Fastrack's High Speed Rail Proposal for Australia
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- Despite having been proposed over and over again for over 50 years, high speed rail has failed to be built in Australia. Experts claim that Australia's density is too low, that our cities are too far apart, that it's too costly, and that high speed rail just doesn't make sense in Australia. But the advocacy group Fastrack couldn't disagree more. They've come up with a sensible and compelling proposal to construct high speed rail from Sydney to Melbourne, which will revitalise regional NSW and Victoria, and transform the way Australians travel forever. But it won't be easy to convince politicians to finally commit to construction, especially when Australians have already come to expect the worst when it comes to high speed rail.
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Links:
My video last year about high speed rail: • Sydney's High-Speed Ra...
The Fastrack January 2023 Proposal Report: www.fastrackaustralia.net/_fi...
Fastrack's Website: www.fastrackaustralia.net/
The ABC News report on high speed rail: • Why doesn't Australia ...
TV show Utopia's segment on high speed rail: • Is A High-Speed Rail P...
Sections:
00:00 Background behind high speed rail
03:29 Fastrack's high speed rail proposal
10:23 Cynics of high speed rail
Hey! Be sure to visit the Fastrack website here: www.fastrackaustralia.net/. Let me know in the comments what you think of Fastrack’s proposal, and what you think the future holds for high speed rail in Australia.
Ok
Great vid mate! Can I ask that you look at ADE --MEL route. I know, not as big but geography much easier. We should not have to fly between the two. Cheers
Gone through the "report" and i'm utterly disappointed. I don't see anything different or unique about this proposal its the seems to be the same old shit we've been hearing for 20 years.
There's no costings, it ignores ridership, it ignores the 3 major regional cities around Sydney that would actually benefit the most and be profitable Gosford, Bathurst, Wollongong ignoring these locations will put further strain on our road networks into the future.
This just seems to be more hipster crap that just wants to link Melbourne and Sydney because they can. If implemented this white elephant will negatively impact actual useful HSR projects that the country actually needs.
Start out by supporting the satellite cities around Melbourne and Sydney fully, then we can consider this BS interstate link. Actual decent hardworking peoples needs should not be secondary to a bunch of latte drinking tossers want for a day trip.
Melbourne to Sydney should not be part of any HSR proposal until we have actual need based HSR.
As a Malaysian, I see parallels between Fastrack and the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR. And I think that this is a model that we should seriously consider here rather than dither for a few more years on an entirely new alignment.
Finally a sensible, reasonable and fantastic proposal for higher speed rail in Aus, if governemnts could just understand the concept of progressive upgrade than a whole new project and line....
That’s what China did!!!!
Coba pikir bisakah speed kereta api kalahkan speed pesawat terbang???? Untuk apa bangun fastest train kalau tidak punya manfaat... GBU
@@irwanharzky6062 bisa lah, ke airport saja sudah jauh, check-in harus dua jam sebelum penerbangan, belom lagi kalo ada delay, sudah sampai pun masih nunggu lama ambil bagasi, belom lagi transport dari airport ke kota nya. Liat aja itu kereta cepat whooosh Jakarta-Bandung yang baru, 1 jam sampe kota bandung cu.
@@irwanharzky6062 oh look, you're probably a shareholder from Pertamina. You want more people using cars so you get more profits lol
Great proposal and thank you for calling out the inconsistencies in that ABC video. The only bodies that don't want east coast high speed rail are Qantas and Jetstar. It doesn't make sense that the Sydney to Melbourne is only reliably serviced by aeroplane when the volume of people that traverse the route is so high.
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway/Autobahn System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes yeah but why is that better than hsr?
@@electro_sykes 160 speed limit like Dubai? Lol that's never gonna happen, speed limits everywhere keep decreasing month by month
@@electro_sykes I wouldn't trust 90 percent of the population to drive safely at 160km/h.
abc is required by its charter to be fair. that means it is required to find an opponent to everything to get that second opinion. whenever it doesnt it has whingers complaining to their local conservative member of parliament who raises such issues in parliament. and then parliament has an excuse to cut its funding.
If we had high speed rail to Melbourne from Sydney I would definitely take it monthly (if it isn't too costly). Also, nice work on the videos, keep it up !
What is the point? The 953km HSR journey from Sydney to Melbourne would take at least 4h 30m. And this assumes the Australian HSR would be as fast and efficient as the Japanese Shinkansen. This is naturally not realistic.
The 90 minute flight from Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane will always be more efficient due to the significant distance between the capital cities. ✈️
@@user-kc1tf7zm3b There is a bit of inconvenience in flying… especially considering having to travel to the airport, which is usually further than a railway station in the middle of the city or near the start of the route. Then there’s security, not too long but still. And you generally want to be pretty early. Comfort might also be preferred. Just raising some points, but if you can find any illogic in them, we can discuss.
why end there. Extend it up to Brisbane and maybe even out to Adelaide
@@mangobaby_videos For Sydneysiders, the accessibility of either the airport or Central station is rather redundant as both are naturally located close by to each other within inner Sydney. Melbourne and Brisbane Airports are only a 30 minute drive at most from their respective city centres.
Upon arrival at Sydney Airport, an airline traveller can easily reach Flinders St, Melbourne, in 3 hours flat. So, this beats a prospective and optimistic HSR alternative by at least 1h 30m, and probably more than this.
In Japan, not even the locals use their Shinkansen exclusively for all domestic travel. Many Tokyoites do not bother with the Shinkanen past Hiroshima, as this 821km journey takes nearly 4 hours. It really goes without saying that rational Japanese travellers do not even consider the Shinkansen for the 13 hour epic cross country journey between northern Hokkaido and southern Kyushu. The flight only takes a measly 2h 30m.
Even for the Japanese, there are very real personal limits with using their Shinkansen.
@@electro_sykes And extend the HSR white elephant to Perth and Darwin? 🚅 🦘
Thanks for giving Fastrack Australia a platform to promote and support High Speed Rail in Australia.
What really frustrates me is that our gov is willing to hastily put up over $300bn on unproductive Subs when that could've built 2-3x Sydney to Melbourne HSR lines (using the 2013 figures).
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes I think the idea is we're meant to be discouraging car use
@@electro_sykesshut up yankee
@@electro_sykes Cars are by far the most expensive, wasteful and dangerous method of transport.
They also ruin both urban and rural environments. Expressways slice through the countryside and cities like a knife lined with dead wildlife and the hidden trail of fatal and injured travellers.
Drivers obsess over their supposed "convenience" ignoring the inconvenience for everyone else, the actual appalling traffic jams, the personal toll of buying and operating cars and poor health they entail through lack of exercise..
In Spain that's exactly what we do, and we've managed to build the second largest network in the word. The Mediterranean corridor is under construction for many years adding every year a few sections and the difficult construction in the mountainous Baaque Country region is ongoing on and off for 20 years and is due to be finished in 2027 so it does work.
If anything Spain's geography and population centres are very similar to South East Australia, it's something we can emulate.
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes do you really want to make the exact same mistake the Americans did with their interstate highway network?
@@ianhomerpura8937 The instate highway system is far more efficient than public transport. Also, I disagree with the Coversion of the T3 Bankstown line to Metro. Instead replace it with buses and build a new highway in its place
@@ianhomerpura8937 the interstate highway system is great and we should actually start ripping out public transport systems. They are used by the youth gangs and poors. If we eliminate it, then those druggies will just go away
Interesting video. I’m in California, where we’re trying to build the US’s first true high speed rail line that’s planned to eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in under 3 hours.
It’s faced numerous challenges that have delayed progress and more that tripled estimated costs, and has been bombarded with criticisms from skeptics. Despite that, construction continues moving forward in the Central Valley, as do efforts preparing the future extensions to SF and LA as funding allows.
I hope Australia finds success with its high speed rail ambitions just as California does theirs!
Thanks for this great presentation of the issues. Currently we are spending $billions on a new airport which will add one or two hours per trip on to air travel times for most Sydney people plus a few other disbenefits. Obviously the airlines and airport developers want to kill HS rail because it offers far easier, quicker door to door journeys. Based on European experience a developed HS network would take over 95% of air traffic on routes up to 450kms and maybe 75% of longer routes. That is about half the current passenger traffic at Sydney airport. That will take a couple of decades to be delivered so time for the airlines to adjust. But who needs a new airport when HS rail makes it redundant?
Apparently the $100 billion it would cost is too much. Yet Victoria is spending $200 billion on the Suburban Rail Loop
Great video, thanks for the shoutout! I really love this proposal, although I may be biased since I catch the (currently 4 hour) train between Sydney and Canberra regularly and would love to see it upgraded. I would also like to add that every time I catch the train it's pretty much booked out, so there's definitely demand there!
forget High Speed Rail, you can drive bozo, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes actually can't tell if this is a joke haha
@@ChrisTopher_Urbanism get a car and be like elon musk
@@electro_sykes This has to be a joke
It won't happen mate.
NSW Trains struggles to get drivers to live out at Goulburn.
Between Goulburn and Moss Vale is the worst/ most congested parts of the rail network on the main south, as you have competing trains for the coast (inner harbour at Wollongong).
The other issue, would be the single line that heads out to Canberra.
I feel like I'm your only subscriber who has actually been on the Uzbek HSR. It was great BTW!
I would love to see some proper high speed rail here in Australia- despite the lower population density. I think our major population centers all being on the same coast in a roughly linear layout and the fact the terrain is not particularly difficult, and free of seismic activity, means we could absolutely achieve a brilliant network. By the same token I'll be watching from South Australia with mild disdain because I want us to have some regular rail like we used to! Fastrack's approach sounds very pragmatic and sensible- incremental improvements are certainly easier to swallow for the average taxpayer.
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes Man I fucking hate driving, I would much rather ride a train at those same speeds for the same infrastructure cost, except instead of caffeine fueled road neurosis while dodging bogans in souped up hiluxes, I could be sipping a hot chocolate and getting some work done with enough space to get up and stretch my legs WITHOUT stopping the journey.
@@electro_sykes , wait till you see the average Aussie driver hooning at 160km/hr. Like thats insane.
Terrain not particularly difficult?
I'm pretty sure it is.
@@notsureyou Compared to a nation like japan or large portions of europe, our terrain is fairly easily manageable for railway corridoors, being a hell of a lot more flat or with shallower grades required + space for broader turns. It's certainly hostile to humans, no doubt about that, but much more railway navigable than, say, the swiss alps.
I believe we should start small like
Melbourne to Geelong
Sydney to Newcastle
Brisbane to Gold Coast
After that we progressively extended the line until we have 1 long line from Sunshine Coast to Geelong
Exactly! And use the money to speed up the intracity trains and the population dense areas around the capital cities.
But if the government really wants it a HSR line would make sense if they reserved a suitable corridor (along the coast?) then encouraged population growth near the planned HSR then build the HSR when there's a sufficient number of people along the corridor
If it was done like this it'd enable a long HSR between cities and should unlock vast areas of well connected land to solve the housing crisis
Yes. Who would travel on train from Syd to Melbourne?
Pretty much. I personally don't think HSR has a future in Australia along such a long distance. We simply don't have the money or density (and if we look to private companies for funding, we'll no longer own our own major infrastructure...) I do, however, think that HSR around our high density hubs is realistic and most likely to happen. This would be:
Syd > Central Coast/Newcastle/Wollongong/Canberra, Mel > Geelong, Bris > Sunshine Coast/Gold Coast/Toowoomba
@@Pasta_Pirate Though I'm not sure if there will ever be a realistic population density around those areas to justify HSR long distance in our lifetime. Australia doesn't have enough people. The USA has an argument because they're in the 300+ million and their high density areas have higher population than Australia. California alone has 39+ million people and it's about half the size of NSW...
@@Peter-ev2kr Me
The funny thing is that the XPT is actually a high speed train, but it doesn't have the rails to achieve its theoretical top speed
and there is a lot of stopping along the way for all lines. HSR would by-pass a lot of these stops and only some towns/cities would be served by it to actually make it go fast
That’s sad
Its only capable of 160kmh in service running, it has never achieved faster than 190kmh. They had to make it different to the Brittish 125 its based on, they changed the gearing and function so it could handle the steeper grades and hotter conditions in Australia. The new trains they have ordered can do 160kmh too but unfortunately wont do 200kmh. The track on the Victorian side and all the level crossings mean trains can only do 130kmh in Victoria and there arent many sustained sections in NSW where it can reach top speed.
The 125, which the XPT is based on, is usually considered "higher speed rail"/"medium speed", not high speed rail.
Still, it would've been nice if the XPT was that
@@kyletopfer7818yes but currently those trains average about 70-80 on the syd-melb route. Just from track upgrades you could cut it from 10 to 6 hours
My cynical view is we need far more politicians investing in regional property in those areas mentioned before high-speed rail materialises. An excellent video that shows the way. Thank you. If only government would listen and act.
Since London and Edinburgh are approximately the same distance as Sydney and Melbourne, I did take a train from London to Edinburgh in 2012 and only took me 4 hours to travel by train in between those two cities.
London to Edinburgh by car (which seems similar enough to the rail route) is 647 km
Melbourne to Sydney 877 km
So 230 km more.
Population of the UK is over 63 million
Population of Australia is 25.7 million
UK land mass size: 243,610 km square
Australia land mass size 7,692,024 km square
So the UK has about 2.5 times the population of Australia, and Australia is 31.6 times bigger than the UK
@@notsureyoublah blah that’s why it needs to be faster
They'd rather spend $368 billion on overseas purchase of underwater boats, when the same money could have built fast rail 3 times over in the last fast rail estimates.
I am very pleased that the government is taking the defence of Australia seriously.
Oh thank you someone else is commenting this. I just left mine and found yours. That the federal government is again undemocratically engaging in warmongering is disgusting-in the 21st century! We don't even have nuclear energy, we have ludicrously antiquated infrastructure in every sector, and the plans for renewable energy from Labour and LibNats are simply egregious. They go to the international committees and hear that action is required right the fuck now, and they simply defer it to 2050, 2060, and invest in outdated nuclear submarines to arrive at that same time.
@@freeman10000 Yes because submarines are going to keep Australia safe. Idiot
@@freeman10000 What defence? We don't need 8 nuclear subs for defence, we need a lot more than 8 subs for defence, and nuclear subs are not value for money unless it is purchased for one purpose and one purpose only: to join the USA sub fleet at a battlefield far away from the Australian coast. That's not defence. That's offence.
Worse of all was the other deals australia cancelled for Aukus. Japanese and French subs were canned... over a span of 10 years. they might’ve not been great, but an upgrade to collins earlier.
and now we can't build 3 east coast lines for 3 ish subs
The real disconnect is between the kind of HSR that is feasible in Australia, and the kind of HSR that politicians and advocates want to build.
There's tons of international evidence about how HSR corridors function. Of this, I want to talk about two points:
Corridors that are less than 3 hours end to end function primarily as a shuttle between the two end point. Think of the California HSR for example. Phase 1 will be right on 3 hours long with a major city at each end. It's feasibility depends on it's ability to attract a large portion of the travel demand between SF and LA, and any intermediate travel (such as Bakersfield to San Jose) is being treated as icing on the cake.
Corridors that are longer than 3 hours end to end function more as a collection of shorter, overlapping railways that just happen to interconnect with each other. Think of the North East Corridor in the US. It attracts just 50,000 passengers per year between Boston and DC. That's barely 1% of the total number of people making that journey (Boston to DC is the ninth most popular intercity journey in the US). However it does get a 27% mode share between DC and NY, 19% mode share between DC and Philadelphia, 29% between Philadelphia and NY, 41% mode share between NY and Trenton, 24% between NY and New Haven and 15% between NY and Boston. In short, the NEC is, functionally, six successful railways (each carrying somewhere between 2m to 6m passengers per year) that happen to overlap. As a railway from Boston to DC though, it totally fails.
Sydney to Melbourne fits squarely into the second category. Fastrack themselves say that a 320kph train would, in the best case, take around 4 hours to travel from Sydney to Melbourne. As such, it's never going to be even close to the fastest way between these two cities, and as such, intercity travellers are only ever make up a minor to insignificant number of tickets sold. But (just like the NEC in the US) failing to attract end to end passengers doesn't mean it can't be feasible.
By far, the majority of tickets sold would be for travel between Sydney and intermediate destinations (chiefly Canberra), or between Melbourne and intermediate destinations (also chiefly Canberra). There are probably around 1.5m people making one of these intermediate trips each year. If HSR performs as well as it does overseas, it can expect to attract 30% to 40% of these travellers, ie 0.5m to 0.65m passengers per year. That's probably enough to sell out two trains each way per day. Or probably enough to justify four partly full trains each way, each day. That is, it's probably feasible to run a train every 5-6 hours with timetables and fares structured to compete with MEL/CBR and SYD/CBR flights. And that's really not too bad.
Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of HSR that most politicians and HSR advocates think the public wants. They think that the public wants HSR that runs between the east coast state capitals. The issue isn't that HSR is not feasible in Australia. The issue is that HSR is not feasible on the route that politicians and HSR advocates want it to be built on. All the many studies have evaluated this preferred route 10 ways to sunday and they always reach the exact same conclusion.
The hard truth that many people don't want to hear is that, we won't have HSR in this country until we stop insisting on having HSR between the east coast capital cities. Low frequency HSR between Sydney and Canberra, between Canberra and Melbourne, and maybe even between Melbourne and Adelaide are all quite likely to be feasible. Sydney to Melbourne, or Sydney to Adelaide (or indeed anything to Brisbane) is unlikely to ever pencil out.
Agreed. That's how the main Shinkansen works in Japan. It's essentially Tokyo to Osaka (or maybe Okayama), and Hakata to Okayama or Osaka. And there are services running all the way from Tokyo to Hakata because there are constantly passengers on the train, even though almost no-one would ride the entire section. And keep in mind this is from a private company.
The other thing too, is that we've got a lot of housing issues in Sydney and Melbourne, and WFH is now a thing. I'm sure there is potential demand for part-time WFH people to live somewhere more affordable and less crowded in outlying regional towns like Seymour for Melbourne, Goulburn and Yass for Canberra, or Moss Vale-Bowral, the Central Coast, and Newcastle for Sydney.
You only have to look at how many people are driving the whole distance to get an idea of how much you could capture. Add on a fraction of the air travel on that route - since train travel is far less restrictive and far more comfortable.
At some point Australia is gonna have to. Bite the bullet of price like Japan did and California is doing now. Sure it'll cost a lot, but in 30-60 years nobody's going to remember that, all they'll know is that there's a convenient way of getting around Australia
Distance and sparse land is different between Japan, and Californias is going well right? Right?
@@74_pelicans yeah it isn't going well, but they're pushing on with it anyway, which is good. It's all sorts of controversial right now, but give it 40 years and nobody's gonna give a shit
@@eannamcnamara9338 Many Japanese Tokyoites do not bother with the Shinkansen past Hiroshima as the plane is more efficient. Hiroshima is a significant 821km away from Tokyo.
But, the 953km Sydney to Melbourne journey would take at least 4h 30m. This assumes that the prospective Australian HSR system would be as fast and efficient as the Japanese Shinkansen system. For economic reasons, this is not realistic.
Any HSR between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane would not be economically feasible, no matter which way one slices and dices the matter. A 90 minute flight from Sydney to either capital city is simply more efficient.
@@user-kc1tf7zm3b there are many cities and towns between the big 3 that need options and connectivity. If people can get to/from the regional cities more easily and safely, these regional cities will grow substantially putting pressure off the big 3.
It’ll create more opportunities for business, tourism. Just like our inadequate freeway system (we only have 1 so far whilst the Pacific Hwy isn’t finished yet.) But the benefits are showing already. More tourism. People feel safer. More jobs.
Now we need better rail along the entire coastline and freeways too and watch this nation join the rest of the world and thrive. Many regional areas are dead and need these projects.
@@josephj6521 The cost of a new Australian HSR to cover the entire eastern seaboard from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane is an epic $128 billion. Unlike Japan which has significant population of 125 million, compacted on relatively small land mass, with many populated cities, which leads to a high population density, none of these social realities are true and real in Australia.
At the end of the day, if HSR truly made economic, social and environmental sense, the rail network would have been built decades ago. As it was in Japan. But, this is just not the case for Australia.
ua-cam.com/video/8nEaa3UI5QA/v-deo.html
But need to put it in mind that train stations can be deploy much closer to high density areas(or even right in the middle of a CBD), while most airports in most cities will be next to guarantees they won't be minutes from where you really want to be in your destination city(probably waaaay far from the metro area), these time on a trip, and time you spend from check-in counter to boarding gate does add up, and I believe in Sydney's case they are not so much different right now cuz the airport is pretty close to the CBD at the moment, HSR can make a difference after the WSyd Airport opens, when most flights likely shift to the west by then, high-speed rail will make sense to Sydneysiders in the future, if the fare is reasonable.
In my view Melbourne-Sydney and Sydney-Brisbane is in a distance range that's too short to fly,but too long to drive.
even if the HSR between state capitals are proved too costly to build and run, a
at least make the trip from airport to City and between two airports more quick and direct, based on what I saw on Sydney Trains/Metro proposed at the moment, it will be quite a hardtime dragging my luggage switching trains from WSyd Airport to Kingsford Smith or the City.
True in a sense. Although vast majority of pop growth in syd is far from the city and the airport...so if a hsr system interchanges well with local train/metro then there's a reasonable argument to be made. It is always tricky with hsr in a country with such long distances and low density in between and that's where we seem to be getting stuck. Germany, Japan etc have far more pop density over a smaller geographic area. That being said at least the syd- Canberra hsr is a no brainer.
I'm travelling to Europe in September with a 5-day Eurail pass using fast trains. I'm also flying Sydney to Melbourne this weekend. The cost of this weekend's flights (plus transport to/from airport/CBD) and the 5-day Eurail pass are pretty much the same. I did a similar trip in 2010 on a Eurail pass because that's how long Europe has had their fast trains.
The potential benefit to Australian residents and tourists is so high. I caught a mix of coaches and trains from Sydney to Brisbane last December. It took me 17 hours to travel 900km. We're basically on par with travel in countries like Albania and Bosnia and Ukraine, except compared to those countries we have the money to do it and no one wants to use it.
Fastrack's proposal looks amazing! I would buy a house in Goulburn if I could get to Sydney or Canberra from a country town in around an hour, because I still have 30 years of work earnings in me but will never afford a house in Sydney which is fast running out of housing and space. Imagine how many people would buy houses in country NSW if they could get to a major city in the same time it takes to travel from St Marys to St James.
Reaching the airport is the biggest problem
If we ignore government Bureaucracy making this nearly impossible currently, Fastrack Australia’s proposal is the most comprehensive and realistic proposal I’ve ever seen on high speed rail in Australia and FINALLY highlights Hsr’a benefits in growing our regional economies. However believe the route should follow the coast more and into Wollongong, it’s the only other “city” in NSW other than Newcastle, but that can be dealt with later ofc
going into wollongong would be extremely hard because steep mountains and cliffs between it and Sydney. It makes no sense for it to go up to Bowral then make a detour to Wollongong then come back and continue to Canberra. Logistically, Wollongong would have to be left out.
Whilst i do like the idea for a Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra High speed Rail system, I feel they have forgotten about the other busy corridor between Sydney and Brisbane
@@peepeetrain8755 a possibility to be considered is a tunnel through Macquarie Pass. It would be a more expensive option, and impact on the local wildlife would need to be assessed as well as cost, but it might be worth it to include Wollongong along the route.
This could be a future adjustment to the line, though. When it's benefits could be felt more immediately.
Hope it will get done. Australia's major big cities are perfect for high speed rail. The geography makes sense.
I don't think they're really feasible. cities are too far apart and with barely anything in between
@@st3pn56 which makes it a perfect candidate for high speed rail. Nothing in between means there is no reason for train to stop.
@@st3pn56 that’s why it’s feasible
The weird route around Picton is because the line used to go a different route between Picton and Mittagong before it was changed to a lower gradient. Picton is where the disused Hilltop to Thirlmere line connected.
I believe one of the early engineers also discovered a blue l)ildo on the prospective route. I can’t say for sure if this led directly to their decision to alter the route, but one can easily imagine it would have had some influence.
it's so frustrating to see Australians saying that Sydney and Melbourne don't have the population or are too fare apart for an HSR line. Just look at Paris (≈9m) - Marseille-Aixe en Provence 1.2m), 9h in car but 3h30 in TGV. And it's a massive success. Save with Paris - Nantes, Lyon - Marseille or Paris - Lille
True. Australia is the easiest country to build rail. Our mountains are like pancakes compared to Japan, USA and Europe.
@@josephj6521 ..except getting out of Sydney. The most important but potentially most expensive but.
@@jack2453 haha. Excuses. Begin the rail lines at the edge of the city first. Hornsby for northern, MacArthur for southwestern, Penrith for western and Sutherland for southern. Then expand it.
@@josephj6521 Getting through suburbia will be tough.. but I was thinking of the next bit i.e. Blue Mountains/Hawkesbury/Illawarra/S. Highlands. As someone once said, Sydney was a perfect place to build a prison. (But agree that most of the route from Goulburn to Melbourne will be a breeze compared to most of the lines in Japan or Italy etc.)
We're not European. Very different culture here.
A metro or speed rail that goes down from Campbelltown to the Southern Highlands then to Golburn and then a seperate link to Canberra and Sydney to Wollongong would be great. Like mentioned it would disperse the population further, putting less stress on the cities. This would benefit politicians too, considering many live in Sydney, so they have some rationale to do this.
Similarly up north, from Sydney to Newcastle could be the next step, for Sydney and Brisbane to connect.
Sydney to Newcastle and Brisbane to Gold Coast, then link them up later down the track
There is no reason why Wollongong, Nowra and Batemans Bay could not be linked by rail to connect with the main Sydney to Melbourne route. Corridors exist for highways which could be expanded to include trains. Wollongong could also easily be connected to WS airport if the Maldon link was completed some 40 years after it was started.
I think Maglev style of fast rail should be the type used as it's more future proof. If the Australian Government can wast $368 billion on new Nuke Subs I think Billions spent on a Fast Rail is a better investment.
Don’t forget we can make money on trains via fares. We make no money on subs!
Thinking that being able to defend our country from becoming Ukraine 2.0 is a waste... Yikes.
It sounds like a sensible solution. But I am puzzled as to why they proposed it to start at Olympic station instead of the CBD
Because no one in Australia has no idea what they're doing when it comes to high speed rail. It'll never have any decent uptake with a station 1 hour from the city.
Quick Facts:
1. The High-Speed Rail, aka HSR, has many levels. Choosing which speed level to build depends on passengers' expected travel time.
2. HSR is very hard to make a profit; thus the asset management for this entire project must be divided. For example, company A owns and runs the HSR service, and company B operates other services along this route, such as the night sleeper train and parcel express train.
3. Passengers have their own expected time of travel. Sitting on a train for more than 5 hours may not be a good idea. So, there would not be many passengers to take the entire HSR service trip, such as from Sydney to Melbourne. Therefore, the HSR could feed nearby towns and cities with commuting convenience and they reward the HSR with patronage.
An ideal scenario:
Operating 6-10 pairs of long-distance services between states, with only 2 of them being express services with limited stops so that passengers can travel from Sydney to Melbourne as fast as possible. Other HSR services have plenty of intermediate stops, aiming to serve these smaller cities and towns to enhance their connection with big cities. This strategy could ease the housing crisis in capital cities by encouraging people to move to those smaller cities. Currently, these towns and cities are partially abandoned due to the long drive from the capital city, and the chance to give them a second life is the HSR.
Apart from HSR services, Australians really deserve the convenient sleeper train to travel interstate. The current XPT is a good example, but the beds offered on each XPT service are far from enough. Sitting on the seat for the whole night trip is very painful since I have tried it. And I'm sure this is the main reason for making XPT travel unpopular. In other words, the more beds on the XPT (or equivalent services), the more popular the service would be. Sleeping on the night train is not only more comfortable but also economically attractive. When calculating the travel cost between capital cities, never forget to add the airport parking fee or the airport transport fee, which is $42in Brisbane (Airtrain), $30 in Sydney (train ticket when entering or exiting via the airport stations) and $34 in Melbourne (the Skybus round-trip). Pardon if I got the wrong price.
Furthermore, Low-cost airlines may offer cheap tickets, but any luggage would cost extras. For business travellers, the night train is the only way to take you to your destination early in the morning. You can't ARRIVE in Sydney from Brisbane at 7AM by air. So the night train saves you a night in the hotel. So the night train service is just fantastic. The only concern of the night train could be the interior design which will affect privacy issues. This small problem can be easily solved thanks to our strong industrial design team.
The night parcel train is a kind of lightweight freight train which delivers freight with limited weight to protect the railway. Thanks to its lightweight, this kind of freight train can go as fast as a normal passenger train, probably at 160km/h. This train service will save a lot of fuel and carbon emissions from the long-distance truck.
Full state ownership and don't expect it to turn a profit. If roads don't have to make money (directly) then rail shouldn't either.
The former Southern Aurora (NSWGR) and Spirit of Progress (VR) trains used to provide overnight services between Sydney / Melbourne. Many businessmen used to use these and do exactly what you state. Overnight Mail trains used to provide similar services for towns in NSW such as Werris Creek....such is progress. For its' era the latter train was world class Aussie (Vic) built over 80 years ago.
Another excellent, insightful video. HSR as a development project is such an important angle that is generally overlooked when people make their predictions about its economic value. A piecemeal approach that keeps initial costs on the low side, and that had the lovely side effect of ensuring that downtown stations along the route can be serviced by a portion of the trains, certainly makes this seem like a winning proposal.
An amazingly sensible proposal that the government can commit to affordably on a bit-by-bit no-regrets basis. We need to sell this as a progressive improvement to existing rail.
Instead we get new glorified XPTs and a few metres of upgraded track :)
@@ThomasNing It is potentially much more than that. But even that would be a good start, and you have to start somewhere.
@@jack2453 yeap, as long as it happens :D looking forward to being able to take my bike on the train.
Great T-shirt, and yes, I agree. We just need to straighten the existing lines. Too many tight-radius curves, low-speed crossings, etc. The rolling stock we already have is capable of much higher average speeds, but the limiting factor is the track design and route.
We need to stop thinking about a high speed rail link to join the major cities as the first priority. Japan & China started by connecting cities that were closer together and then expanded into longer links. The number of people who live in Osaka and commute into Tokyo daily is staggering. The Gladys plan wasn't bad. Allow people to commute in from Newcastle, Wollongong and the west while not being saddled with Sydney prices. Ditto for Melbourne with Geelong, etc. Don't worry about the business commuters who are travelling for business, worry about the commuters who need to get to their primary place of work.
The distance by road between Osaka and Tokyo is 6 hours. Sydney to Melbourne is 9 hours. It would absolutely capture modeshare from both road and air.
@@benharris7358 Sorry, I've gotten my cities mixed up. Was trying to find where I was thinking on a map (but failing). Major city that was about 300km away, but then which only makes it 1hr by shinkansen, and hence more viable than 3hrs by road, and also more viable to actually daily
commute
Some great points however there is major issue with the line passing between wilton and bowral as the line will cut through the upper nepean nature preserve which is not just a large host to an array of wildlife but also multiple water catchments. Building and running the line within the preserve is risky as its prone to bushfires. Also the amount of bridges would be an expensive nightmare as there are large valleys and rivers to cross.
I also question the Fasttrack scheme bypassing Moss Vale and Goulburn entirely - they're sizable regional centres. Still very much agree that the Southern Highlands needs a lot of straightening - regardless of HSR, the Government should look at straightening that so that express trains can use that as an interim measure.
nice concept but newcastle to sydney needs to be the first stage of the project before it goes south
The cost of100B seems small when you consider that we're paying that for just a single submarine
That's because the 2013 study is full of errors, the consultants privately admitted to a contact of mine that they thought their report was woeful. Unfortunately this report has been seen as the cornerstone of every bit of work advancing HSR in Aus since.
Tunnelling was costed at a flat rate of $150 million per km. Plus an additional $20 million per km for urban tunnels (justification: additional safety of life, access etc). And then they lumped every type of bridge into one costing code of $110 million per km. That's everything from a culvert to a flood plain viaduct to a cable stayed bridge. So they vastly over-costed simpler viaducts and under-costed complex, particularly high level bridges. This is all 2012 dollars btw.
To give you a feel for real world costs, a few years after this report they built the Kempsey bypass bridge. That cost about $60 million per km for a four lane motorway on a viaduct. The contractors were kind enough to announce this. The (then) RMS never broke the figure out. And you can be sure that a floodplain viaduct for HSR would cost less (since it's half the structure).
It didn't matter how short the tunnel was, it all got costed at the same rate. Plus they were costing for 350 km/h standard tunnel, even though they were using a speed limit of 250 km/h for other purposes. So as you can imagine, they ended up avoiding tunnel, literally at all cost. Thus you get three major bridges. The one across the Hawkesbury River was both high level and curved, so we're talking massive foundations and probably cable stayed if not suspension design in part. Yep, a monumental, billion dollar bridge. The other two were across deep river valleys, each a km long. And then numerous other bridges, carving through steep terrain and all inside national park.
Even if we get high speed rail, we also need a solid conventional rail network, so both can complement each other.
The main competition for conventional would be highways, but it's possible because it really is an attractive option
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes there's a big status quo problem there. There are a lot of reasons we must not remain dependent on road transport, because they're so expensive and unsustainable.
We've slashed investment in public transport in order to pay for that, even though stuff like maintenance, accessibility and personal cost are so unnecessary
@@betula2137 exactly, the government don't have to pay for the operation of the vehicles. that is the vehicle owners job and the government can increase fuel tax to make money from it and tolls could also be implemented
I used to live in Nagoya Japan and catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo station to go to work. I got to live in a really comfortable home with multiple bedrooms and a decent sized bathroom instead of the overpriced shoebox i lived in in Tokyo. I loved it. I think people would be willing to swap fhe 1 hour train trip from Penrith to the city for a short trip via high speed rail and save themselves some money since houses closer to sydney are more expensive.
People commute from Penrith, you'd be unlocking suburbs 2-4hrs away not one an hr away.
Nagoya is only 342km away from Tokyo, with the Shinkansen trip only taking 1h 40m. As you are well aware, many Tokyoites do not bother with the Shinkansen past Hiroshima as the plane is more efficient. Hiroshima is a significant 821km away from Tokyo.
But, the 953km Sydney to Melbourne journey would take at least 4h 30m. This assumes that the prospective Australian HSR system would be as fast and efficient as the Japanese Shinkansen system. For economic reasons, this is not realistic.
Any HSR between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane would not be economically feasible, no matter which way one slices and dices the matter. A 90 minute flight from Sydney to either capital city is simply more efficient.
@@tylerdavidson2400 You are missing the point: a Boeing 737 plane flying in the air is cruising at 839km/h. On the other hand, a prospective HSR would only on average travel between 160km/h to 220km/h. This explains why many Japanese do not bother with the Shinkanen trips from Tokyo to beyond Hiroshima as the plane is just faster and more efficient.
After arriving at Sydney Airport, the airline traveller can reach Melbourne CBD in 3 hours. With a prospective HSR, travel time is perhaps 4h 30h to 6 hours, which means same day return business travel becomes impossible. Again, the Tokyo to Hiroshima trip is 821km, but Sydney to Melbourne is even further at 953km. This has the result that HSR is less economically viable than flying. It really goes without saying that HSR from Sydney to Perth would be truly insane as the 4,352km journey would take at least 20 hours. In Australia, just as it is in Japan with their Shinkanen, there are very real personal limits that rail travel is feasible.
The costs of a prospective Australia HSR are truly massive. A report commissioned by the former Labor Kevin Rudd government in 2013 estimated that the HSR cost would be $128 billion. A more recent governmental report delivered only last year in 2022 stated that the project cost would be at least $200 billion, up to $300 billion. This explains why the previous Labor and Coalition governments have never seriously supported HSR as the costs are too astronomically high. Linking regional towns and cities when the costs are at these extreme levels means the project is not economically feasible.
ua-cam.com/video/8nEaa3UI5QA/v-deo.html
@@user-kc1tf7zm3b Speed is all you care about isn't it? Also only speed from major CBD to major CBD and you think fossil fuels will never get more expensive.
@@Tasmantor You are deranged. HSR is high *speed* rail after all. Speed is the point of HSR.
In 2033, petrol is at $1.80/L. Back in 1993, petrol was 60c a litre.
Sydney to Melbourne flights for only $50 certainly did not exist in 1993.
Well something the government could do is instead of spending over $20 billion on a (pretty much) useless metro, why not put that money for high speed rail? I went on an Xplorer to Canberra yesterday and I was on the train for 8:30 hours in total from and to Sydney. Great vid anyways!
a metro line, let alone a rail line is never useless. this is $20 billion being invested into the future. there is a plethora of positives that come with a metro line, even with a hefty price tag.
although, your point still stands, the government should allocate a lot more money into high speed rail.
I'm going to have to call that that's a horrible take. Metro lines are amazing, especially Sydney's metro and one must never forget to connect close destinations through the appropriate medium (Sydney could learn this with buses, they're shit there). HSR is for long distances, metros are for high density medium distance travel. Buses are for short distance.
@@ElusiveTy yeah but like for example, converting the tracks between Sydenham and Bankstown simply to change the type of train is literally a waste of money, it’s also good to invest in if not high speed rail, then a faster connection between Sydney to Canberra or Melbourne. And it’s a cost blowout so they are spending much more money than they originally anticipated and it’s not worth it so much that they have to spend billions of extra dollars. Yes, the metro will offer 4 minutes per train in peak hour, but we can do something like that with regular trains such as making major changes to the timetable. I’m not saying metro is completely useless, I’m just saying it might be a tiny bit more important, or more worth it to build a faster connection between major Australian cities.
Australia getting high speed rail is like America getting healthcare. Both are proven to work effectively internationally and popular yet our bureaucratic government refuses.
What country has high speed rail, with low density and long distances like we do?
@@74_pelicans Melbourne and Sydney is literally the most dense area in Australia, and is comparable to other European countries like Spain who has High Speed Rail.
@@74_pelicans we arent talking about an HSR from Kununurra to Melbourne here. We are talking Melbourne-Sydney then hopefully Brisbane in the future. Which is far more dense
@@74_pelicans Parts of China, Pakistan are starting soon. No doubt there is other examples in sections of track in other countries.
@@74_pelicansmany countries in Asia and Middle east who have and are or finishing their high speed rails
Fastrack's graded development policy is definitely the right way to go. In Europe it took over 10 years for high speed rail to reach London after the channel tunnel opened in 1995. Even then the 3 hours plus ride London to Paris was better than traveling between airports and flying. The HS1 London to Kent link was paid for by Gov't giving about 15 hectares of prime CBD development land to CTRL, maybe with more along the route.
Later the 225kph commuter trains using the line to north and east Kent has led to the bonus development shown in your video at 10:10 minutes.
By contrast the 'starting big' model used by the HS2 line going north from London is a very costly, destructive failure. If you let the construction companies and property speculators make the decisions the result usually is failed infrastructure and government bail out.
China used the starting big model, it worked for them. The UK is one of the worst examples of modern railway organisation.
@@terryflynn8830 I agree. UK has proven that transport privatisation does not work. This week its right wing Conservative government has re-nationalised another failed railway company.
What about linking Tasmania to the mainland with high speed rail? You could bridge and tunnel (like they have in parts of Europe) from the east coast of Tasmania via flinders island to Victoria then link up to the rest of the high speed network.
Ohh? Ok
Great channel! Thank you 😊
The furphy of mentioning a 4:30 HS travel time between Sydney to Melb,. versus plane, doesn't factor in the 30 minutes plus on the freeway; check-in 1 hour prior; dreadfull seats, cramped and noisy interior, wait for bags at the other end then more travel. Every time I fly, I marvel at how fantastic it is - until you perservere with check-in and security checks; stand in the aircraft for 5-10 minutes in slow queue to alight. Another aspect is that it's not just about SydneyMelbourne. A HS train would attract many users for shorter trips. Seymour to ACT, visit the gallery, have lunch, HS train home, for example. Similar for every other stop as well. Having used the Japanese system extensivley, it is quite normal at each stop, for numerous passengers to get on and get off at every stop.
Yep, in the EU they are going to run express cargo at night during off peak passenger periods from Italy to Norther Germany. Good stuff. Thanks for the nice update. Keep on it.
High speed rail should honestly use something like Queensland's tilt train for starters that can decrease travel time on standard gauge track with its unique tilting. If all goes well Australia could then use those small proposed sections of high speed rail while also using the tilt train style of train.
Tilt train is not high speed.
@@billeves4627 yes it is it's just narrow gauge that's why it can't go 200kph+ unlike that time it did on a test run.
Yes I agree, that if a proper high speed rail project in Australia were to commence, they should use the aesthetic design of the Spirit of Queensland's "Tilt Train" as it is a design unique to Australia but have the wheels gauged for standard 1,435mm gauge.
Tilt trains in Europe can reach top speed up to 250 kph (in regular use, they must reach up to 275 km/h) and there's nothing difficult to build tilt trains with 320 km/h top speed: simplier they don't use tilt mechanism on straighter high speed section and use tilting on slower winding section. The biggest Australian problems is the lack of railway electrification on main corridors.
Whilst i do like the idea for a Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra High speed Rail system, I feel they have forgotten about the other busy corridor between Sydney and Brisbane
while HSR would be nice i think just getting up regional areas to a resonable standard is a more important priority. At least to me it feels as if regional areas are consisnently neglected. A project focusing on making sure everyone in regional areas has better access to rail instead of focusing on 1 corridor would be more beneficial IMO.
Even if it isn't as flashy, having like 180kph standard lines just going through regional australia to regional centres would bring more benefit imo. I don't think centralizing development into just 1 corridor is a smart idea & a more holistic look at our nations rail infrastructure should be taken before prioritizing the big coastal cities yet again.
Getting existing lines up to a reasonable standard is what this project is all about.
@@jack2453 to me it moreso feels like getting 1 corridor up to an extremely high standard while not doing much for everything else
@@jack2453 Definitely not what it's about. It's about making the East Coast corridor, specifically only along the coast, much more connected, leaving everywhere else behind.
My only problem with this, is that if we are going to plan this, we need the alignment to support maglev trains such as the new Shenansen in their turning circle, so that we can eventually upgrade without new land acquisitions.
I'd never thought about it before but I'm going to enjoy my trip to Uzbekistan. Thanks Srarath!
Great video mate!
I know this satellite city of Suzhou called Kunshan which saw tremendous growth after China built their high speed rail network, where Kunshan was one of the rather major stops. Property prices skyrocketed (for the better or the worse) and many companies moved there from Shanghai and Suzhou due to affordability.
great video, although i hope they can find a way to incorporate the illawarra/shoalhaven into this
Great! Thanks!
It sounds like we are having similar problems to the San Francisco to LA high speed rail - also a really busy air corridor. And that one is still going ahead (with high cost and controversy)
California's situation is disgraceful when you think about it. Sure, there's some very tricky terrain between LA and SF, but the two cities are each far bigger than either Sydney and Melbourne, and considerably closer together. Plus, California is supposed to be one of the US's most woke pro-left states, so you'd think efficient "green" public transport would be their speciality, wouldn't you? 😆
I just think to myself that if they can't get it right, what hope do we have?
@@eddielong8663 California has different politics then we do. Local governments are very anti HSR (and backed up by the automobile and aeroplane industry) which has made it difficult to actually allow construction and they also severely underestimated the cost which has made people lose faith
If been watching the construction videos for many years on the California High Speed rail and its being built at painfully slow speeds over terrain that is ideally suited for high speed rail i.e the Central Valley. The UK's HS2 seems to have progressed far faster in a shorter period of time.
I understand where fastrack is coming from and I don’t think what they propose is a bad idea, my issue is that the Sydney to Newcastle section is clearly the single most expensive and difficult piece of infrastructure that would need to be built in order to facilitate high speed trains going North to Newcastle and beyond. The reason that matters is that once you have that direct connection the rest of the project largely requires the upgrading of existing rail corridors as proposed by fastrack, it makes sense to me at least to get the hardest part out of the way at the beginning.
Sydney to/from Melbourne is already reaching record levels of patronage for the 21st century with air fares going up so as I see it it’s the northern route which requires attention first.
40 years ago on an Aeroflot flight from Delhi to Moscow we stopped for lunch in Tashkent. And I've always been fascinated by Samarkand architecture. ( I'll dm my address so you can send me the tkt)
I was visiting the French embassy in Canberra in mid-1984 and they happened to be hosting a delegation who had arrived from France to pitch the TGV to the Australian government. Here we are almost 40 years later still talking and not doing much about it.
Then there was the VFT (Very Fast Train) proposal… Wikipedia has a good article on this one which had some big backers but lacked federal support.
The biggest benefit I see is for the regions by spreading out our population, promoting economic growth and enabling long distance commuting. We need to learn to do big things faster. We have recents wasted billions on NBN and Snowy Hydro 2, this is just another calculated risk we need to take.
High speed rail can viably run on renewable energy hence reducing carbon emissions and free up airport slots at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport allowing more long haul international flights to land which will also boost our economy.
And even if High-speed rail isn't good for passenger use in Australia, it would be perfect for the Transportation of Freight.
Thank you, informative and promising.
As others have said, medium speed could do it in the interim . Campbelltown to Canberra in say 90 mins, Craigieburn in say 4 hrs. Existing electric could do the last 50 mins or so to both CBDs with say 5 minute connection dwells. It would be a good, cheap option with no need to try and fight against slower 1500v dc suburban sets. Moneyed speedsters could still plane it. When patronage builds faster lines could be opened up to get direct runs into CBDs.
A very interesting video.
I have travelled on fast rail in both China and Japan and found that fast rail travel is much less stressful than plane travel. I have also travelled once on an Australian train Brisbane to Cairns, I would not do that again,
I really can't imagine that any Australian political party would accept the advice of an outside group that they had not put together. It's just not how we do it. I imagine that the Government of the day (party) has an idea that they think the electorate would like or that they have championed at an election, when in power they then might set up a board of retired party people to oversee a study or bend the public service experts to the task, which has happened we have a number of those, but take advice from a couple of blokes with web site, unlikely.
forget High Speed Rail, instead build a new 160km/h East Coast Expressway system converting the Pacific and Hume Highways, as well as the construction of a brand new Expressway 3 between Canberra and Adelaide that would intersect at a massive cloverleaf interchange with the Hume Highway (future Expressway 1).
The Hume Highway would become Expressway 1 and would run between Sydney and Melbourne, the Pacific Highway would become Expressway 2 and would run between Sydney and Brisbane and finally, a brand new Expressway 3 would be built between Canberra and Adelaide. This would be the Interstate Highway System for Australia.
@@electro_sykes In you tube have a look at the vid "i'll sit this right here" shows what happens when you back end a semi at different speeds.
Don't think I would like 160 kph freeways, Australians aren't even that great on 110 kph freeways.
@@malcolmmcgrath9344 these would be new 16 lane freeways
@@electro_sykes 16 lanes? Are you insane? That would take up a ridiculous amount of land and incentivise driving - which is not what we should be doing considering the climate crisis we are in
@@electro_sykes HELLO!! we are talking about HSR, not building more freeways that already exist.
great video.... It's crazy a country like australia - with all the open space - can't get high speed rail going....
Before watching the video past the info: The one downside with high speed rail is that it will need to be cost competitive with air-travel which slow-rail already fails at (last I checked). Sydney -> Brisbane by rail is on par with the cost of flying. And that’s with QANTAS, not even a budget airline. If high-speed rail is going to be successful it needs to be cheaper than a plane ticket otherwise there’s no point. I would LOVE to take the slow train to Brisbane if it was only $50 or hell, even $100 I would consider, but atm it costs the same and is WAY faster to just fly
EDIT: just checked prices again, with train tickets starting at around $100. Guess my next holiday will be by train
After watching the video I loved what the FastTrack guys mentioned. It’s not a completely new build-out but rather upgrades overtime. I also think using it as freight rail during the nighttime is a perfect way to supplement the cost and hopefully bring ticket prices down. I hope a Brisbane -> Sydney -> Melbourne high speed rail corridor is something I can experience in my lifetime.
V. important point and a good argument for this incremental approach rather than designing as a premium service from Day 1 as in France etc.
Excellent video, I think a video about medium speed rail would also be good. To build a medium speed rail will be a lot cheaper and built a lot faster compared to a high speed rail. Ultimately, high speed rail would be the goal but we must offer something soon to reinvigorate the love in Australians for rail
hopefully this isn't like the nbn tho. eg. its going to limit us in the end.
@@michaelhoolahan5717 God, I'm still mad over the NBN fiasco. I wish Labor could fix it into their original intent (mostly FttP), but tbh I'm not sure how plausible such a task would be now.
@@UltimaSpark50 yeah stuff like this takes a generation to fix. we're all stuffed now
A hybrid diesel/high-speed train would be interesting. I don't love the idea of that, but this is of course about compromise, which I agree will be necessary to get any of AU connected with HSR.
The new US Airo trainsets from Siemens is a decent example of a dual-mode solution, though ideally the Australian solution would handle 240 kph so as to better use true high speed segments as they come online.
Lots of funding option to look at as well. Tunnels under Sydney could be combined with metro below and property development above. And send the bill for the Gunning-Canberra section to the ACT govt.
Like the ideas and justification alternatives: the size and density of the population corridor, the need to stop expansion of current mega cities facilitating growth within the corridor. Agree that at about 4 hours the train ride will be about as fast as air between major cities, considering office door to hotel door travel. Too much mucking around at airports and traveling to/from airports that increase the travel time (much longer than the actual flight travel time). It is more efficient and environmental, providing they can; price, operate and manage it properly. Just completed a London to Paris and Paris to French south coast train ride (15 minute boarding time - reserved seat, defined waiting position on platform, and self load luggage, 4 hours traveling time, perfectly smooth, up to 300kph, departed to the second and arrived within 1 minute of scheduled time).
Fast track had a lot of great points particularly with the opportunity of economic development for our regional centres. It’s a no brainer.
I’d be interested to hear from you though if any PPP models such as ‘value capture’ were noted by them to help fund the project? Without such partnerships with the private sector to help fund the project by way of releasing land around stations for development I’d find it hard for government to listen as they currently see the price tag and place the overall project in the “too-hard” basket.
I would like to envision a Brisbane to Melbourne high speed rail line via Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney & Canberra
I PROPOSED THAT TO ONE NATION, THEY SAID THEY ARE LOOKING INTO IT, GAVE THEM THE ROUTE, ONLY STOPPING AT MAJOR TOWNS, OR EVERY THIRD OR FOURTH WHEN BETWEEN NEWCASTLE AND SYDNEY
Thanks for this video. Firstly, Albury is pronouced All-bury not as is Allan but as in all or already. Secondly, I do agree with the building incrementally concept, but I would use a tilt-train like the Spanish Talgo service, Thirdly, I would not deviate from the route between Junee and Melbourne, it is already adequate for 200/hr operation, interesting video
Two things need to change if HSR ever happens IMO -
1. The 'Sydney' issue. Until very recently it was assumed it had to go to central station. Now, it doesn't. The new airport in WS and the boom around Parramatta have changed things. Parra is the geographical centre and is now very close to the new airport. The route through Sydney should be - Campbeltown, Parramatta, Hornsby and then off to the north, as much under ground as possible so less $$ is needed to buy back the land corridor. Those 3 stations are regional hubs and will connect directly to the new metro lines being built, as well as existing services. Not everyone landing in Sydney is going to the eastern suburbs, so if we can land more people out west it places less strain on the eastern networks. Parra is also the best hub to connect to a lineout to Bathurst/Orange if anyone figures it's worth the cost to tunnel through the Blue Mountains.
2. Like Fastrack, we're not doing the whole thing at once. If you threaten the QANTAS mafia and their Syd-Mel route, the project is already dead, so it is NOT about building a train that can compete, it's about building a high speed network between regional hubs. People cant afford housing in Sydney, but if you could buy a house in Goulburn and be in Canberra in 20mins, or Sydney in 40mins, it can ease housing congestion and bring money to places like Goulburn. It took me 45mins at best on public transport to get from Bondi to Pyrmont, so I certainly would buy a house with some land in Goulburn if I could be in Parra in 40mins and get the metro from there to Pyrmont in the proposed time of 15-20mins. THAT is what the HSR is about, not trying to beat QANTAS for the Syd-Mel route.
Start with Canberra - Sydney. 1 hour trip, stopping in Goulburn, Southern Highlands and (see next paragraph) Campbeltown, then Parramatta, Hornsby. That is a very busy corridor. Stage 2 is to extend north to Newcastle, and that is as far as it should be proposed for now. Get that up and running for 10-15 years, adding small sections as the demand supports them, eg Campbeltown to Wollongong.
QLD have almost no skin the game so dont bother with them for now, HSR is 75% a NSW project. Extend north one link at a time until QLD want to be involved and subsidise the rest of the northern route, likewise from Canberra to Wagga and Albury. Build that line to Albury and stop, and then the rest is on Victoria. OBVIOUSLY THE GUAUGE AND DESIGN IS THE SAME FOR ALL STATES!!!!!
Fastrack are also right on the money by including HSR freight options, that is a huge revenue stream that will help keep HSR somewhat financially viable.
One of biggest issues to the plan is the lack of electrification on main corridors: the Australian main lines are slow, winding and not electrified. The lack of electrification increase complexity of the situation: there isn't any kind of problem running high speed train on standard speed track if they are also electrified, it's more complicated if they aren't, but it's not impossible (for example look at Spain where on not complete high speed line toward north-west high speed train run up to 250 kph on built section on standard gauge electrified track and up to 180 kph on broad gauge not electrified old line section). The incremental approach is the best way to create the high speed network (in Europe usually high speed lines are built in sections with incremental approach). The project could be improved removing the Olympic Park terminal and concentrated all the trains on Sydney Central Station. For example in Europe mostly use the existing central station to terminate the high speed services, without building new terminal station. Incremental approach could be also use between Brisbane and Sydney, starting from increase track speed of existing line between Sydney a Newcastle (200 kph under 1500 V dc is quite common, for example, in France) and then proceed in incremental improvements and new sections toward Brisbane.
If we forget the 300KM/H dream is possible. Trains like the Amtrack Acelas 2 can run up to 240 KM/H on existing Train Tracks. If the time to go from Melbourne to Sydney gets down to 5 hours from 12 hours now, it will be quite compelling.
The French TGVs have involved building dedicated tracks alongside main routes. It would be easy and not costly to upgrade large sections of existing track, and to bypass existing stations. It would have to be time and cost effective for Newcastle/Sydney via Gosford, Canberra/Sydney via Wollongong. It would still take 6 hours to go from Sydney to Melbourne, 7 hours Sydney to Brisbane---that can't compete with air
First I love building beautifully keep going man, you are the best
Interesting. One thing though; an improved Canberra- Goulburn line might well better than halve travel time but will it lead to an increased use of the service?
The existing trains are very often booked out and there's been no attempt, for example, to put an extra carriage on the train.
At least some of the services no longer stop at Strathfield, thus inconveniencing passengers to a large part of Sydney.
It's easy to get the impression that the goal of those running all our country rail services is to have fewer and fewer passengers and eventually an excuse to close all services down.
Manageable chunks. Canberra Sydney would be a really good starting point, provided the start and finish points in both cities are easily accessible. Perhaps the actual trains could be contracted out to private companies, like Virgin or Qantas. Do they have to be long trains? Or can they be short trains with a higher frequency?
Honestly this proposal makes a lot more sense and could work better for Australia. I think people seem to forget that even if they built European style high speed lines, it’ll still be slower than flying because the major metros on the East Coast are too far away for it to be a competitive alternative.
When you factor in the cost and time and frustration of traveling to and from airport plus queuing, waiting load, waiting for luggage waiting for taxi etc the longer trips are still quite competitive. Paris to Berlin, Bologna or Barcelona are all over 1000km and attractive by HS rail. To Barcelona can cost €69 or €45 with frequent traveler discount. You have to board the train 2 minutes before departure. Then you can sit, walk around, eat, drink, sleep, work or write your UA-cam comments in comfort.
@@charlielloyd1080 the average ticket between Paris and Berlin is $150. The population sizes can actually support this cost value. A HSR between Sydney and Melbourne services next to nothing compared to their populations
@@basemcenchroe Much cheaper tickets are available. Sydney and Melbourne have large enough populations, not that different from Berlin. There is a large population spread along the intermediate cities. The Paris - Barcelona route is a better comparator for city size and medium density population in between.
Yay, new upload! ❤
This is the way!
The good is the southern Highlands bypass. Also the straitening out if the line. Both Essential, and badly needed. A no brainer. I generally agree with the concept of upgrading existing lines rather than new and expensive lines.
Here are some potential problems.
1. Bypassing Junee. Junee is where a lot of maintenance crews are based and is also a convenient half way point where trained railway crews can swap.
2. Bypassing Albury/Wodonga. If skipping Junee has it's downfalls, and it does, then bypassing Albury-Wodonga for the sake of Shepparton is downright perplexing. Albury-Wodonga has a combined population of 100,000 residents and Shepparton only 70,000. Travelling via Shepparton also precludes the possibility of travelling via Wangaratta and Benalla with combined populations of 45,000, instead travelling through Nagambie with only 2,500 residents. For this to work it will need to travel to cities and large towns with the highest populations.
The hilarious part is Australia only needs 2 lines and one can even be a maglev it depends on the routing through Sydney tho. It doesn’t even need to go directly into the CBD due to all the cities having excellent through running regional rail and in Sydney’s case express tracks on the suburban lines and most Melbourne trains running through CBD and beyond onto other lines making it easier to get to HSR stations even if not directly in the downtown. Melbourne will need to speed up the V/line services with direct express tracks which would allow faster connections. This plan from Melbourne to Sydney can be easily implemented on a maglev route.
High Speed Rail is nice to have but we're bogged down with the need for the perfect system, rather than gradually fixing things up. If we can start with replacing curved sections following terrain with straighter sections using bridges and tunnels, especially in the areas between Goulburn and Sydney, we could at least shave 3 hours off the XPT service between Sydney and Melbourne. The HST that the XPT was designed from was able to reach speeds of up to 200 km/h but the XPT would be lucky to have an average speed go into 3 digit figures.
Good video and sensible contextualising. Incremental build is how most road and rail networks have developed. It’s the ‘all at once’ conceptualising that makes it seem so costly. The dual carriageway from Sydney to Melbourne started with 4 km of road of road from Broadford to Tallarook. If they’d started with the total capital to capital cost, they would probably never have started.
Do you know about Inland Rail? 60B$ estimation. For regular freight line in boundless plains. Highspeed (200-250 kmh) passenger rail thru Great Divide and dense megacities? Without me, please, for their own expence!
This is a good but fairly conservative plan in my opinion. But if that's what it takes to get high speed rail going in Australia then I'm fully supportive.
High-Speed Rail from Brisbane to Melbourne is not economical. But shorter links may be. Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast and Newcastle to Wollongong. Heavy Freight is far more important.
would be great if it happens but we need to also fix local commute too
Great video bro
Who is SIC where you got your map from?
Get it built ! Even if it is not completeed in your lifetime the cost will only skyrocket with time, fully agree with the plan to parallel the existing route it will give flexibility as the whole thing developes, it is well proven that better and faster rail routes lead development of other things, you are lucky you have the open space to move this forward, the old saying Build it and they will come .
Far better to make a start early even if it is not completed in one 🎯 , once people see the benefits of fast electrified railintrest will increase and the pace will pick-up .Car travel over any distance will soon be dead anyway and if you can move freight on the same route all is good for that as well, This world has to change, now has to be a good time to start.
Nice video. 👍🏻
love this!
I genuinely hope this does start, at this rate, we are literally waiting until there is no more kerosine before putting in another travel option than air travel. We so need this.
I would ask the following three questions to each respondent:-
1)Is there a market or economic prerogative for it?
2)Can it be engineered appropriately, and operated safely and profitably?
3)Can it be built competently, on time, and on cost targets?
Try answering with A) Yes, most definitely B) Maybe with some proper planning C) Maybe if all the stars are aligned, insyallah D) No, there is no chance at all. e.g. 1) C; 2) B 3) D.
What we haven't done here in Australia is answer that most basic of questions: What is the problem we are actually trying to solve? Instead, what we have is a legacy of HSR plans all fixated on a) running between Sydney and Melbourne and b) competing with air travel. This dates back to the 80s and unfortunately we're trapped in this paradigm. That somehow it's about a fancy fast train (presumably with airfare comparable tickets) running intercapital services. This is why HSR hasn't happened in Australia.
No country has proposed HSR primarily as a means to replace air travel. When Japan proposed the shinkansen, their primary concern was one of capacity - the old post WWII rail lines were overstretched and it made sense to build a new fast main line. The term "Shinkansen" literally means "main line". France had some half decent (and fast by Australian standards) rail lines - notably the one from Paris to Lyon and this rail line (pre TGV) had a higher share of the travel market than car travel. France essentially headed down a path of progressive upgrades. When HS1 was finally opened (via the channel tunnel), the main competitor was in fact channel ferries. China has built lots of high speed rail lines, but it is still investing heavily in airports.
The reality here is that where HSR succeeds, it does so on relatively short routes (at most a few hundred km) and this is the most important thing - very often it competes not with planes, but cars. Lets take a look at the raw numbers.
In Australia, there are about 10 million (one way) trips between Sydney and Melbourne. Ok, that sounds like big numbers, right? Well, between Newcastle and Sydney the figure is more like 40 million. And between Wollongong and various parts of Sydney it's around 30 million (again, one way trips). Where's the value in HSR? It's in competing with car travel and preventing us from having to spend further tens of billions in continuing to augment major motorways. And where is the volume? It's in that Newcastle to Wollongong corridor.
Now back to the question. What is the problem we are trying to solve? The answer is getting the most social and economic return from investment and more specifically its about targeting high speed rail at would-be car users in high volume corridors. Those are Newcastle to Wollongong, Brisbane to the Gold Coast and also possible Melbourne to Geelong. The more people that use high speed trains, the more that benefit from them and thus best return from investment is in those high traffic corridors and NOT from Sydney to Melbourne, which only has a fraction of the volume.
By the way, Sydney to Canberra accounts for about 6 million yearly trips. Its significant but it doesn't compare to the 70 million currently in the Newcastle to Wollongong corridor.
This is why when the NSW Government hired an expert (Andrew McNaughton, the guy responsible for HS2 in England) to design a fast train network, he came up with a fast train (250 km) between Newcastle and Wollongong. The government is still sitting on his report.
Also, you may have noticed that the Federal government has committed to having Newcastle to Sydney as the first priority for the new HSR Authority. This didn't come out of the vacuum. It came from advice given by various experts (including myself).
I also share the dream of having a fast train all the way from Sydney to Melbourne, but this should come about in a way similar to how our intercapital network formed over a century ago - by building local railways and then connecting them. We need to get started and the Newcastle to Sydney route is by far the best place to start. Why? Volume. It's about maximising social and economic return on investment.
The future is a network with a high speed backbone, but also tightly integrated with the conventional rail network. Hence we build a new high speed rail line from Newcastle to Sydney and the existing line provides localised access and connecting services. Tap your opal card and get on a train. It doesn't matter if its a high speed train or a conventional train. It's all one network. That's where we get the maximum return from high speed rail. Wider social and economic benefit.
I would choose a 4hr train over a 1.5 hour flight
Even if it costs 4 times as much?
@@74_pelicans i like trains and airports are a mess and are outside of cities. (Melbourne airport isn't even connected to the metro and Sydney Airport has a ridiculous airport surcharge). and not ever airport has flights to every other airport. Most regional cities don't have all major city connections, mostly 1 or 2
same
Melbourne to Sydney fast trains have been lobbied against by Qantas, as it is a very profitable route for them. Sectional improvements to the existing railway is simply genius.
Let’s go!
Having a bypass at stations would allow for express trains from Melbourne directly to Sydney to overtake stopping trains too.
Is there anything we can do to help push the high speed rail?
The proposal by Fastrack is doable. Spain, Sweden, and South Korea did that same approach in building their HSR networks.