maximum speed of 160 kph the improved standard of track and signalling as well as increased frequency of new trains on country lines the passenger numbers increased dramatically. This proves that if you provide a good service, the public will use it even if it does not travel at 250kph. Two car Velocity trains began the service but it wasn't long before 3 car trains were required. We currently use 6 car Velocity trains and in some cases we need 9 cars. One of the big costs to improved travel times is to modernise the safe working system which other states have not done.
In my student days I travelled between Sydney and Melbourne and the end of each term. There was one daytime train each day "The Intercity Daylight Express" and three overnight trains. The Southern Aurora was an overnight sleeper express. The Spirit of Progress was an overnight train with first and second class seats as well as some sleeper carriages. In holiday and peak travel times there was also a train referred to as the Third Division which was just basic second class seats in non-heated carriages which were very cold in winter. From memory the Southern Aurora departed Sydney at 20:00 and the Spirit of Progress at 20:10. Travel between Sydney and Adelaide was also possible by catching the Daylight Express from Sydney then changing at Sunshine (suburban Melbourne) onto the awaiting Overland - an overnight train directly to Adelaide.
Yep. A good service pattern for the intercapitals (I'd for BNE-SYD / SYD-MEL / MEL-ADL and SYD-ADL via Broken Hill) would be four trains a day each direction, An early morning limited stop, a later morning stopper, an evening limited stop sleeper with motorail, and a late evening sleeper stopper, with no motorail. We should have the same pattern for BNE-CNS, as well as an hourly SYD-CBR semi high speed service through some limited realignments, electrification and level crossing removals.
@@Syulang-nt4kj Later in my student days when studying in Adelaide I would catch the Indian Pacific from Sydney and change at Peterborough onto an awaiting shuttle train to Adelaide. The Indian Pacific had economy class twin sleepers - but you could end up with strange travelling companions which is good practice for Chinese and Russian trains! I travelled to Brisbane a few times on the Brisbane Limited which was OK. The main problem travelling north is the ridiculous meandering track around Gloucester. I never knew why they ripped up the track from the Gold Coast Murwillumbah! In 1994 I travelled on a Tilt Train from Sydney to Canberra. The carriages were on loan from somewhere and the engine was just a normal NSW one. It was part of a trial but it was never taken up.
@@aussiebloke51 The Casino-Murwillumbah line was closed because in the end the XPT was the only train using it, so the cost of maintaining the line for only one return train a day could not be justified. The tilt train was the Swedish X2000, pulled by an XPT power car.
V/Line’s Bendigo to Melbourne route has increased growth year on year for quite a while now, in fact it’s gotten to the point where many services don’t have enough seats on a regular basis.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
You mentioned Toowoomba!, Currently they is only a weekly rail service from Brisbane to Toowoomba. This ia due to the dreadful alignment over the Toowoomba Range, which resembles a goat track. If the route was duplicated and the line between Helidon and Toowoomba was realigned, a service with a 30-min frequency could be justified.
Yep. I've got family in Toowoomba, and it's crazy there isn't a frequent service into Brissie.... until I looked up the rail route on Google Earth. JFC... it's a shitshow.
The distance between Toowoomba and Brisbane is about the same distance from Lithgow and Sydney and yes it goes through the blue mountains and they come every hour
With inland rail, part of the route is between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Some reports I've read mention line upgrades, (realignment, conversion to dual gauge, possible electrification between the two). So improved service may end up a possibility
Much the same here in NZ. A new passenger service has opened between Hamilton and Auckland. Sadly, only a couple of services each day but not every day. It also takes 30-40% longer than going by car. They wonder why it's not used that much.
I did the Brisbane to Cairns trip on the Tilt Train and it was great. The original Queenslander Service it replaced should have been kept in my opinion as this is one of the World's great train journeys. The scenery is quite spectacular as you move from Sub-Tropical to Tropical and traverse many interesting regions. I really loved the original Queenslander because it was all about getting there, and you had individual cabins. The Tilt Train is good though with wide panoramic windows and sleeper beds. I believe the original Queenslander rolling stock, built in Townsville, is now operating in Peru as a Luxury Andes Train.
Perfectly explained! We are going down to Melbourne to holiday from Newcastle and it was both cheaper and obviously faster to fly... come on, they need to drop the prices to beat airtravel.
I haven't flown in nearly 20 years. I've travelled canberra to melboune multiple times a year for the last few years, and doing it by train (well, bus between canberra and albury then train the rest of the route) is just so much more relaxing than any other way. 8 hours to do it that way, flying would be nearly 5 once you account for how out of the way the airports are and how much extra time you need. Just sit back and relax for a few hours reading or listening, quick change in the middle with a good leg stretch, then go back to reading for another few. Since the price cap, it's been a $30 trip each way. No other way even compares on that aspect. edit: the one thing most people are missing is that both state and national governments are so heavily bribed by various private companies that we need nothing short of a revolution to stand a chance of fixing these things properly. Neoliberalism is an blight on humanity
I've done several videos on the XPT (sleeper and otherwise) and its rough to the point its almost embarrassing. I've just returned from 2 weeks in Europe and rode the Italian high speed rail, and the cross border swiss trains .... And it just shows how far behind we are in Australia.
I recently had to travel from brisbane to adelaide and even though i actively looked to see if rail was an option due to my dislike of flying i wasnt able to even find a rail service.
One prime example of regional trains being successful in Australia is actually the tilt trains but even they need to be upgraded for 180kph operations + new trains soon.
There are no 180kph sections, they are 160kph. No track in Australia is rated for running any faster than 180kph. Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
i live on the melbourne to albury line and the hard thing is when there are works having to be done to improve intercity rail, the small town communities just go up in arms, or get upset that their train goes even slower, so the artc gets a lot of pushback from small town communities.
Definitely agree, as someone who travels between Adelaide and Melbourne very frequently and usually is done via air or car, but if Train was more affordable and faster it would definitely be the only travel I would be using
nice video! it would be great to see higher frequency on regional routes in nsw but we don't have many regional trains, for example each year when trainlink runs the 'elvis express' to Parkes the scheduled Dubbo service is replaced by road coaches. I believe that the current XPT fleet only allows 4 power cars to be unavailable and the new regional fleet only provides 2 extra regional sets compared to the current XPT and Explorer fleet.
Strategically upgrade some lines to HSR and then boost and reactivate branch lines that cross them. And have a very high speed line between Melbourne and Brisbane via near to Newcastle and parts of Sydney at strategic transfer hubs like their metro and some express train stations and the HSR can replace existing express trains as it would run on its own tracks rather than like v/line that shares with local trains in Melbourne. Maglev can be successful if strategically done. With a tunnel to allow faster trains to Sydney to bypass the crazy turns on the blue mountain line.
Sydney to newscast route is quite slow, it turns me from going off sometimes. Also the fact they cut off trains between 1:30am to 4:46am, even on Friday and Saturday. It’s not actually as effecicient as it could be, but they don’t wanna spend more than needed, if it runs it’s good enough for them, but during the day it is about every 35 minutes which isn’t too bad. It takes just about 2 hours, even tho it takes 30 minutes less to drive
The XPT hits 160km/h north of Albury. Curvy track is the main problem. We need to invest in realignment, and do it in stages. Every time we do this the travel time will go down.
The Blue Mountains line takes 40 minutes to get from Lithgow to Mt Victoria alone and takes 4 and a half hours to get to Central Station. It's crazy as you can drive to Sydney an hour quicker than taking the train.
Great video. And it only really touches on the lack of good trains between major and regional cities. I'd love to see one where you look at the lack of good trains (or lack of trains entirely) between regional towns. I can only really speak for my native Victoria, but the way we've dismantled the rail network here over the past 50 years borders on the criminal.
To be honest I don't blame any government for scrapping the rail services we no longer have. If people don't use the trains, it is pointless running them. Here in NSW, as little as 30 years ago, the railways were running empty trains all over the state. One car's worth of passengers on a train of up to ten cars, plus the locomotive, baggage car and motor generator car. That just doesn't make any sense. Trains to areas that still have rail services are mostly served by smaller DMU sets which have a smaller engine underneath each car for propulsion. No dining car, no sleeping car, no car carriers. Anything else would not meet fiscal requirements because again, they aren't always full. Even the mighty XPT is about to be replaced with dual-mode DEMU cars. Diesel generators for outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where there are no catenaries and when inside the suburban networks, they'll raise pantographs and switch off the engines. If there was a city with metropolitan population of 3 million or more every 200km or so like there is on the east coast of the USA then a train that hauls butt would be more economically feasible and what's more, it'd already be on the rails. Australia cannot keep comparing itself to Europe. The EU is less than half the size of Australia in land area and has a population of half a billion people.
@@vintageradio3404 Where did I say anything about Europe or electrification? This is why I said I can only speak to Victoria. We weren't running empty rural trains 30 years ago, because we shut down almost all our rural passenger services 50 years ago; when petrol was cheap and Melbourne was two and half million people. DEMUs are great. Build more of those. Just provide railway services to places that need them.
@@reubenab6005 yeah, like I said almost every city or town. It would be good if they fix the gauge conversion issues and ran services out to Mildura, but it’s small enough and far enough away that I can’t blame them for not making it a priority. Similarly they should replace the overlande with daily,vline run, standard gauge, velocitys to Adelaide, but short of that I can see why Horsham isn’t a priority.
V/Line is probaby the exception, the fact that a line which serves less than 50k receives 2x services a day (Swan Hill past Bendigo) is pretty good. V/line should run the Overland and maybe even take over NSWtrainlinks XPT to Sydney.
The QLD regional rail system between Rockhampton & Brisbane is as close to being in a sweet spot as I can ever recall. Prices are much cheaper than car fuel & ongoing highway upgrades have it being often the faster option. There is usually a few trains per day, and the trade off is about right between the quicker tilt trains or the roomier/fancier long distance haulers
Funny you mention this. I'm currently considering planning a rail trip from Sydney to Adelaide. It's been interesting to make sure everything lines up, but I have time on my hands, so I can spend a couple of days in Melbourne to be able to catch the Overland to Adelaide. The problem with the Overland is it's run a by luxury tourist rail operator, and is treated as such. If Vline, or the SA equivalent, ran it like a commuter service, it'd be a different story. Cost is in interesting factor, the Sydney - Melbourne XPT, with sleeper, is $230 with no food included, a flight is much cheaper.
Another option to consider is to skip melbourne and take the vline recommended route from sydney to adelaide. Change at albury at the arse crack of the morning and bus across victoria. Not the most comfortable route, but hard to beat on price for the vline sections of the route (unfortunately sydney to albury is nsw transport territory and costs so much more than it should) Maybe not the way to do it every time, but as a one time trip its quite the adventure
If you're doing more than a couple trips on NSW's trains, it becomes better value to get the Discovery Pass, which gives you unlimited access to the regional network at one price for the purchased period. When I do Melbourne to Brisbane, I buy a 14 day Pass and pay the extra sleeper fee on any overnight legs of the journey. Cheaper than paying individually for the four legs of the journey up and back.
I think the trains in my area are pretty good to be honest. We have V/line because Victoria, and there is a train on the Melbourne - Traralgon line every hour, which means you can get from basically every town on the line whenever you need.
I like V/line but I can say that the bus connections the NSW intercity network like the XPT or the Xplorer. These trains also aim to travel at speeds approaching 160Km/H. On a recent journey from Melbourne to Orange in NSW, I was shocked to see how quick the whole journey actually seemed in relation to driving there by car.
I think another thing is, Australia is so big that people just prefer to fly. Even with the inflation of domestic flights, 90% of the population would rather fly a $150 Jetstar flight from Sydney to Melbourne than sit on a train for hours. Ive done the Canberra-Sydney train twice and it took over 4 hours. It is 3.5 hours on a Murrays bus or a 40min flight.
Three letters. HSR. With it comes the possibility of fast overland travel and in turn much needed relief for air corridors that are facing significant pressure
The thing is is doesn't have to be super fast like it is in other countries. 160 km/h would be a massive improvement on the 60-80km/h our trains run currently.
@@JustinWatson23 but 300km/h is the world standard these days, and is a speed that gives the railways a fighting chance when compared to air travel. That is what we need to aim for, because there need to be long-term solutions to the climate crisis
@@spdfatomicstructure I don't disagree. It would come down to the cost different though. vWe can get 160km/h running now, with modifications as required. The other thing is things like wifi and power (i know they are on the continually delayed new NSW regional trains). Many business people would actually use the train if they got 2-3 hours of uninterrupted work done on the train versus the airport lounge and plane. They would be more productive for longer even if the plane was an 1 hr quicker. I'd probably even say we need both. Fast rail should only stop a few times. but a faster service doing the current lines would be good also.
Now, I’m not an expert on… well, anything really. But I am super in to urbanism and the idea of our country just not sucking so much. In other words, I wish I could frequently get from Sydney to visit my sister in Brisbane without spending the world, for example. I watched the latest video from Oh the Urbanity about urbanism projects happening across Montreal and the theme they’re taking in that city is small, progressive changes, rather than just master planning and building the whole thing all at once. Take the Sydney to Melbourne train route for example (and the Canberra branch line). Instead of wishing for the never-going-to-happen HSR, focus on small, incremental and CHEAPER projects like straightening a bit of line here or removing a bit of grade there. Over time, these will slowly add up to reduced journey times. I don’t think regional rail needs to be an alternative to flying, as much as I think it does need to be a better, cheaper and faster option than driving, for now.
Agree absolutely. If we were to do just one project per year that each shaved 30 minutes from Melbourne to Sydney, after 10 years we'd have knocked 5 hours of the total travel time. Not exactly HSR, but that would make it a FAR more appealing journey for many potential passengers. Obviously some projects would take longer than that, but Australia doesn't need HSR. Let's straighten the existing corridors, remove the level crossings and watch the journey times tumble.
Frequency is definitely a defining factor, I'm live in Bunbury and while the Australind line to Perth isn't running, the replacement Coaches are so infrequent that it's just not worth bothering, every time I look it's too late or too early. I really hope when the Australind does re-open it runs more often, more than once or so a day at least
I did Sydney to Adelaide return back in 2010 when the Indian Pacific had their Red DayNighter seats & it took about 24 hours. In 2022 I did Adelaide to Sydney return via a 13 hour Adelaide to Albury bus followed by the 8 hour XPT. They did apparently do a trail of a bus to Broken Hill from Adelaide that would connect with the Xplorer but last I looked they discontinued it, sad as it's a nice trip.
In pre-child days, we used travel to Adelaide a fair bit - an extra long weekend, or going to the Festival. One year, we decided to catch the train back just for something different. In those days, the standard guage did not reach Adelaide, so we had to take a train consisting of 2 or 3 Budd railcars to Peterborough and make the change there. It was very comfortable, with good quality if conservative food. Having a double compartment gave us our own shower and loo. A few years later, we back in Adelaide, and woke one morning to news of a pilots' strike. We rushed into the city and managed to get a double compartment again. This time, the train came into West Adelaide with no need to change. A day and a half later, we arrived in Sydney after a restful trip.. Lessons from our trips - the staff were excellent and very helpful with none of the subservience we'd experienced on overnight British journeys we'd undertaken. The compartments were very comfortable and were much better than those on the restored VSOE train in Europe, let alone standard trains. The service was designed for those taking a holiday and not making a business trip. Over 30 years later, we'd not be doing it again.
The Melbourne to Adelaide line used to be direct broad gauge, they made it standard gauge to link up with the rest of country but it’s very indirect now turning off at Ararat going via Geelong, they need a standard gauge link from Ararat to Melbourne through Ballarat
As someone who has lives in Toowoomba and regularly travels to Brisbane I think every time I'm on that highway how much easier this journey would be if there was a train. There are plenty on people who would love a regular train service from Toowoomba to even Ipswich! Not to mention the dozen towns and villages along the highway that have scores of people commuting to either Toowoomba or Brisbane for work every day. It's a service that would be used! as proven by how many people take the coaches into Brisbane everyday. Yes the range is an issue and I have seen the freight trains climb that track up the range and it was painfully slow. But if there was a station at the bottom of the range at Withcott, that would fix the problem. Add a regular bus service down the range and it would be the best think to happen to Queensland. If I need to travel into the city of Brisbane I refuse to drive cause it's so congested, so I do the hour long drive to Ipswich just to catch the train or catch a coach. The reason why people don't use the exsisting services is because they aren't worth it, or they have no idea they existed!
Just this week, I chose to take a coach from rural Victoria to Adelaide, even though the Overland did run that day from the same town. Why? Because the terminal in Adelaide is ridiculous! Interstate trains stop there, but suburban trains don't! And it's a completely pedestrian-hostile walk to the next suburban station. The V-line coach, OTOH, goes to a good terminal in inner-city Adelaide, with lots of nearby buses and the trams are pretty close, too.
Newcastle - Central Coast - Sydney should be the priority of HSR. It would be most patronized. Then you can go north and south from there. North to Brisbane. South to Melbourne.
I think the core focus for regional inter-city rail (in the short term) needs to be on competing with driving. We have a network that honestly isnt far off being able to produce travel times that are highly competative against driving times. A lot of the slow downs are the results of things that could easily be addressed (poor curves, minor gradiants, low standard rural level crossings, not enough passing loops). The reason we dont address them is becauss the networks are for freight first and foremost, and passanger traffic is an after thought. As far as freight traffic is concerned an average speed of 80km/h is crazy fast. Get the average speeds of the pasanger services up to 100km/h and they will usually be faster then the driving alternative. Getting them up further is very achievable in many areas of Australia and could create routes that are over an hour faster then driving. If you can provide service that if faster then driving and has enough frequency that it isnt a pain to schedule (as little as 5 well timed services a day in each direction would suffice at a minimum), i believe people will use it. In contrast, the cost of trying to compete with air travel is tremendous. I reckon we could easily get the train journey from Brisbane to Syndey to 9hrs (competative to driving) but getting itnto 3hrs (competative to flying) is a huge task. Trying to justify that off the back of what we currently have (a single daily service that people barely use) is a huge ask. But if you can get the trip to a point where you are running it multiple times a day and people are choosing it over driving, thats the kind of rail based transit culture that would make the case for the HSR option easier to justify
The Big Build in Victoria has been so disruptive to the Traralgon train line that I moved to inner Melbourne. Years and years of replacement buses did my head in and the prospect of yet more replacement buses was too much.
Yet all that work on that line has seen the ability to add frequency to that and connecting lines. I am old enough to remember electric trains out to Traralgon both freight and passenger. (even steam but I digress) but we saw Kennett shut down the railways,,closing lines stripping out the electrical infrastructure. And railway lines. I also as a delivery truck driver remember the rail crossings between Dandenong and Melbourne that could take ten minutes to get past at peak hour due to the amount of up and down trains going through such crossings as Burke Road.... Those bus trips you mentioned have got rid of those ground level road crossings either by undergrounding or by skyrail over the roads, and yes it still is being built but I believe it is as far out as past Hallam. Be clear we saw major problems with Victorian Railways under Kennett...it was then that services all through the state were cut. The Adelaide Overlander went from a two service every day each way railway to a high end tourist railway service. This effected both SA and Victoria Regional Services. And yes I have caught that train as have I caught the Train to Albury.. An awful lot of money has been spent on rail recently, mostly because of Liberal Party neglect and the following of a US led motor car centric urban planning model from Sir Henry Bolte era.
@@adriaandeleeuw8339 I know that eventually everything will improve but that doesn't mean that spending months and months (and months) travelling on painfully slow replacement buses isn't soul destroying. When you travel daily to a job in Melbourne and spend as much time travelling as you do at work, it destroys the quality of your life.
The $4B RRR program is essentially doing 4-5 decades of neglected upgrades in 4-5 years. Yes, it sucks having long periods of line shutdowns & using replacement buses. However, one has to take the view that these disruptions are worth the benefits for the line last will last 50yrs+.
@@adriaandeleeuw8339 I know the Overland is operated by a high-end tourist focussed company, but is it a high end service? One way tickets at $130 are competitive on price with flying, except specials and Jetstar. Time and flexibility wise, clearly not compteitive - and that is probably what makes it more a tourist service. If you want to get to the other end for other reasons, the odds of a twice a week service lining up with needs are not great. The Overland seems caught between trying to be two things, an actual viable service from A to B (which requires greater speed and frequency) and a (low end to mid-market) tourist railway something closer to, but not at the luxury, the type the operator is used to running. Relying so much on government subsidy, rather than being fully private or fully public, probably plays into that. Journey Beyond probably would make it a high end tourist trip, or just scrap it, if they could.
it's also worth mentioning, having grown up on the overland route, that it's designed more as a tourist train. day-to-day, people in these towns take vline buses and trains and stateliner buses if they don't want to or can't drive. the firefly bus runs twice daily, and even that is a more practical option for travel between melb and adl.
The main reason steam lines are (were) so curvey was the terrain steam powered trains had a maximum angle of climb or descent, to stop water draining from the boiler surfaces, and causing a steam blast. Many of thee curves could now be by-passed and the lines straightened also passing loops could be added to the Blue Mountains (Lithgow) intercity meaning it would not have to stop at every station after Penrith. also a few tunnels on the Brisbane route might speed it up.
About 30 years ago when there were guard's vans , you could load up to 20 bicycles if the guard was cooperative. Now it is only 2 bikes on most regional trains and they have to be boxed. For someone who enjoyed the train/bike experience that has been a real downer.
While I live in a rural town in Victoria of decent size we have struggled to get decent rail here and only in last couple years gone to a better train when it b works
It take nearly two hours to Tavel from Bathurst to Katoomba - a car trip that takes 1.15mins - there are SO MANY CURVES btw Bathurst and Lithgow - added single tracks in several sections.
You do realise that the Blue Mountains is a mountainous area? It's not until you pass by Mt Lambie that the area starts to flatten out. Unless someone comes across with the dollars to build tunnels, that's how it'll stay too.
@@vintageradio3404 I LIVE OUT HERE In Bathurst - plus travel to Sydney every fortnight. The train winds around from Bathurst to Lithgow - the same train line that the Broken Hill / Dubbo trains use - that's SO SLOW with no straight sections. From Lithgow to Bell there are 11 tunnels - something similar needs to be done - or figure out a way to reduce the amount of curves
I was about to talk about how good I find the 190km link from Goulburn (where I live) to Sydney, but then remembered it's a far-flung Cityrail service so of course it's quite well used. I've taken the XPT to Melbourne and Brisbane both and all I can say is I would love a sleeper option. Sitting up, the journey time is quite the ordeal.
Sydney to Newcastle is functionally one train per hour due to the combination of of all-stop & express trains. Sydney to Gosford is two trains per hour. The line between Hornsby and Broadmeadow is apparently too busy to support more services, due to the number of freight and coal movements plus interurban and long distance passenger trains. The federal government recently cancelled funding for a quad-track upgrade between Wyong and Tuggerah that was intended to alleviate this issue. One of the other significant problems with Sydney is that the long distance services to Central are all into dead end platforms. Many cities around the world have built new through routes to address this type of issue, such as the Paris RER. Given that the new trains to replace the XPT and Explorers will be bi-modal (diesel / electric from OHW), there is scope to build a new tunnelled route branching off the existing line between Point Clare and Woy Woy, across under Broken Bay, down to Mona Vale and across to surface onto the North Shore Line south of Chatswood. Quad track the NSL from there to south of St Leonards, then another tunnel from there to North Sydney. Reclaim the eastern track pair of the SHB and Wynyard platforms 1 & 2 when the Western Harbour road tunnel opens, tunnel from Wynyard through under Central (alongside the Central metro platforms), surfacing to join the main line between Central and Redfern.
The RER is more like the Sydney suburban system then the intercity routes. I do like the idea of a new rail route that takes in the northern beaches from woy woy as that would hit population centres instead of national park.
The city underground will be a bottleneck in peak periods for such a plan to work. Departure and arrival of rerouted trains would have to be outside the peaks. Many services through Town Hall and Wynyard are already less than three minutes apart during the peak. North Sydney has two unused tunnels to the north of the station which were intended for suburban services to the Nthn Beaches but the line was never built. These tunnels lead to Platforms 2 & 3 but the portals are bricked up. These could be used to bypass most of the Nth Shore Line but again, from Nth Sydney to Central will mean co-mingling with all-stations trains on a very busy line. Your suggestion of reusing the rail corridor on the eastern side of the Bridge would work but there are long term (think 20 years away or more) to hand them back for use by trams. Running trains would mean digging more tunnels from Wynyard to Central as Platforms 1 & 2 at Wynyard formed a terminus. I am not sure there is sufficient room for extra tunnels in this area as the Cross City motorway tunnel is already very close to the existing rail tunnels. Yes, the tunnels could dive and go under the motorway but the grade would be too great.
@@carisi2k11The idea would be to have stations at Woy Woy (under the existing station), Palm Beach ferry wharf, Mona Vale and Northern Beaches Hospital. Additional possible station locations at Umina Beach, Avalon and Newport. Co-locating a station with the Northern Beaches - City bus route northern terminus would reduce the problem of empty counter-peak buses, increasing bus capacity by at least 40% without any other changes.
@@vintageradio3404My proposal involves taking the eastern track pair of the SHB back from being road lanes, a reconfiguration of North Sydney to have a track pair coming out of tunnels into platforms 1 & 2, then running across a bridge where the wrought iron bridge used to be to get to the eastern side of the SHB, and a new pair of tracks in tunnels from Wynyard to Redfern, with platforms at Wynyard, Central and possibly using the unfinished platforms at Redfern before dividing onto the Illawarra and western mains. The existing track pair coming from the western tracks on the SHB would be reconfigured to platforms 3 & 4. Fully implemented, there would be a completely new pair of tracks from Gosford to Redfern. Between Chatswood and St Leonards, they would be between the North Shore line, allowing for routing options such as all-stop trains coming from the Central Coast shifting to the North Shore line.
Regarding branding and name recognition: I don't think we'd actually need a single Amtrak-style Branded Rail Service to achieve better public recognition of Australia's rail services. For one thing, with only 6 states instead of 50, and with comparatively few people who commute across state borders regularly, each state could simply market its own statewide service and achieve substantial name recognition. But for another thing, right now there are only two companies that actually operate intercapital rail -- the state-owned NSW Trainlink (Syd-Bris, Syd-Can and Syd-Mel) and private company Journey Beyond (Adl-Per, Adl-Syd, Adl-Dar, Adl-Mel and seasonal Adl-Bris). Either of these companies could do a big marketing blitz and substantially increase their patronage if they could find the money for it. (The reason I say "intercapital rail" is because V-Line operates a single route which is technically interstate, the Melbourne to Albury service, but that's a long way from Sydney. Also, Journey Beyond has very much been tightening their belts recently, they did not do well over the pandemic, so I don't like their odds of doing a marketing blitz unless the Victorian government can either convince them to run the Overland daily or they can just sell the Overland to V-Line instead.)
Thanks for the interesting video. i wish that they would consider upgrading the Overland train services between Melbourne and Adelaide to compare with the Melbourne to Sydney train services. Back in 2013, when I rode the Overland train, it ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though since then, it has reduced to Monday and Friday only. It really needs to run both ways, seven days a week. Also, various regional train lines no longer run, especially in NSW, like Tenterfield, Murwillumbah and Mudgee, which really all should be reinstated. I remember some years back, we almost lost the Warrnambool Vic train service, but fortunately, that has been retained.
When you have less population in the entire country than Beijing, a city smaller than Sydney or Melbourne in size, dreaming of nation-wide rail network like in that city is just a pipe dream.
Yea it’s so dumb, people talk about how good Europe and Asia are and then asking why we can’t have the same is weird af. We are a tiny population and a massive country, it’s not as easy for us to do it compared to other places. Obviously it’s not an excuse but it’s certainly something to consider
I do Sydney-Grafton (northern NSW) and back a couple of times a year to visit family. If I'm travelling alone or at different times to other family members, the train is worth it to me. It's a bit longer, but the ticket costs less than the petrol to get there and it's way less taxing than doing the drive alone. Since I've got family there and I only really visit for holidays, I don't have to worry about getting around while there (but you REALLY need private transport in the Clarence Valley - it's not at all viable without a car). The trip is pleasant enough, seats are comfy, buffet cart is solid, scenery is nice and I've always found the staff kind, competent and happy to help with any problems that may arise. I don't mind doing it. But if you're travelling with 1 other person, you more or less break even on the petrol, and you can switch drivers meaning you get a rest and don't have to stop for as long to be able to drive safely. At 3 drivers, you're laughing. You're easily on top with petrol and you only have to do 1 shift each (or maybe 1 person does 2 shifts, but at start and end fatigue is not a problem). If you don't have to stop for longer than it takes to fill up and scoff some fast food, you eat up the kilometres like nobody's business.
Sydney to Melbourne already have a overnight sleeper train every night (approx $240 each way) and between Sydney and Brisbane each way as well approx $250 for sleeper cabin) on NSW Trainlink
The cost would be huge to connect the capital cities with fast rail but as a more feasible option maybe building shorter routes such as a line from Newcastle to Canberra via Sydney. Gold Coast to Sunshine Coast via Brisbane. Victoria being the most densely populated state could have multiple lines from Melbourne that go to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Wodonga/Albury
Victoria spends far more money per passenger on the regional services than it does metro, so I would argue that the problem is the reverse in Victoria.
I think for me to get the train more would be speed and frequency for sure! and also competitive price with the plane... (Most things you said) Not sure the sleeper one is good, because I have done it three times (ie one return to Melbourne and another only one way) and couldn't really sleep and it costed about the same (unless I wanted to share my cabin)...
Hi. Sydney to Newcastle bare any improvement to times in seventy five years however at least vaguely similar to driving vaguely. Other ‘one hundred mile cites’ from Sydney. Oh my. Central to Bathurst. 😢 Central to Goulburn 😢 Add in Wollongong which is close to Central to Newcastle in proportion to drive time. Surely some work could be done to have Wollongong to Newcastle that would benchmark or create a standard for Goulburn and Bathurst to Sydney. Yes the later two might give improvements to Mittagong and Katoomba/Lithgow. Surely we can get medium speed services ie 160 to 200 kmh for longer periods:
Sydney to Newcastle highway has continued to be upgraded since i was a child now 65 i remember the toll way. the train stations have upgrades but the line into newcastle was ripped up making $44 million in revenue, from the sell-off of development land along the railway corridor. BUT, put in on the main road Hunter St, at $220 million per kilometre, tram it gos 2.7 km it has a low benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of less than 0.5 . it take office worker's in to newcastle because they lost parking on Hunter St and with the new developments on old car parks and the cost of parking has gone up
@@kirkgannaway5098 I am a regular visitor for a working week or more in Newcastle. Staying in the CBD and have been a visitor for forty or more years by car and train. I think the tram is actually a longitudinal Carpark. The longitudinal park never materialised. Now that have seen and used the Central to Circular Quay, and the Parramatta one what might have been in Newcastle. The interchange in Newcastle is deliberately badly designed why is the depot where it is. Cuts of north south pedestrian movement. Second rate possibly third rate. Thanks for the technical analysis.
thank god you addressed this; i see it as partly the reason for why everywhere else that isn't a capital/major city isn't having good population growth. some key important routes with regular and reliable service still don't exist to this day which really just bugs me, and likely others. an example is Toowoomba to Brisbane, still using a railway from the 1800's. This route is comparable to Lithgow to Sydney, in a way where the Tbar to brissy route would be easier to build due to geographical challenges being far less. I just find it hard to get my head around as to why Australia isn't up to date with regional rail. Definitely something that lacks and hopefully something to be much more considered in future.
Like your observations surely it is possible to develop appropriate fast coonections from what I will call the hundred mile towns. Bathurst to Syd plus five hours, an average journey time of thirty kilometres an hour! Nowra to Sydney - plus three hours Newcastle to Sydney - two hours fifteen minutes
High speed rail between capital cities is a dangerous distraction from what is possible. Money needs to be spent on shorter distances now, such as Sydney to Newcastle. By all means, design them in such a way that they could be extended to capital cities but don’t make it the rationale. It is a regular distraction that manages to destroy sensible and justifiable rail upgrades as collateral damage. The RM Transit staging options were pure nonsense.
@@paulorocky Lots of people have run the numbers and the answer is always the same. The benefits are few and the cost is huge. We have much better things to spend our money on.
I agree mostly. And it's not an either/or proposition. You can do the incremental approach for the intercity routes, while also setting up a much needed focus on the other shorter regional rail lines. I do think that RM Transit is on the right track though (sorry for pun). He is trying to break down the intercity route to be more manageable, which is exactly what it needs. I just think he didn't understand that the approach needs to be far more incremental and systemic.
@@wolfblaide He had a crazy idea about building the easy bits first, say Albury to Goulburn which will have virtually no benefits until connected at either end 30 years later.
Generally agree. But. I have lived in many parts of the world and used trains and planes extensively here and in Europe and event the USA. What many people don't understand is that business people want to get to a major city, do their day's meetings / conferences etc and GET HOME the SAME day. So that means to compete with a plane let's assume 2 hours for travel to airport, check in and catch flight. Then the flight (e.g. 1hr 15 Melb to Syd) and same 2hrs for travel to aiport and return. That means a travel component of the day under six hours TOTAL. Even a maglev Melb to Sydney cannot do that - or anything close to it especially if it needs to stop in regional towns for extra patronage. And forget Brisbane or Adelaide. SO realistically, for business it's planes in and out between our major cities. For closer regional cities I agree with your main premise: it's all about frequency. I catch Geelong / Melb frequently and it's generally great - you don't have to worry about which exact train you are going for - there's always another one - even at night. But the other regional towns are a problem. We don't need trains to be FASTER. We need them more FREQUENTLY. But can we PLEASE get off the topic of super high speed trains between Sydney and Melb - or even more problematically Melb to Adelaide as it's not going to work for a daily piece of work. If you force people into overnight then everything changes and again you don't need the super high speed train. Our major cities are just too far apart for the time / cost logistics. Plus with EVs coming onto the scene (next 20 years transition) a lot of trucks and cars up the Hume Hwy will no longer be highly polluting. And some will be autonomous. That's halfway to an electric train in my book.
Which will be first? Improving Australia's regional and interstate trains or a contactless smartcard fare collection system for use on all Australian public transport services.
In Queensland freight trains are the only daily trains outside Brisbane. The sunlander only passes through my town every few days rarely during daylight hours
Im so disapointed I nwver got to take the train down to Bombala. I would have like to have taken a train to the snow in Australia. I reckon they need to open the line up again to Tumut or Cooma and have it go to the snow. Make it part of the hydro project or something. At the very least, extend the skitube further down the mountain.
I live in Newcastle and there is a line out to Maitland and the Hunter, its very popular, and if you caught it all the way you can change to regional lines. Only problem is they are expensive. I would love to catch trains to Melbourne or Brisbane but i agree they are too expensive. XPT From Sydney to Brisbane runs at least once a day both ways though.
V/Line seems to be doing alright, trains are far more frequent today than 20 years ago and lines are being upgraded all the time. Melbourne to Warrnambool now sees more trains than Sydney to Canberra.
Victoria has no excuse not to have good regional services. It's a fairly flat place. NSW does have an excuse; really shit topography in every direction out of Sydney, meaning the old steam age tracks are winding and steep in places. ('Steam age' rail culture doesn't help either.) Possible but expensive to correct.
Could be done in stages, just like how the Hume Highway got converted from a winding two lanes to a four lane motorway. A good place to start would be to do a new rail corridor parallel to the motorway from Menangle rejoining the existing tracks near Pheasants Nest, then improve it all bit by bit. Good luck.
The other thing is, it's not just the passenger services, the Sydney to Melbourne route is primarily a freight line, and the public and industry would benefit even more greatly from its improvement. Could be in the same corridor (but not the same track as higher speed passenger services).
@@tacitdionysus3220 the legacy line could be relegated to freight and sleeper services, but a new set of rails - preferably HSR - would be needed for the daylight services
It's better than it was, but it still needs to improve. Check out the Wikipedia list of places in Victoria by population size and see how far down the list you get before you find a place you can't catch a train to. (Hint: it isn't far.)
@@spdfatomicstructure So do nothing for faster freight, so it remains uncompetitive against trucks for all except bulk, and pay for two separate systems? Yeah, nah.
@@shrikelet you get to 9, which is understandable as Mildura is so far from everywhere else in Victoria it’s further north than Canberra, and further west than Warrnambool. After that the next place that’s more than 20 kms from a station is Portland at 32nd, with a total population of about 10k.
Perth to Sydney by train is $2400 and 4 days.
Perth to Sydney by plane is $260-$800 and 5h30m.
Anglo nations may be known in modern times for their extremely poor rail despite being big pioneers of it; but to me Aussie regional rail is the worst of the worst. Like the yanks; seems we've had a big problem with too many overpaid chiefs hiding behind the senate; for the amount of Indians actually building and servicing the lines. America were lucky to create Amtrack back when their federal government was still mostly trying to do its job, rather than just dancing for corporate donors.
i dont think you can really compare tbh, cost could easily be reduced, the thing is the train is a luxury train not a train designed to take people from A to B,
Are you looking at journey beyond there a private tourism operator not government run.
Actual government run lines are usually fairly competitive in price with planes.
I actually get sleepers cheaper then planes with pension discount.
@@nathnathn You need to work on your English, as your comments are poorly written.
@@RealNotOrrio Whilst I agree with you in the sense that the Indian Pacific is a luxury tourist train, would Australians be prepared to travel from Sydney to Perth in a seat or accept Russian style cheap sleeping accommodation?
its wild how much of an issue all the bends in routes adds to distance, sydney to melbourne for example the train makes 72 full rotations each way
XPT Melbourne to Albury is not too bad as the track has been improved heaps but after that is where the speed drops because of bends and track restrictions. Melbourne to Adelaide is a trip for tourists at best.
@@cabbagepatch8947And the Sydney to Brisbane "XPT" gets depressing with all its meandering to, and the fact it doesn't service many towns that would welcome the service on the coast
Important to hammer home the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@cabbagepatch8947 ikr i want to go to adelaide for a music festival later on and it is more expensive to travel by train than plane so im definitely staying away from that
It is $80- Plane and it was $120- Train and not even on a close date i need
Hills exist chief. Trains weren’t just built to move 7 people city to city each day.
Another big issue with travel to regional towns is that those towns are very car centric - so if I got the train from Sydney to Dubbo, it would be hard for me to get around Dubbo without a car... At which point I might as well drive the whole way.
But more trains between smaller towns could be a winner - like why can't someone in Dubbo do a day trip to Bathurst or Orange by train? These are easy fixes, but will require a much bigger fleet to run these services.
A bigger fleet and duplicate the lines would help but if there is no votes in it it ain't going to happen.
it’s a pity all of the tram systems got torn up, because in the modern day they would be a great asset, e.g; bendigo - tram went to the hospital or past weeroona to the school, thales factory (which is next to a train line and a perfect place for a station), botanical gardens, down south to lansel square, etc. If places like Bendigo kept their trams as a way to commute more people would probably catch the train
I wonder if the trick is you build a railway hotel that does deals. Train and stay is cheaper then other alternatives.
@@createdforthemoment6740 pretty much every town that has had a train station has a railway hotel. Most of those towns you would avoid those the railway hotels haha
I recent spent Easter at conference in Parkes and went by xpt it was a great ride, but with a walking difficulty I had to rely on car pooling for transport.Parkes has almost no public transport system. If it does I couldn't find it.
100% agree. they used to have the adelaide melbourne service twice a day for about 40 dollars each way, sure beats 300 bucks there and back in petrol and having to drive or the hassle of going to the airport, yeah the flight is an hour but then you have to get to the airport, check in, wait around, airport beers, get off the plane, wait for luggage, get taxi or uber into town, etc so that is quite a few hours and expense there. on the train you get from the centre of one city to the centre of the city where you are headed. That overnight XPT is top shelf. on a side note one of my buddies used to live a couple of streets away from the puffing billy bridge. good times!
Personally, I use V/Line services on a regular basis, and I believe that they are a generally viable option for getting around regional Victoria.
Of course, there are some things which could be improved: weekend frequencies, lack of comfortable long-distance facilities on the latest train orders, the privatised mess that is Southern Cross Station, etc., but every major system has its drawbacks. It's also good to see that the Victorian government is investing in our regional rail services, by duplicating single track and making other infrastructure optimisations which allow for more efficient train operation. It would also be great to see electrification of the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines, but this doesn't seem to be something that is going to happen any time soon, nor is the Geelong fast rail project. Both of these projects would've boosted capacity on the trains between our two biggest cities, providing a more comfortable trip for people on the train, and helping encourage more people out of their cars!
I'm also going to be taking the daytime XPT from Sydney to Melbourne later this week. A range of factors contributed to my decision to do this: arriving and departing from the central railway station in each city provides more convenient transport options at a lower price than arriving at the airport. You also get the opportunity to see more of the countryside and regional towns while travelling by train than you do by air, and you can get up and walk around at your leisure. Of course, these benefits probably aren't so notable if you commute regularly on the service, but as a tourist to Sydney and NSW, it is certainly a selling point. Finally, I personally can't stand airports and anything related to air travel, so travelling by rail gets me out of that, and as a bonus is much better for the environment!
It's mind bending how the entire country understood the value of trains, and then over the course of two decades, all of that knowledge was unlearned.
Nothing mind-bending about it. Railways were great in the 1800s, then a new form of technology overtook it - the automobile, which could take anyone from anywhere to anywhere else. Then along came planes, which could take people between cites at unthinkable speeds. Railways went the way of the dodo just as they themselves had made the horse and carriage obsolete.
Our prime minister in the 70's, Gough Whitlam, attempted to create a national operator called Australian National. Commonwealth Railways as well as those from Tasmania and South Australia all signed up but the other states didn't. The subsequent federal governments didn't invest in AN and forced lines to close, and John Howard sold off the AN's passenger operations such as the Overland, Indian Pacific, etc. These services are now essentially tourist trains.
*Not... quite*
"Australian National was a re-branded "Commonwealth Railways" which was started around the time of the First World War, not in the 1970's
In the 1970's, the South Australian govt jumped at the chance to offload it's trains onto someone else as did Tasmania, which then became "Australian National".
That "subsequent federal government" you mention was Paul Keating's cut-backs (as Treasurer then Prime Minister). Paul Keating began the Privatisation Process by re-branding "Australian National" as National Rail, which eventually was combined with NSW government railways, the whole lot being eventually put up for sale, after a very complex process.
Paul Keating started the Privatisation process for Australian National, a suggestion that cost him dearly in the subsequent election (1996).
John Howard said he'd reverse such if he was elected; he was elected and did not reverse the privatisation process, the sale being completed in 2002.
Tourist Traps
John Howard again. I feel like John Howard doesn't get nearly enough credit for ruining Australia.
@@MrGeocidalno chance under Australia's current media ownership
@@ozsteamer2755 "In November 1996, the Federal Government announced a major rail reform package that included the sale of Australian National.[15]" - Cited from Wikipedia, that was Howard's government. On 1 July 1975, the Australian National Railways Commission took over responsibility for the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways and branded itself Australian National Railways. It wasn't quite a re-branded Commonwealth Railways either, it's purpose was integrating state networks such as SA and TAS which it did successfully.
I just returned from a trip in Japan, and it's honestly astonishing how practical their train system is. Every major city has its own rail network and the cities themselves are either connected by bullet trains or limited express trains, both of which runs at least twice an hour from what I've seen. Unlike traveling by airplane, you don't have to go through the hassles you get at the airport, and you end up saving time even though the train technically takes longer (especially if you live close to the station.)
Not to mention, sightseeing during train rides in Japan is really fun.
Yeah. I went to Japan in May 2023 and I really enjoyed the bullet trains there. It made me really wish for faster travel within the Sydney Trains suburban network to and from the Sydney CBD, something that was lost for about 7 years now following the timetable change in November 2017. I know it's not related to regional travel but I though I'd share this experience of mine that I've been unhappy with for many years now. As for regional travel, I've done a few in 2022 and most of them were not on time. The most eggregious one being from Tamworth back to my home in Sydney. It was about a four hour wait for a replacement bus due to flooding on the tracks, then a slower intercity service back to Central Station. It was extremely frustrating. It made me not want to go back to regional travel until at least we have more modern trains that are more reliable than the XPTs and Xplorers.
Tiny country, massive population, they are in a very different situation than Australia. I remember going there and the train culture is so different, the respect and ease of use is insane. Here in Australia I swear most regional train users are just people getting out of prison
@100StepProgram getting out of prison?
@@100StepProgram Exactly. These threads always fill up with people saying "I went to Japan once blah blah blah". Japan is a small country, and yet there are 83m people living along the main Tokkaido route. That has zero relevance to Australia, where millions of sheep and kangaroos are the potential customer base outside of Sydney and Melbourne.
I live at the literal halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney (Junee)… the XPT travels through here four times a day… but the night trains arrive very late at night. The morning trains departures from Melbourne or Sydney are far too early.
There is a mid week train that leaves Sydney at lunchtime, comes to Junee around 6pm and then heads out to Griffith… it is an ideal train for my needs… but as mentioned is only once a week at that time.
So more frequent trains through Junee would help… perhaps restore the Riverina Express but say have it run to Albury four days a week and out to Griffith three days a week.
Also upgrade the trains so they have wifi available the entire trip (mobile coverage is non existent outside the towns it travels through.
Have 20W USB charging ports at each seat… maybe even 240v power.
Have an on board entertainment system with movies and tv shows that play on your own device (just like many of the airlines do now)
Offer more leg room in between seats
Offer small cabins that can be either bedrooms (with longer beds rather than the shorter than singles they have now) AND/OR small workspaces… I’d gladly take a laptop on board if I had the table space and wifi to do work while travelling
Have better food options and not just one service time for cooked dinner meals.
Follow Victoria’s lead and reduce the cost of tickets!
Not that this is incredible, but it is a 100% improvement...the Griffith train is now two days a week, on Wednesday and I think Friday, or Saturday - one of the two. Small wins
My hometown of Armidale (~30000) is a university town and is as of mid2000s the end of a northern train line.
You get 1 8.30am train to Sydney a day and that’s it it doesn’t get cancelled.
Bad luck to all the communities past that have no other connection than poorly maintained highways to syd.
I can’t speak for other State Governments but NSW it seems has especially underfunded regional rail for many years and would sooner rip out the rail for a bike trail than improve service
I'm also from Armidale and take this route on occasion. I don't think it's ever going to be upgraded to higher speeds so I think what would be ideal for this route is a night train.
The Gold Coast train will eventually terminate at Coolangatta, as well as the G-Link tram, right on the state border. When this happens, will people of northern NSW feel left out? Tweed Heads, Ballina and Lismore are much closer to Brisbane than Sydney.
@@bena8121 Good reason for QR to start SG'ing there rail line.
Looks like everyone from Armidale is here. Warm day today.
Most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
A single national passenger operator would possibly help, but the states would never do that now.
It would probably end up privatised anyway and we saw how badly that’s worked in the past on freight.
Rather than that, I think it would be better for a national funding system to funnel $$ into the state rail systems. Either by subsidising new services, or, by funding infrastructure that aligns to longer term benefits. Probably both. That gives some autonomy to the states, but still funnels the $$ into the right areas, rather than roads.
That's one of the Things the US does well because we have a single fast Fully Electrified passenger rail corridor through the most densely populated part of the country run by a nation passenger rail carrier (although they do get bullied by private freight railroads like Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National, Union Pacific, and BNSF) but they do own that section of Electrified track they inherited from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1971 after Penn Central fell apart
Unless you take it out of the states hands, they’ll never cross the borders like they should. See v/line ignoring Wagga for example.
@@leonkernan I think that's where better federal funding would solve those issues. Having states still manage the regional rail systems doesn't mean you can't use fed funding to fix that.
@@leonkernan hmmm yeah not a problem in the US because while yes many routes are state sponsored they are still operated at the Federal level
The very limited public transport within regional towns is one of the main reasons people rarely take inter-city trains. Example: Geelong with over a quarter million people has buses that on a sunday usually stop running by 6 and even on a weekday services are infrequent and very indirect. for most people they're just unusable unless you're desperate.
my town has 4 whole bus lines D: and only one of them runs past the train station (none at the moment) all of which stop running at 4 and dont run during school end times, its so frustrating as a non driver
Trains between Sydney - Melbourne - Brisbane are the NSW Rail XPT, operated by the State Government. Trains between Sydney - Adelaide - Perth (the Indian Pacific), Adelaide - Melbourne (The Overlander) and Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin (The Ghan) are operated by a private company who sells a journey, not a means of transport.
IIRC the Overlander is an outlier, as though it runs by GSR/JB, it does recieve subsidies from VIC and SA state governments to operate the route. For a long time, I think federal govt provided subsidies for low cost seat class coaches on the Ghan and Indian Pacific as well, but they got pulled years ago.
Victoria will be quite interesting if they do run new lines again, they just spent a fortune converting a ton of our out of use passenger track to standard gauge (we use broad gauge for passenger rail here) for the grain trains, I think it creates an interesting prospect for a private operator to lease or purchase older rolling stock, and set up an alternate transit network using those lines, since they’re not used during the daytime (or really at all right now) Seeing as tourist trains have been able to run services on the lines it’s clear the possibility exists, it’ll just take someone with the right money to restart it.
Because they’re using the standard gauge, it would even make it worth interlinking the network across the border with NSW, simply extend the Mildura line up to meet the Broken Hill line, suddenly you have a second route into NSW, and if routes to Adelaide could be opened up, that could also interlink too.
I actually believe that the removal of the rail services up in the Mallee region at the start of the 90s actually likely contributed significantly to the decline of all the towns on that route, people living in Mildura have been screaming for a train line to reopen for over a decade now.
And the other big problem with regional rail especially here is the fact that all lines lead down to Melbourne, and there are no cross links, for example if you were to specifically take a train from Bendigo to Shepparton, that can take up to 14 hours, despite the cities being less than 2 hours apart by car. You’re forced to travel to Melbourne, wait for one of the infrequent trains, and then travel back up the specific line. The fact the network has no interconnection also means that if a section of track is damaged or out of service, the entire line goes down, and the only alternative is bus transit, which is uncomfortable and cramped.
There is no redundancy and there is no consideration that people outside of Melbourne have a right to reliable and frequent public transit. The only reason it’s not in demand is that people can’t even imagine what services would be, as we’ve spent decades not even having access.
melb - syd - bris is an obvious candidate for much faster rail, i think most people would prefer to avoid the hassle of security, waiting, delays, no wifi / phone reception and cramped conditions of flying. But travel times would need to drastically reduce. Sadly a new line would be needed at great cost.
In addition, high speed rail is a long term proposition and takes a lot of political will (as we've seen with HS2 in the UK) to see it through - our election cycles mean that even if one party ran with this, there's a risk that it would be cancelled when there's a change of office (particularly given the high costs involved). So you really need a bipartisan approach.
First, we definitely need night sleeper trains to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. That should be a priority since we are getting sub par XPT replacements.
Second, we should look to upgrade the windy track in places to get faster trains rather than straight to high speed rail. Although we should reserve the land corridor for high speed rail asap.
Oh no what you are guys getting saddled with? - someone from the original South Wales
@@TheGreatUnwashedThing CAF civity hybrids, fine for a few hours but poor choice for the interstate runs I believe (based on others opinions too).
ua-cam.com/video/eOzRPynRgoM/v-deo.htmlsi=AFHHoPZcpKYZk_VC
Good video. I would argue Victoria is something of an exception to this, having invested quite a lot into upgrading the regional rail network and fleet, reducing travel times between Melbourne and key cities. The result is that patronage has massively increased. (I know some people will argue that there are many lines that have been closed down or left off; or that they hate VLocities but relative to other states, Victoria has an impressive regional rail network). The other challenge with all of this is our car-centric culture (similar to the USA). Most politicians don't see passenger rail as a vote-winner and hence, and when combined with short political cycles, we end up with poor decisions and focus on short term projects rather than wholesale improvements in the network.
Out of interest, where did you get the B-roll footage (ie drone shots of cities etc) you used in your video?
Victoria haven't done didly. What they have is a diesel run intercity network instead of an electric one and they call it regional rail. They have very few actual long distance lines like NSW has and the new lines they have built have been to separate these intercity services from suburban services.
@@carisi2k11 I guess it's all a matter of perspective. If you call spending $750 million on the Regional Fast Rail project followed by $4 billion on the Regional Rail Link project, plus the billions spent on the VLocity fleet, insignificant, then sure. Yes a lot of that to separate regional and suburban rail, as you say, but there's no denying it's improved service and reliability (I'm not trying to say any of these projects are perfect - far from it, and I appreciate stuff went over budget etc etc). But everything is relative. I live in a state with no real regional rail services (South Australia), so to me - the SA Government is the one doing didly (other than chucking a few dollars towards The Overland). Sadly.
@@carisi2k11 they have less long lines because Victoria is so much smaller, but almost every city or town with at least 10k population is within 20kms of a passanger rail service running multiple times a day both ways, and most have service direct to the town centers.
@@carisi2k11not sure if “haven’t done didly” means they have or have not done much. I think Vic has done OK in the last 15 years. V/Locity trains do 160kph, and is much faster than driving from where I live (Castlemaine) than driving.
I live near Castlemaine (Bendigo line) and commute the 120km or so to Melbourne regularly. The trains do 160kph (100 mph) most of the journey, much faster than driving - especially at peak times. I agree that frequency is an issue. There is 1 train per hour outside of peak times. All in all I think Victoria has done well with Bendigo, Ballarat, Bairnsdale and Albury V/Locity services and deserve praise. Another issue is the debt run up to pay for it, but let’s not talk about that here!
One important thing to mention is the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
Double Tracking, then Electrification, straightening curves, adding more siding loops.
Commuter Services, Regional Services, Overnight Services with bunk beds.
Connecting regional towns with 4x a day service to major cities and capitals.
Giving National importance & priority to Adelaide-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane link along with regional towns.
Some time ago the Victorian government developed the regional fast rail network for Victoria.
While the system only has a maximum speed of 160 kph the improved standard of track and signalling as well as increased frequency of new trains on country lines the passenger numbers increased dramatically.
This proves that if you provide a good service, the public will use it even if it does not travel at 250kph.
Two car Velocity trains began the service but it wasn't long before 3 car trains were required.
We currently use 6 car Velocity trains and in some cases we need 9 cars.
One of the big costs to improved travel times is to modernise the safe working system which other states have not done.
In my student days I travelled between Sydney and Melbourne and the end of each term. There was one daytime train each day "The Intercity Daylight Express" and three overnight trains.
The Southern Aurora was an overnight sleeper express. The Spirit of Progress was an overnight train with first and second class seats as well as some sleeper carriages. In holiday and peak travel times there was also a train referred to as the Third Division which was just basic second class seats in non-heated carriages which were very cold in winter. From memory the Southern Aurora departed Sydney at 20:00 and the Spirit of Progress at 20:10.
Travel between Sydney and Adelaide was also possible by catching the Daylight Express from Sydney then changing at Sunshine (suburban Melbourne) onto the awaiting Overland - an overnight train directly to Adelaide.
Yep. A good service pattern for the intercapitals (I'd for BNE-SYD / SYD-MEL / MEL-ADL and SYD-ADL via Broken Hill) would be four trains a day each direction, An early morning limited stop, a later morning stopper, an evening limited stop sleeper with motorail, and a late evening sleeper stopper, with no motorail. We should have the same pattern for BNE-CNS, as well as an hourly SYD-CBR semi high speed service through some limited realignments, electrification and level crossing removals.
@@Syulang-nt4kj Later in my student days when studying in Adelaide I would catch the Indian Pacific from Sydney and change at Peterborough onto an awaiting shuttle train to Adelaide. The Indian Pacific had economy class twin sleepers - but you could end up with strange travelling companions which is good practice for Chinese and Russian trains!
I travelled to Brisbane a few times on the Brisbane Limited which was OK. The main problem travelling north is the ridiculous meandering track around Gloucester. I never knew why they ripped up the track from the Gold Coast Murwillumbah!
In 1994 I travelled on a Tilt Train from Sydney to Canberra. The carriages were on loan from somewhere and the engine was just a normal NSW one. It was part of a trial but it was never taken up.
Didn't The Spirit of Progress go throuh Wallangarra when it was running? That meant you had to change at Wallangarra for break of guage (NSW to QLD.)
@user-co2vz4py3r The Spirit of Progress was between Syd and Mel only. It did not go north to Qld.
@@aussiebloke51 The Casino-Murwillumbah line was closed because in the end the XPT was the only train using it, so the cost of maintaining the line for only one return train a day could not be justified.
The tilt train was the Swedish X2000, pulled by an XPT power car.
V/Line’s Bendigo to Melbourne route has increased growth year on year for quite a while now, in fact it’s gotten to the point where many services don’t have enough seats on a regular basis.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
Bendigo is also growing rapidly in population.
Are they running 9 car sets yet? I know they did some testing few years back
@@galliman123 I think they are to Melton and Wyndham Vale but not further afield.
You mentioned Toowoomba!, Currently they is only a weekly rail service from Brisbane to Toowoomba. This ia due to the dreadful alignment over the Toowoomba Range, which resembles a goat track. If the route was duplicated and the line between Helidon and Toowoomba was realigned, a service with a 30-min frequency could be justified.
Yep. I've got family in Toowoomba, and it's crazy there isn't a frequent service into Brissie.... until I looked up the rail route on Google Earth. JFC... it's a shitshow.
The distance between Toowoomba and Brisbane is about the same distance from Lithgow and Sydney and yes it goes through the blue mountains and they come every hour
With inland rail, part of the route is between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Some reports I've read mention line upgrades, (realignment, conversion to dual gauge, possible electrification between the two). So improved service may end up a possibility
I live in Toowoomba and I didn’t even know we had a service to brissy.
Much the same here in NZ. A new passenger service has opened between Hamilton and Auckland. Sadly, only a couple of services each day but not every day. It also takes 30-40% longer than going by car. They wonder why it's not used that much.
Here in Tamworth ,the bridge over the river is now so bad ,now the train has to crawl over it.
I did the Brisbane to Cairns trip on the Tilt Train and it was great. The original Queenslander Service it replaced should have been kept in my opinion as this is one of the World's great train journeys. The scenery is quite spectacular as you move from Sub-Tropical to Tropical and traverse many interesting regions. I really loved the original Queenslander because it was all about getting there, and you had individual cabins. The Tilt Train is good though with wide panoramic windows and sleeper beds.
I believe the original Queenslander rolling stock, built in Townsville, is now operating in Peru as a Luxury Andes Train.
Perfectly explained! We are going down to Melbourne to holiday from Newcastle and it was both cheaper and obviously faster to fly... come on, they need to drop the prices to beat airtravel.
I haven't flown in nearly 20 years. I've travelled canberra to melboune multiple times a year for the last few years, and doing it by train (well, bus between canberra and albury then train the rest of the route) is just so much more relaxing than any other way. 8 hours to do it that way, flying would be nearly 5 once you account for how out of the way the airports are and how much extra time you need. Just sit back and relax for a few hours reading or listening, quick change in the middle with a good leg stretch, then go back to reading for another few.
Since the price cap, it's been a $30 trip each way. No other way even compares on that aspect.
edit: the one thing most people are missing is that both state and national governments are so heavily bribed by various private companies that we need nothing short of a revolution to stand a chance of fixing these things properly. Neoliberalism is an blight on humanity
$30 Canberra to Melbourne? That's exceptional value!
I love Australia's regional trains and catch them whenever I can. You hit the nail on the head in regards to service problems with this video
I've done several videos on the XPT (sleeper and otherwise) and its rough to the point its almost embarrassing. I've just returned from 2 weeks in Europe and rode the Italian high speed rail, and the cross border swiss trains .... And it just shows how far behind we are in Australia.
On holiday, I caught the train from Brisbane to Maryborough.
Can't fault the service, staff were very helpful.
Watching in New Zealand.
I recently had to travel from brisbane to adelaide and even though i actively looked to see if rail was an option due to my dislike of flying i wasnt able to even find a rail service.
One prime example of regional trains being successful in Australia is actually the tilt trains but even they need to be upgraded for 180kph operations + new trains soon.
Still need about double the number of trains to run at a frequency that's "useful" instead of just a tourist/curiosity product.
There are no 180kph sections, they are 160kph. No track in Australia is rated for running any faster than 180kph.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@BigBlueMan118electric tilt train reached 210kph during testing.
@@nicholasbyrne6485 I'll say it again though just in case it wasn't clear: no track in Australia is certified + rated for faster than 160kmh.
i live on the melbourne to albury line and the hard thing is when there are works having to be done to improve intercity rail, the small town communities just go up in arms, or get upset that their train goes even slower, so the artc gets a lot of pushback from small town communities.
Definitely agree, as someone who travels between Adelaide and Melbourne very frequently and usually is done via air or car, but if Train was more affordable and faster it would definitely be the only travel I would be using
nice video! it would be great to see higher frequency on regional routes in nsw but we don't have many regional trains, for example each year when trainlink runs the 'elvis express' to Parkes the scheduled Dubbo service is replaced by road coaches. I believe that the current XPT fleet only allows 4 power cars to be unavailable and the new regional fleet only provides 2 extra regional sets compared to the current XPT and Explorer fleet.
Strategically upgrade some lines to HSR and then boost and reactivate branch lines that cross them. And have a very high speed line between Melbourne and Brisbane via near to Newcastle and parts of Sydney at strategic transfer hubs like their metro and some express train stations and the HSR can replace existing express trains as it would run on its own tracks rather than like v/line that shares with local trains in Melbourne. Maglev can be successful if strategically done. With a tunnel to allow faster trains to Sydney to bypass the crazy turns on the blue mountain line.
one of the things we desperately need is high-speed railways between Brisbane and Melbourne using maglev technology.
Sydney to newscast route is quite slow, it turns me from going off sometimes. Also the fact they cut off trains between 1:30am to 4:46am, even on Friday and Saturday. It’s not actually as effecicient as it could be, but they don’t wanna spend more than needed, if it runs it’s good enough for them, but during the day it is about every 35 minutes which isn’t too bad. It takes just about 2 hours, even tho it takes 30 minutes less to drive
The XPT hits 160km/h north of Albury. Curvy track is the main problem. We need to invest in realignment, and do it in stages. Every time we do this the travel time will go down.
The Blue Mountains line takes 40 minutes to get from Lithgow to Mt Victoria alone and takes 4 and a half hours to get to Central Station. It's crazy as you can drive to Sydney an hour quicker than taking the train.
Great video. And it only really touches on the lack of good trains between major and regional cities. I'd love to see one where you look at the lack of good trains (or lack of trains entirely) between regional towns. I can only really speak for my native Victoria, but the way we've dismantled the rail network here over the past 50 years borders on the criminal.
To be honest I don't blame any government for scrapping the rail services we no longer have. If people don't use the trains, it is pointless running them. Here in NSW, as little as 30 years ago, the railways were running empty trains all over the state. One car's worth of passengers on a train of up to ten cars, plus the locomotive, baggage car and motor generator car. That just doesn't make any sense.
Trains to areas that still have rail services are mostly served by smaller DMU sets which have a smaller engine underneath each car for propulsion. No dining car, no sleeping car, no car carriers. Anything else would not meet fiscal requirements because again, they aren't always full.
Even the mighty XPT is about to be replaced with dual-mode DEMU cars. Diesel generators for outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where there are no catenaries and when inside the suburban networks, they'll raise pantographs and switch off the engines.
If there was a city with metropolitan population of 3 million or more every 200km or so like there is on the east coast of the USA then a train that hauls butt would be more economically feasible and what's more, it'd already be on the rails.
Australia cannot keep comparing itself to Europe. The EU is less than half the size of Australia in land area and has a population of half a billion people.
@@vintageradio3404 Where did I say anything about Europe or electrification?
This is why I said I can only speak to Victoria. We weren't running empty rural trains 30 years ago, because we shut down almost all our rural passenger services 50 years ago; when petrol was cheap and Melbourne was two and half million people.
DEMUs are great. Build more of those. Just provide railway services to places that need them.
@@shrikelet again almost every city or town of any real size in Victoria has rail service.
@@jakal0except mildura ☹️ and horsham (the overland isn’t a proper commuter service)
@@reubenab6005 yeah, like I said almost every city or town. It would be good if they fix the gauge conversion issues and ran services out to Mildura, but it’s small enough and far enough away that I can’t blame them for not making it a priority. Similarly they should replace the overlande with daily,vline run, standard gauge, velocitys to Adelaide, but short of that I can see why Horsham isn’t a priority.
V/Line is probaby the exception, the fact that a line which serves less than 50k receives 2x services a day (Swan Hill past Bendigo) is pretty good. V/line should run the Overland and maybe even take over NSWtrainlinks XPT to Sydney.
Stop fooling yourself here. Vline isn't the exception whatsoever. Vline lack an ability to run those services.
The QLD regional rail system between Rockhampton & Brisbane is as close to being in a sweet spot as I can ever recall.
Prices are much cheaper than car fuel & ongoing highway upgrades have it being often the faster option.
There is usually a few trains per day, and the trade off is about right between the quicker tilt trains or the roomier/fancier long distance haulers
Funny you mention this. I'm currently considering planning a rail trip from Sydney to Adelaide. It's been interesting to make sure everything lines up, but I have time on my hands, so I can spend a couple of days in Melbourne to be able to catch the Overland to Adelaide. The problem with the Overland is it's run a by luxury tourist rail operator, and is treated as such. If Vline, or the SA equivalent, ran it like a commuter service, it'd be a different story. Cost is in interesting factor, the Sydney - Melbourne XPT, with sleeper, is $230 with no food included, a flight is much cheaper.
Another option to consider is to skip melbourne and take the vline recommended route from sydney to adelaide. Change at albury at the arse crack of the morning and bus across victoria. Not the most comfortable route, but hard to beat on price for the vline sections of the route (unfortunately sydney to albury is nsw transport territory and costs so much more than it should)
Maybe not the way to do it every time, but as a one time trip its quite the adventure
If you're doing more than a couple trips on NSW's trains, it becomes better value to get the Discovery Pass, which gives you unlimited access to the regional network at one price for the purchased period.
When I do Melbourne to Brisbane, I buy a 14 day Pass and pay the extra sleeper fee on any overnight legs of the journey. Cheaper than paying individually for the four legs of the journey up and back.
I think the trains in my area are pretty good to be honest. We have V/line because Victoria, and there is a train on the Melbourne - Traralgon line every hour, which means you can get from basically every town on the line whenever you need.
I like V/line but I can say that the bus connections the NSW intercity network like the XPT or the Xplorer. These trains also aim to travel at speeds approaching 160Km/H. On a recent journey from Melbourne to Orange in NSW, I was shocked to see how quick the whole journey actually seemed in relation to driving there by car.
I live in Griffith NSW, regional town, trip times to Sydney, by train 12hr, car 6hr, we never even think of using the train.
I caught the train from Armidale to Sydney, took a 6.5hr drive to a 9 hour ride. Cost the same as fuel, never losing my licence again after that haha
I think another thing is, Australia is so big that people just prefer to fly. Even with the inflation of domestic flights, 90% of the population would rather fly a $150 Jetstar flight from Sydney to Melbourne than sit on a train for hours. Ive done the Canberra-Sydney train twice and it took over 4 hours. It is 3.5 hours on a Murrays bus or a 40min flight.
erkk Jetstar. put sand under my eyelids and rub.
Three letters. HSR. With it comes the possibility of fast overland travel and in turn much needed relief for air corridors that are facing significant pressure
The thing is is doesn't have to be super fast like it is in other countries. 160 km/h would be a massive improvement on the 60-80km/h our trains run currently.
@@JustinWatson23 but 300km/h is the world standard these days, and is a speed that gives the railways a fighting chance when compared to air travel. That is what we need to aim for, because there need to be long-term solutions to the climate crisis
@@spdfatomicstructure Climate crisis? What a laugh...
@@vintageradio3404 Laugh all you will. Let's see who has the last laugh
@@spdfatomicstructure I don't disagree. It would come down to the cost different though. vWe can get 160km/h running now, with modifications as required. The other thing is things like wifi and power (i know they are on the continually delayed new NSW regional trains). Many business people would actually use the train if they got 2-3 hours of uninterrupted work done on the train versus the airport lounge and plane. They would be more productive for longer even if the plane was an 1 hr quicker. I'd probably even say we need both. Fast rail should only stop a few times. but a faster service doing the current lines would be good also.
Now, I’m not an expert on… well, anything really. But I am super in to urbanism and the idea of our country just not sucking so much. In other words, I wish I could frequently get from Sydney to visit my sister in Brisbane without spending the world, for example. I watched the latest video from Oh the Urbanity about urbanism projects happening across Montreal and the theme they’re taking in that city is small, progressive changes, rather than just master planning and building the whole thing all at once. Take the Sydney to Melbourne train route for example (and the Canberra branch line). Instead of wishing for the never-going-to-happen HSR, focus on small, incremental and CHEAPER projects like straightening a bit of line here or removing a bit of grade there. Over time, these will slowly add up to reduced journey times. I don’t think regional rail needs to be an alternative to flying, as much as I think it does need to be a better, cheaper and faster option than driving, for now.
Agree absolutely. If we were to do just one project per year that each shaved 30 minutes from Melbourne to Sydney, after 10 years we'd have knocked 5 hours of the total travel time. Not exactly HSR, but that would make it a FAR more appealing journey for many potential passengers. Obviously some projects would take longer than that, but Australia doesn't need HSR. Let's straighten the existing corridors, remove the level crossings and watch the journey times tumble.
Frequency is definitely a defining factor, I'm live in Bunbury and while the Australind line to Perth isn't running, the replacement Coaches are so infrequent that it's just not worth bothering, every time I look it's too late or too early. I really hope when the Australind does re-open it runs more often, more than once or so a day at least
The reason people take the train from Newcastle to Sydney in spite of it taking longer than driving is that finding a park takes even longer.
I did Sydney to Adelaide return back in 2010 when the Indian Pacific had their Red DayNighter seats & it took about 24 hours.
In 2022 I did Adelaide to Sydney return via a 13 hour Adelaide to Albury bus followed by the 8 hour XPT.
They did apparently do a trail of a bus to Broken Hill from Adelaide that would connect with the Xplorer but last I looked they discontinued it, sad as it's a nice trip.
In pre-child days, we used travel to Adelaide a fair bit - an extra long weekend, or going to the Festival. One year, we decided to catch the train back just for something different. In those days, the standard guage did not reach Adelaide, so we had to take a train consisting of 2 or 3 Budd railcars to Peterborough and make the change there. It was very comfortable, with good quality if conservative food. Having a double compartment gave us our own shower and loo. A few years later, we back in Adelaide, and woke one morning to news of a pilots' strike. We rushed into the city and managed to get a double compartment again. This time, the train came into West Adelaide with no need to change. A day and a half later, we arrived in Sydney after a restful trip..
Lessons from our trips - the staff were excellent and very helpful with none of the subservience we'd experienced on overnight British journeys we'd undertaken. The compartments were very comfortable and were much better than those on the restored VSOE train in Europe, let alone standard trains. The service was designed for those taking a holiday and not making a business trip. Over 30 years later, we'd not be doing it again.
Just a correction for you, Melbourne is actually Australias Largest city, if you just googled "Australias largest city" you could see this.
No thats wrong its obviously newcastle
The biggest challenge for regional and intercity trains is Qantas. The lobby to stop these improvements.
The Melbourne to Adelaide line used to be direct broad gauge, they made it standard gauge to link up with the rest of country but it’s very indirect now turning off at Ararat going via Geelong, they need a standard gauge link from Ararat to Melbourne through Ballarat
As someone who has lives in Toowoomba and regularly travels to Brisbane I think every time I'm on that highway how much easier this journey would be if there was a train. There are plenty on people who would love a regular train service from Toowoomba to even Ipswich! Not to mention the dozen towns and villages along the highway that have scores of people commuting to either Toowoomba or Brisbane for work every day. It's a service that would be used! as proven by how many people take the coaches into Brisbane everyday. Yes the range is an issue and I have seen the freight trains climb that track up the range and it was painfully slow. But if there was a station at the bottom of the range at Withcott, that would fix the problem. Add a regular bus service down the range and it would be the best think to happen to Queensland. If I need to travel into the city of Brisbane I refuse to drive cause it's so congested, so I do the hour long drive to Ipswich just to catch the train or catch a coach. The reason why people don't use the exsisting services is because they aren't worth it, or they have no idea they existed!
Just this week, I chose to take a coach from rural Victoria to Adelaide, even though the Overland did run that day from the same town. Why? Because the terminal in Adelaide is ridiculous! Interstate trains stop there, but suburban trains don't! And it's a completely pedestrian-hostile walk to the next suburban station. The V-line coach, OTOH, goes to a good terminal in inner-city Adelaide, with lots of nearby buses and the trams are pretty close, too.
I'd like to take one to portland.
Newcastle - Central Coast - Sydney should be the priority of HSR. It would be most patronized. Then you can go north and south from there. North to Brisbane. South to Melbourne.
Aren't they meant to be building a HSR from Newcastle to Sydney and then to Wollongong?
@@AntonHandel-bw7vv They're planning it. Whether we get to see it is another story 🤣🤣
Never ever with such unaccountable leaderships
I think the core focus for regional inter-city rail (in the short term) needs to be on competing with driving.
We have a network that honestly isnt far off being able to produce travel times that are highly competative against driving times. A lot of the slow downs are the results of things that could easily be addressed (poor curves, minor gradiants, low standard rural level crossings, not enough passing loops). The reason we dont address them is becauss the networks are for freight first and foremost, and passanger traffic is an after thought. As far as freight traffic is concerned an average speed of 80km/h is crazy fast.
Get the average speeds of the pasanger services up to 100km/h and they will usually be faster then the driving alternative. Getting them up further is very achievable in many areas of Australia and could create routes that are over an hour faster then driving.
If you can provide service that if faster then driving and has enough frequency that it isnt a pain to schedule (as little as 5 well timed services a day in each direction would suffice at a minimum), i believe people will use it.
In contrast, the cost of trying to compete with air travel is tremendous. I reckon we could easily get the train journey from Brisbane to Syndey to 9hrs (competative to driving) but getting itnto 3hrs (competative to flying) is a huge task. Trying to justify that off the back of what we currently have (a single daily service that people barely use) is a huge ask.
But if you can get the trip to a point where you are running it multiple times a day and people are choosing it over driving, thats the kind of rail based transit culture that would make the case for the HSR option easier to justify
The Big Build in Victoria has been so disruptive to the Traralgon train line that I moved to inner Melbourne. Years and years of replacement buses did my head in and the prospect of yet more replacement buses was too much.
Yet all that work on that line has seen the ability to add frequency to that and connecting lines. I am old enough to remember electric trains out to Traralgon both freight and passenger. (even steam but I digress) but we saw Kennett shut down the railways,,closing lines stripping out the electrical infrastructure. And railway lines. I also as a delivery truck driver remember the rail crossings between Dandenong and Melbourne that could take ten minutes to get past at peak hour due to the amount of up and down trains going through such crossings as Burke Road.... Those bus trips you mentioned have got rid of those ground level road crossings either by undergrounding or by skyrail over the roads, and yes it still is being built but I believe it is as far out as past Hallam. Be clear we saw major problems with Victorian Railways under Kennett...it was then that services all through the state were cut. The Adelaide Overlander went from a two service every day each way railway to a high end tourist railway service. This effected both SA and Victoria Regional Services. And yes I have caught that train as have I caught the Train to Albury.. An awful lot of money has been spent on rail recently, mostly because of Liberal Party neglect and the following of a US led motor car centric urban planning model from Sir Henry Bolte era.
@@adriaandeleeuw8339 I know that eventually everything will improve but that doesn't mean that spending months and months (and months) travelling on painfully slow replacement buses isn't soul destroying. When you travel daily to a job in Melbourne and spend as much time travelling as you do at work, it destroys the quality of your life.
The $4B RRR program is essentially doing 4-5 decades of neglected upgrades in 4-5 years. Yes, it sucks having long periods of line shutdowns & using replacement buses. However, one has to take the view that these disruptions are worth the benefits for the line last will last 50yrs+.
@@adriaandeleeuw8339 I know the Overland is operated by a high-end tourist focussed company, but is it a high end service? One way tickets at $130 are competitive on price with flying, except specials and Jetstar. Time and flexibility wise, clearly not compteitive - and that is probably what makes it more a tourist service. If you want to get to the other end for other reasons, the odds of a twice a week service lining up with needs are not great.
The Overland seems caught between trying to be two things, an actual viable service from A to B (which requires greater speed and frequency) and a (low end to mid-market) tourist railway something closer to, but not at the luxury, the type the operator is used to running. Relying so much on government subsidy, rather than being fully private or fully public, probably plays into that. Journey Beyond probably would make it a high end tourist trip, or just scrap it, if they could.
it's also worth mentioning, having grown up on the overland route, that it's designed more as a tourist train. day-to-day, people in these towns take vline buses and trains and stateliner buses if they don't want to or can't drive. the firefly bus runs twice daily, and even that is a more practical option for travel between melb and adl.
Thanks of doing this. It is an issue that has to be sorted somehow soon.
The main reason steam lines are (were) so curvey was the terrain steam powered trains had a maximum angle of climb or descent, to stop water draining from the boiler surfaces, and causing a steam blast. Many of thee curves could now be by-passed and the lines straightened also passing loops could be added to the Blue Mountains (Lithgow) intercity meaning it would not have to stop at every station after Penrith. also a few tunnels on the Brisbane route might speed it up.
RMTransit says much without saying anything
About 30 years ago when there were guard's vans , you could load up to 20 bicycles if the guard was cooperative. Now it is only 2 bikes on most regional trains and they have to be boxed. For someone who enjoyed the train/bike experience that has been a real downer.
While I live in a rural town in Victoria of decent size we have struggled to get decent rail here and only in last couple years gone to a better train when it b works
It take nearly two hours to Tavel from Bathurst to Katoomba - a car trip that takes 1.15mins - there are SO MANY CURVES btw Bathurst and Lithgow - added single tracks in several sections.
You do realise that the Blue Mountains is a mountainous area? It's not until you pass by Mt Lambie that the area starts to flatten out. Unless someone comes across with the dollars to build tunnels, that's how it'll stay too.
@@vintageradio3404 I LIVE OUT HERE In Bathurst - plus travel to Sydney every fortnight. The train winds around from Bathurst to Lithgow - the same train line that the Broken Hill / Dubbo trains use - that's SO SLOW with no straight sections. From Lithgow to Bell there are 11 tunnels - something similar needs to be done - or figure out a way to reduce the amount of curves
@@sylvaniaboi Yeah, you said that. Where do you want the line to go though? It may well not be possible to straighten it.
I was about to talk about how good I find the 190km link from Goulburn (where I live) to Sydney, but then remembered it's a far-flung Cityrail service so of course it's quite well used. I've taken the XPT to Melbourne and Brisbane both and all I can say is I would love a sleeper option. Sitting up, the journey time is quite the ordeal.
Sydney to Newcastle is functionally one train per hour due to the combination of of all-stop & express trains. Sydney to Gosford is two trains per hour.
The line between Hornsby and Broadmeadow is apparently too busy to support more services, due to the number of freight and coal movements plus interurban and long distance passenger trains. The federal government recently cancelled funding for a quad-track upgrade between Wyong and Tuggerah that was intended to alleviate this issue.
One of the other significant problems with Sydney is that the long distance services to Central are all into dead end platforms. Many cities around the world have built new through routes to address this type of issue, such as the Paris RER. Given that the new trains to replace the XPT and Explorers will be bi-modal (diesel / electric from OHW), there is scope to build a new tunnelled route branching off the existing line between Point Clare and Woy Woy, across under Broken Bay, down to Mona Vale and across to surface onto the North Shore Line south of Chatswood. Quad track the NSL from there to south of St Leonards, then another tunnel from there to North Sydney. Reclaim the eastern track pair of the SHB and Wynyard platforms 1 & 2 when the Western Harbour road tunnel opens, tunnel from Wynyard through under Central (alongside the Central metro platforms), surfacing to join the main line between Central and Redfern.
The RER is more like the Sydney suburban system then the intercity routes. I do like the idea of a new rail route that takes in the northern beaches from woy woy as that would hit population centres instead of national park.
The city underground will be a bottleneck in peak periods for such a plan to work. Departure and arrival of rerouted trains would have to be outside the peaks. Many services through Town Hall and Wynyard are already less than three minutes apart during the peak.
North Sydney has two unused tunnels to the north of the station which were intended for suburban services to the Nthn Beaches but the line was never built. These tunnels lead to Platforms 2 & 3 but the portals are bricked up. These could be used to bypass most of the Nth Shore Line but again, from Nth Sydney to Central will mean co-mingling with all-stations trains on a very busy line.
Your suggestion of reusing the rail corridor on the eastern side of the Bridge would work but there are long term (think 20 years away or more) to hand them back for use by trams. Running trains would mean digging more tunnels from Wynyard to Central as Platforms 1 & 2 at Wynyard formed a terminus. I am not sure there is sufficient room for extra tunnels in this area as the Cross City motorway tunnel is already very close to the existing rail tunnels. Yes, the tunnels could dive and go under the motorway but the grade would be too great.
Got a link to said plan?
@@carisi2k11The idea would be to have stations at Woy Woy (under the existing station), Palm Beach ferry wharf, Mona Vale and Northern Beaches Hospital. Additional possible station locations at Umina Beach, Avalon and Newport. Co-locating a station with the Northern Beaches - City bus route northern terminus would reduce the problem of empty counter-peak buses, increasing bus capacity by at least 40% without any other changes.
@@vintageradio3404My proposal involves taking the eastern track pair of the SHB back from being road lanes, a reconfiguration of North Sydney to have a track pair coming out of tunnels into platforms 1 & 2, then running across a bridge where the wrought iron bridge used to be to get to the eastern side of the SHB, and a new pair of tracks in tunnels from Wynyard to Redfern, with platforms at Wynyard, Central and possibly using the unfinished platforms at Redfern before dividing onto the Illawarra and western mains. The existing track pair coming from the western tracks on the SHB would be reconfigured to platforms 3 & 4.
Fully implemented, there would be a completely new pair of tracks from Gosford to Redfern. Between Chatswood and St Leonards, they would be between the North Shore line, allowing for routing options such as all-stop trains coming from the Central Coast shifting to the North Shore line.
Regarding branding and name recognition: I don't think we'd actually need a single Amtrak-style Branded Rail Service to achieve better public recognition of Australia's rail services. For one thing, with only 6 states instead of 50, and with comparatively few people who commute across state borders regularly, each state could simply market its own statewide service and achieve substantial name recognition. But for another thing, right now there are only two companies that actually operate intercapital rail -- the state-owned NSW Trainlink (Syd-Bris, Syd-Can and Syd-Mel) and private company Journey Beyond (Adl-Per, Adl-Syd, Adl-Dar, Adl-Mel and seasonal Adl-Bris). Either of these companies could do a big marketing blitz and substantially increase their patronage if they could find the money for it.
(The reason I say "intercapital rail" is because V-Line operates a single route which is technically interstate, the Melbourne to Albury service, but that's a long way from Sydney. Also, Journey Beyond has very much been tightening their belts recently, they did not do well over the pandemic, so I don't like their odds of doing a marketing blitz unless the Victorian government can either convince them to run the Overland daily or they can just sell the Overland to V-Line instead.)
Thanks for the interesting video. i wish that they would consider upgrading the Overland train services between Melbourne and Adelaide to compare with the Melbourne to Sydney train services. Back in 2013, when I rode the Overland train, it ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though since then, it has reduced to Monday and Friday only. It really needs to run both ways, seven days a week. Also, various regional train lines no longer run, especially in NSW, like Tenterfield, Murwillumbah and Mudgee, which really all should be reinstated. I remember some years back, we almost lost the Warrnambool Vic train service, but fortunately, that has been retained.
When you have less population in the entire country than Beijing, a city smaller than Sydney or Melbourne in size, dreaming of nation-wide rail network like in that city is just a pipe dream.
Yea it’s so dumb, people talk about how good Europe and Asia are and then asking why we can’t have the same is weird af. We are a tiny population and a massive country, it’s not as easy for us to do it compared to other places. Obviously it’s not an excuse but it’s certainly something to consider
I do Sydney-Grafton (northern NSW) and back a couple of times a year to visit family. If I'm travelling alone or at different times to other family members, the train is worth it to me. It's a bit longer, but the ticket costs less than the petrol to get there and it's way less taxing than doing the drive alone. Since I've got family there and I only really visit for holidays, I don't have to worry about getting around while there (but you REALLY need private transport in the Clarence Valley - it's not at all viable without a car). The trip is pleasant enough, seats are comfy, buffet cart is solid, scenery is nice and I've always found the staff kind, competent and happy to help with any problems that may arise. I don't mind doing it.
But if you're travelling with 1 other person, you more or less break even on the petrol, and you can switch drivers meaning you get a rest and don't have to stop for as long to be able to drive safely. At 3 drivers, you're laughing. You're easily on top with petrol and you only have to do 1 shift each (or maybe 1 person does 2 shifts, but at start and end fatigue is not a problem). If you don't have to stop for longer than it takes to fill up and scoff some fast food, you eat up the kilometres like nobody's business.
Sydney to Melbourne already have a overnight sleeper train every night (approx $240 each way) and between Sydney and Brisbane each way as well approx $250 for sleeper cabin) on NSW Trainlink
The cost would be huge to connect the capital cities with fast rail but as a more feasible option maybe building shorter routes such as a line from Newcastle to Canberra via Sydney. Gold Coast to Sunshine Coast via Brisbane. Victoria being the most densely populated state could have multiple lines from Melbourne that go to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Wodonga/Albury
Victoria spends far more money per passenger on the regional services than it does metro, so I would argue that the problem is the reverse in Victoria.
I think for me to get the train more would be speed and frequency for sure! and also competitive price with the plane... (Most things you said)
Not sure the sleeper one is good, because I have done it three times (ie one return to Melbourne and another only one way) and couldn't really sleep and it costed about the same (unless I wanted to share my cabin)...
Our biggest problem is the low population densities outside of major citys
Frequency is still a problem for suburban trains in Sydney. Regularly a 30 minute wait on weekends to get from the CBD to places like Liverpool.
Hi.
Sydney to Newcastle bare any improvement to times in seventy five years however at least vaguely similar to driving vaguely.
Other ‘one hundred mile cites’ from Sydney. Oh my.
Central to Bathurst. 😢
Central to Goulburn 😢
Add in Wollongong which is close to Central to Newcastle in proportion to drive time.
Surely some work could be done to have Wollongong to Newcastle that would benchmark or create a standard for Goulburn and Bathurst to Sydney. Yes the later two might give improvements to Mittagong and Katoomba/Lithgow.
Surely we can get medium speed services ie 160 to 200 kmh for longer periods:
Sydney to Newcastle highway has continued to be upgraded since i was a child now 65 i remember the toll way. the train stations have upgrades but the line into newcastle was ripped up making $44 million in revenue, from the sell-off of development land along the railway corridor. BUT, put in on the main road Hunter St, at $220 million per kilometre, tram it gos 2.7 km it has a low benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of less than 0.5 . it take office worker's in to newcastle because they lost parking on Hunter St and with the new developments on old car parks and the cost of parking has gone up
@@kirkgannaway5098 I am a regular visitor for a working week or more in Newcastle. Staying in the CBD and have been a visitor for forty or more years by car and train.
I think the tram is actually a longitudinal Carpark. The longitudinal park never materialised.
Now that have seen and used the Central to Circular Quay, and the Parramatta one what might have been in Newcastle. The interchange in Newcastle is deliberately badly designed why is the depot where it is. Cuts of north south pedestrian movement. Second rate possibly third rate.
Thanks for the technical analysis.
Great video, thanks! :)
Lack of patronage in regional areas! Australia is such a huge country compared to Europe, I tried Brisbane to cairns for 32 hours!
thank god you addressed this; i see it as partly the reason for why everywhere else that isn't a capital/major city isn't having good population growth. some key important routes with regular and reliable service still don't exist to this day which really just bugs me, and likely others. an example is Toowoomba to Brisbane, still using a railway from the 1800's. This route is comparable to Lithgow to Sydney, in a way where the Tbar to brissy route would be easier to build due to geographical challenges being far less. I just find it hard to get my head around as to why Australia isn't up to date with regional rail. Definitely something that lacks and hopefully something to be much more considered in future.
Like your observations surely it is possible to develop appropriate fast coonections from what I will call the hundred mile towns.
Bathurst to Syd plus five hours, an average journey time of thirty kilometres an hour!
Nowra to Sydney - plus three hours
Newcastle to Sydney - two hours fifteen minutes
I'd love to see proper sleeper trains linking our cities. Something with enclosed cabins and roomettes like they have on Amtrak.
Just something small to note....NSW to VIC train already does have sleeper. It's about $230 each way
High speed rail between capital cities is a dangerous distraction from what is possible. Money needs to be spent on shorter distances now, such as Sydney to Newcastle. By all means, design them in such a way that they could be extended to capital cities but don’t make it the rationale. It is a regular distraction that manages to destroy sensible and justifiable rail upgrades as collateral damage. The RM Transit staging options were pure nonsense.
Can’t help but feel it’s the road building, trucking and air transport lobbies who are responsible for those “proposals”
@@paulorocky Lots of people have run the numbers and the answer is always the same. The benefits are few and the cost is huge. We have much better things to spend our money on.
Totally agree.
I agree mostly. And it's not an either/or proposition. You can do the incremental approach for the intercity routes, while also setting up a much needed focus on the other shorter regional rail lines.
I do think that RM Transit is on the right track though (sorry for pun). He is trying to break down the intercity route to be more manageable, which is exactly what it needs. I just think he didn't understand that the approach needs to be far more incremental and systemic.
@@wolfblaide He had a crazy idea about building the easy bits first, say Albury to Goulburn which will have virtually no benefits until connected at either end 30 years later.
Generally agree. But. I have lived in many parts of the world and used trains and planes extensively here and in Europe and event the USA. What many people don't understand is that business people want to get to a major city, do their day's meetings / conferences etc and GET HOME the SAME day. So that means to compete with a plane let's assume 2 hours for travel to airport, check in and catch flight. Then the flight (e.g. 1hr 15 Melb to Syd) and same 2hrs for travel to aiport and return. That means a travel component of the day under six hours TOTAL. Even a maglev Melb to Sydney cannot do that - or anything close to it especially if it needs to stop in regional towns for extra patronage. And forget Brisbane or Adelaide. SO realistically, for business it's planes in and out between our major cities. For closer regional cities I agree with your main premise: it's all about frequency. I catch Geelong / Melb frequently and it's generally great - you don't have to worry about which exact train you are going for - there's always another one - even at night. But the other regional towns are a problem. We don't need trains to be FASTER. We need them more FREQUENTLY. But can we PLEASE get off the topic of super high speed trains between Sydney and Melb - or even more problematically Melb to Adelaide as it's not going to work for a daily piece of work. If you force people into overnight then everything changes and again you don't need the super high speed train. Our major cities are just too far apart for the time / cost logistics. Plus with EVs coming onto the scene (next 20 years transition) a lot of trucks and cars up the Hume Hwy will no longer be highly polluting. And some will be autonomous. That's halfway to an electric train in my book.
Which will be first? Improving Australia's regional and interstate trains or a contactless smartcard fare collection system for use on all Australian public transport services.
In Queensland freight trains are the only daily trains outside Brisbane. The sunlander only passes through my town every few days rarely during daylight hours
The Sunlander hasn't operated for around 10 years. It's now retired.
Thank you!
For people not in a hurry trains can be a very pleasant way of travel, so long as they do run where one is going.
Im so disapointed I nwver got to take the train down to Bombala. I would have like to have taken a train to the snow in Australia.
I reckon they need to open the line up again to Tumut or Cooma and have it go to the snow. Make it part of the hydro project or something.
At the very least, extend the skitube further down the mountain.
I live in Newcastle and there is a line out to Maitland and the Hunter, its very popular, and if you caught it all the way you can change to regional lines. Only problem is they are expensive. I would love to catch trains to Melbourne or Brisbane but i agree they are too expensive. XPT From Sydney to Brisbane runs at least once a day both ways though.