Australia could be about to get a new intercity train line!
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- Опубліковано 23 тра 2024
- Australia has been doing very little when it comes to the building of new intercity train lines - but thats about to change, with a new railway line planned from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast!
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While Australian cities have started to pick up the pace when it comes to investing in our urban railways or metros (with projects like the Sydney Metro or Brisbane's Cross River Rail), less attention has been paid to our intercity train lines. However, recently funding has been provided for a new intercity train line in Queensland - connecting Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast in time for the 2032 Brisbane Summer Olympics.
So in this video, I look at how the new line will work, if it'll be worth it, and what needs to change for it actually to be a success.
Credit for the image of the Sunshine Coast bus: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Credit for the image of the train in the thumbnail: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi... - Наука та технологія
The Line will only go to Caloundra but until the section to Maroochydore is built, they will run a frequent rapid bus service which will stop at the planned future station locations. A new major park and ride will be built at Caloundra station. Also, Cross River Rail will see the existing Gold Coast line paired up with the New Sunshine Coast rail link, which will see one-seat rides between the Gold and Sunny coasts via Brisbane. As for cost of the new rail line, keep in mind this is car centric Queensland.
That last sentence is spot on. I say this in resignation. I contribute to the problem with an oversized suv myself. And then compound it further with a sub-compact hatchback for “short” trips.
@@user-fm4hd3zw3q Why do you contribute to the problem then lol? I don't own a car and it's pretty good imo
@@ahuman5772 fair question. Kids, older age, suburb we live in lacks convenient PT. We did get down to one car when it was just the wife and I. And it became a garage queen as we used to cycle into town for many years.
But kids arrived and particularly after school started it got to be too much.
For most Brisbane locations being without a car is just not practical.
Happy for you though. Well done.
Car centric QLD is more about sth east QLD where Brisbane is so sprawled out that creating an effective public transport network has been challenging. With better public transport options many people would use that rather than be stuck in traffic.
The idea of connecting the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast lines makes sense. I think the current Sunshine Coast line connects through to the Ipswich line.
its nice that theyre working on adding more, bit unfortunate that we seem to be so terrible at making rail lines that they cost a fortune, though the corruption doesnt help either
really hope the queensland government is smart enough to actually build TOD and not just surrounding the stations with low density housing
Our politicians are too stupid to do that. Knowning them it will probably be a whole ocean of parking lots surrounding the stations
@@electro_sykes yeah, probably
@@vincentgrinn2665A good example is Helensvale Gold Coast.
The problem isn't the corruption. The problem is politician incompetence, and if you're like the brits or the US, also the lack of good state-employed engineers who are usually in charge of these projects in Europe or Asia.
About time they used all the stamp duty revenue to pay for actual services like this, rather than BS studies and more bureaucrats.
Quite a lot of WA civil works are cheaper because the ground is often sand. Much less stormwater works are needed, as water can seep into the sand to some extent.
That area of the Sunshine Coast is also quite boggy with a very high water table.
There was an article about labourers on the Cross River Rail going on strike because $215k a year is not enough for their entry level job.
I live at the northern end of the current Sunshine Coast line and there's about two trains a day. They need to increase the frequency of service on the existing line
One an hour would be more like it !
It's quicker to drive from Noosa to Brisbane than to get the one morning train from Cooroy.
We are still living in the 19th century up here !
Maroochydore is just a stone’s throw from the Sunshine Coast Airport. It really needs to be included.
The Airport is included in plans… but not until ‘Stage 4’. The latest plans propose a ‘loop’ to Maroochydore - along with a complete realignment and creation of a new Maroochydore ‘city centre’ precinct with a bus/rail interchange - in vacant land adjacent to Carnaby St. (Goodbye Horton Park Golf Club!) Later, in Stage 4, the Dept of Transport plans to continue from the ‘loop’ with the rail line running north from the new Maroochydore Station to the Airport, with a station in between at Bradman Rd. Of course, plans for rail to the Sunshine Coast have changed every few years since 1881, and I fully expect completely new plans to be drawn up at least every four years until the rail line is completed in 3067.
www.tmr.qld.gov.au/~/media/Projects/M/Maroochydore%20Station%20Corridor%20Study/report/Pdf_maroochy_station_find_rec_report_complete.pdf
Its also meant to be the Sunny coast's CBD, its getting one of the few international internet cables that come to Australia!
The train will have to cross the river to get to the airport and apart from the airport that region probably isn’t as densely populated so I can imagine why Maroochydore would be a destination they are more focused on.
A part of the cost of this new line will be duplicating the north coast line, which is single track north of Caboolture station.
Yes! Forgot about this
I'm glad you gave this video the tile "Australia could be about to get a new intercity rain line"...."could" being the operative word. This train line has been discussed, promised, talked about for over 30 years!
Make that 140 years!
Well it is actually happening now. An hour late and a dollar short but thank god for small mercies all the same.
@@coasterblocks3420 yeah, the meetings about planning it are happening. not the actual building. gotta wait for past 2132 for that.
Canada, Australia and the USA should be building 125 mph/200 kmh intercity rail lines along their existing freeway networks for two reasons... 1-Free ROW that won't be dragged out in courts or inflate the project pricetag nearly as much through bloated deals and graft and 2-It would show show how slow cars are to trains and that visible reminder is all you really need to get riders on it... Luckily that's Brightline West is doing to create an HSR line at a fraction of the cost of the nearby California HSR...
Can I just point out that there is no freeway in the world with the same turning radius as a train at 200km/h. And it's rare even at 100km/h.
To compare, a freeway at 100km/h at full speed turn would probably only support a rail speed of 50km/h. Who knew cars could turn better then trains?
Combining rail and freeways is the dumbest idea in the world. Why? Because the train stations end up where nobody lives.
If they can’t run at a profit it won’t be built. Not enough people use rail. So very little investment is put towards it. The country’s with high speed trains that are successful have upto 100 times the population using it that we do. Our problem is big country little population. Most countries with high speed trains have big population little country. It’s plain economics.
As a life long Wollongong resident, the train to Sydney is pretty shit compared to what it could be. It’s 85 minutes to central, and the route is single track for some parts, and has very tight curves, limiting speed. It’s on par with driving, but the drive is shit too due to a lack of a highway for half the journey
Agreed, the Wollongong line is horrendous, funny thing is it used to be shorter in the 1800's with long tunnels but due to steam trains being slow on slopes they renovated the line to be gentler but also very windy. Embarrassingly as trains today are better at slopes the original route built in the 1800's would now be substantially quicker than what currently exists in 2024.
When I was a kid it took 2 hours and you got soot in your eyes from the engine when going through tunnels.
Is the old line still clear at least? Could it be restarted?@@Pasta_Pirate
@@gusdrivinginaustralia6168 I'm not an expert but I think there has been housing development along the route, and the tunnels may need serious renovation for modern trains so while its likely possible, there are major obstacles that complicate reactivating and presumably it'd be possible to build a way better route with modern engineering.
Its just worth bringing up as it shows there is room for serious upgrades as in the 19th century they were able to build infrastructure that'd be better than what is used today.
@@Pasta_Pirate sounds reasonable. I've got no clue about the area. All know is the drop from the west into Wollongong. From memory as a kid 35 years ago by road.
Awesome video! Thanks for the update 👍
Great points were raised, as usual. I love your videos and perspective on AU PT. This line is vital for the area, and you are right that stages 2-3 needed to be prioritiz. Continuing the line to Noosa Head with a stop at the airport would also be helpful in future phases.
Meanwhile in Melbourne we are still waiting on the airport rail line
We need a video on Tasmanian railways!
There would be no video. There is no (passenger non tourist) rail
@@tangiers365 no, about the former network and how it can be restored
@@tasmanianmapping Absolutely, would love to see it. I think it should be LR though through Hobart, significantly cheaper to construct and operate. Doubt there is even close to enough demand to restore heavy rail passenger service outside Hobart. Launceston-Devonport-Burnie-Wynyard with some straightening and double-tracking of the existing line would potentially be quite a useful corridor. With Wynyard+Burnie having 30,000 and Devonport another 30,000, then 20,000 between them at Ulverstone and Penguin, with Railton+Deloraine+Longford+Perth another 10,000 or more and the 130,000 in greater Launceston giving us over 200k to complement a very healthy tourism potential all for a very reasonable track expenditure.
@@kyletopfer7818 There is, remember that Broken Hill has a line, the towns like Kaunceston, Devonport, Burnie can create far more demand, and more frequencies
@@tasmanianmapping I edited my comment to reflect this too - what I meant to say was that connecting Hobart to the Northern part of the network is unlikely to be viable, but Wynyard-Burnie-Devonport-Launceston likely is very much so with some straightening and double-tracking of the existing line would potentially be quite a useful corridor. With Wynyard+Burnie having 30,000 and Devonport another 30,000, then 20,000 between them at Ulverstone and Penguin, with Railton+Deloraine+Longford+Perth another 10,000 or more and the 130,000 in greater Launceston giving us over 200k to complement a very healthy tourism potential all for a very reasonable track expenditure. The line also goes right past Launceston Airport which is very handy, might even be worth constructing a deviation through the airport directly.
Why not build it all at once, with a link to the Sunshine Coast airport.
Money, simple as that
@@TheBudgetTraveller786doesn't happen here in Perth. Its basically $2 to get to the city from the airport line
Common sense. That's why it won't happen
@@tangiers365It’s more like $5 but cheaper with a bank card auto-loaded SmartRider card. But yeah, it’s super handy and cheap, takes 20 minutes and all for sub $5. The only issue right now is the lack of patronage, the walkway from the terminal to the Airport Central station is also a bit of a walk.
No one needs sunshine airport, 900K pax pa.
The route of the rail line travels through some environmentally sensitive areas and is also quite sandy and boggy so there’ll be a lot of engineering to account for less than desirable geology.
maroochydore extension has already been delayed. likely indefinitely.
Note: There's a regular bus service from Maroochydore airport to Maroochdore bus interchange but there is nowhere for an interstate visitor to buy a ticket on arrival at the airport. And you cannot buy a ticket on the bus either. That was 2 years ago. Is it still the case?
Hey brah just wanted to lyk that I love watching your videos on Aussie transport and even though it's a niche topic I encourage you to keep up the great work.
Also please do a video on metronet 👍
There was talk in the mid nineties of a new line North coast to Brisbane one hour and four stops only would not connect to the rail system all ready there.The branch line to E North coast was to start in 22 but as you can see that did,t happen, the whole job was to be finished by 27 ,28 . year
The costs of the project are indicative of corruption and money going into pockets of people tied with the project. Itd be nice to see something futuristic and innovative, like a underground direct tunnel with 300kmph + speeds. Tunnel boring doesnt need to consider land resumption or curves. Surely automation of tunnel boring can achieve these results quickly and cheaply?
Boring under sand? Try it at he beach when you go next time.
I love your videos so much! Keep up the great work!
Maybe try to get a better upload schedule, can't go too long without a video lol.
Have a nice day, can't wait for the next one!
Thanks for all the good content! Would be great to hear your opinion on the Brisbane Metro project. There is very little content out there explaining it and it's potential pros and cons
It should be mentioned that, with just two passenger tracks (and a bi-di freight track), and mixed express / local stopping patterns, there is only room for four trains per hour north of Virginia. With four separate branches sharing this low capacity track, I'm predicting low frequencies and uneven headways.
Suffice to say that - if QR aren't prepared to actually have a hard think about mixed express / local running - there's a lot more than just building stages 2 & 3 that will be required for this project to properly succeed.
2 tracks in good systems (Germany) serve 15 pairs an hour. In s-bahn 30 (Munich central tunnel).
Well they will be emerging Caboolture services with the Sunshine Coast line and as for the Nambour and Gympie north section, it is planned to be turned into a shuttle between Beerwah and Gympie North via Nambour and all other intermediate Stations.
This is why we need rail along the North West Transportation Corridor. Tunnel from Cross River Rail at Roma Street station to Alderney on the Ferny grove line, then along the surface to Strathpine than between Strathpine and Lawnton, we add a 4th track.
Rail in Australia is so far behind most other modern countries. We have 3 different rail gauges. Only India, Brazil and Argentina match that. The whole country should be standard gauge and then perhaps we could import some of the modern trains and associated technology from Europe or China.
@@antontsauAssuming everything follows the same stopping pattern, with no mixing express and all stops services
I feel like Perth being able to build a comparable line for 1/5 the price demonstrates how much better the WA government is at planning and building railways. Perth certainly builds a lot of them and has really managed to get costs down whilst offering a very high standard (in terms of station design and connectivity to the local area) even when construction and labour costs in WA are so high. Frequencies across Perth's network are also good, certainly much better than what you see in other Australian capitals.
Is the WA government bought and paid for by a construction union? Did a construction union remove one premier and install their pick to replace it? Did the WA government burden Perth with an Olympic games for the sole purpose of using it as a giant swill bucket to provide payoffs to its union paymasters? if the answer is no, there you have it!
Different geography may play its part.
The land in question remains undevloped for very god reasons - it's mostly just swamps, hills, and mountains, building any sturdy structure on it is difficult. The proposed 19km rail journey is a good deal shorter than the current road journey, which takes about 30 minutes.
Almost 40% of the 19km rail line needs to elevated above the ground, 1/3rd of it over swamp land or flood Plains, and rest is made up of the necessary Bridges and Viaducts that they also need to build.
Well, any coststhe Queensland Government quotes invariably do not include the payoffs to the CFMEU. They put the Premier in his job and they expect to be paid off for doing so at every opportunity.
I wonder if the very expensive cost for phase one incorporates what are likely to be necessary upgrades to the existing main north line out of Brisbane to accommodate the extra trains needed to serve the new line?
Beerburrum to Nambour is set to be duplicated.
I honestly think at this point SE Queensland should just ask WA Transit to take over their entire operations and planning. WA is simply better in every way - cheaper & better new rolling stock, cheaper & better new rail extensions, more frequent reliable service with higher speeds etc. etc. Also the Stage 1 of this project should really aim to reach Birtinya as well and be rolled together with Stage 2, even if it costs more it would make a massive difference to time-competitiveness and be a much better integration with feeder buses to have a southern and a central interchange; the northern section can wait.
8/10+ of WA people live in Greater Perth...makes doing infrastructure/transit VERY easy for a govt!
@@mmmail1969 that has nothing to do with the fact Perth can build rail for a fraction of the cost per km that SEQ can, nor how well lines are planned, nor how fast line speeds are, nor frequency etc.
@@kyletopfer7818 Not supported by reality, but we all have our dreams...Go with Christ!
@@mmmail1969so why can't the frequency in Brisbane be better? Perth has always had a better train frequency
WATCH OUT CITY MOOSE DROPPED A NEW VIDEO
woops caps
Maroochydore to Noosa will miss out. It would be better to construct a series of light rail from existing inland stations to coast
5-7 Billion dollars??!? I’ve been all around that area before when visiting a friend, it’s literally just empty swamp land. What are they smoking?
The swamp land adds to the engineering!
The CAMCOS corridor (Cabooture to Maroochdore Corridor Study) now called the Sunshine Coast Direct Line. has been existence since 2001. From Beerwah through to Caloundra and on upto Kawana and Maroochydore. The Caloundra station looks like it would be on Caloundra Rd opposite the abandoned information centre. It would then snake around the Sugarbag MTB trails and under? Sugarbag Rd to the Aroona station on Parklands Blvd to the right of Aldi supermarket. It is quite hilly through here so a large amount of cut and fill would be needed. Before Caloundra and after Aroona it is quite flat which may explain why it will only go to Caloundra intially with only 1 major bridge over the Bruce Highway. Once crossing Caloundra Rd there will be multiple roads, gullies and creeks to cross. I hope they do the whole thing ASAP as leaving it just to Caloundra will turn the already congested Caloundra Rd into a car park.
Interesting video. Adding a new train line directly to the Sunshine Coast is a great idea. Hopefully, they can get it all built and running in years to come. While talking about train lines, I often wonder if they will ever have trains going back to Cooma NSW. This would help a great deal. They could even build it so it goes via Canberra, which would connect that as well. Back in the day, the train used to split in half for Canberra and Bombala via Cooma at Queanbeyan. though I think running it through Canberra would be a better option. anyway, thanks again for the great video.
QLD has a good track record of consistently building rail extensions, with the gold coast line also built in phases, and then the springfield and kippa ring lines, so I don't doubt they will build the future sunshine coast phases, it's just a matter of when, not if
The Redcliffe line was almost an if. 100 years from first suggestions.
yeah@@johnblyth9787it was like, well before the 1900s when they first commenced tossing around ideas for a train line going there
The National Party promised a Redcliffe line every election for decades but it was a Labor government who built it in the end. But not before a LNP government buggered it up prior to opening by implementing a signalling system incompatible with the rest of the network.
Unfortunately it looks like the Light Rail is now becoming a BRT. There is also talk of extending the heavy rail to the Sunshine Coast airport, but I don't think that's confirmed yet. Though definitely needed if we want to reduce car dependency.
At the present time there are NO bus connections to the coast for any train leaving Brisbane after 20:30. To add insult to injury the next train after the 20:30 doesn't leave the city until 22:00!
Regarding Light Rail - there was a big stink about it when it was last proposed with all sorts of complaints about big Utes ans SUVs drivers loosing lanes on the stroads to trams.
Good news today from 5th August all fares for the next six months will only cost 50cents!
WA has seeming been able to build infrastructure, road and rail, cheaper than the rest of Australia for the last few decades. My theory as to why is that A) traditionally a lot of projects were done with minimal federal assistance, and B) WA has dedicated authorities that take over the planning for such projects well before they make it to the procurement stage, and sometimes even before they're announced by govts.
A) Particularly for roads, until the last 10 years or so WA usually undertook a lot projects with minimal Federal contributions, which is the real reason WA never got toll roads as that was usually attached to federal support in the 1990s and 2000s. And furthermore, most of the current projects were first started when WA was in its worst fiscal situation in decades too, further shriniking With less potential money available for a project everything has to be bid down from the outset in order to make it happen in the first place. You can see the inverse of this too with the axed Geelong Fast Rail project, it never even made it to a project definition stage but we know it was going to cost at minimum $4 Billion because it was announced with a 50/50 federal contribution of $2 Billion, it was never going to cost less no matter what it was because that was how much money was on the table from the outset. The flipside of this is that WA's infrastructure often has a comparatively spartan look to other projects built at the same time, the original Mandurah line stations in particular won't be featured on any architect's render portfolio. But a quaint but functional station is far superior to no station at all of course.
B) Far more impactful most likely is that WA has several planning agencies which are constantly designing projects and making allowances for them well in advance of their construction, making it cheaper to build once politicians finally do pick them up. Departments like Main Roads and the PTA are always putting in preparations for potential projects and in many cases even fully designing them so they're "ready to go" when political willpower is there, Main Roads in particular is somewhat known for just designing a proposing new roads publicly without any govt indication they were even on the table. Meanwhile on a developmental planning level authorities across all levels of govt are constantly making preparations for potential future projects and allocating alignments and passive protection for them. For example, all upgrades to the inner railway lines in recent decades have included allowances for potential future track amplification and sidings if needed, and local govt planning documents already identify station locations and alignments for a potential North Circle railway line, and are zoning development accordingly.
When you combine smaller available budgets with pre-existing long term planning accommodations, it's much easier for govts to just pick out a project that's been waiting on a shelf then apply top-down pressure to ensure it's as cheap as possible to fit within the budget. Even if that means cutting some of the more ostentatious aspects in the name of just getting the basic functionality up and running, like the Mandurah line's corrugated metal rooving.
More moderate trade union presence!
Excellent post my friend. I'd not considered how the Federal/state funding model could have an impact on cost, and I'd also not heard that stations are already identified so far in advance. Honestly, I think WA had some very clever bureaucrats in place who actually care about the state. I don't think the stations are too spartan, but they certainly don't compare to the 'glamourous' ones you're seeing built in Melbourne as part of the grade separation works there. However, the new stations on the Ellenbrook line, and the new elevated ones on the Armadale line, really look good in my opinion. I think a lot of Perth's recent stations look much better than what you'd see on Brisbane's network though. The GC line stations are pretty ugly with stations like Butler being much nicer.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
They can't even double track the existing line to Nambour, which has been a talking point every election for well over 30 years, so there is buckleys chance of the supposed stage 2 and 3 being built by the turn of the century. I have been on a service north having stopped at a station had to reverse back to get in a siding to allow a freight train to pass should demonstrate the need to at least double track the existing line. Stopping at Caloundra is on the edge of the population base that is screaming for public transport so will be a white elephant when it comes to patronage, the same as the current service from Nambour which take over 2 hours to reach Central even on the 'fastest' service. Building a line from Beerwah to Coloundra will do absolutely nothing for the congestion every day of the week on the Bruce Highway to Brisbane. The urban sprawl south of Coloundra has already been under development for 5 years now so is not something being planned. They bought land many decades ago to put in a Sunshine Coast motorway linking Noosa with Coloundra running passed the Sunshine Coast Airport, so this is when this should have been planned. Using the same avenue as the motorway would have been able to come out and join the current line at Landsborough, which is the current park and ride used by most of the southern coast commuters. Typical QLD Government planning for anything north of Brisbane ... Band-aid at best but definitely won't stop the bleeding.
It could be done for 10% of the price.
By Dodgy Brothers construction company?
Economists love to chop infrastructure projects into these 'phases' because from their point of view, it's more efficient. You can put out tenders for more projects and have greater competition when it comes to bids. Except in real life there are very few companies that can do these kind of projects in Australia and everything ends up costing more because we're paying for multiple wind-ups and wind-downs of construction.
This is really good. The sunshine coast has very bad public transport and no viable way to reach it from Brisbane without driving. Along side their planned mass rapid transit, the sunshine coast could really shine with public transport! I hope the line is eventually extended to Noosa.
Also they could have a service going from beerwah to maroochydore that goes every 10 minutes and a service that goes all the way to central & gold coast every 20 to add more frequency.
Wishing for the new train line doesn't mean it well happen.
The Sunshine Coast goes up to Noosa. We do have a station at Cooroy and Eumundi but the service to Brisbane is atrocious and its quicker to drive. A direct connection fron Noosa to Maroochydore would be brilliant but its not even spoken about.
Maybe a monorail between Maroochydore and Noosa along the Sunshine Motorway stopping off at the Sunshine Coast Airport would be a good idea ?
Slight correction the 5-7b build cost figure also includes 30 years of budget maintenance. The land purchases are also much more expensive being a popular holiday city.
$7 billion? the Perth to Mandurah was $1 billion and that’s 72km of new railway with 2 river crossings and 2 new twin bored tunnels through the CBD it’s insane how inflated constructed costs are over east. The entirety of metronet is $12 billion for stage 1
Not just over east, over everywhere that speaks English. We really have it good in Perth that we pay as much as the French or Swedes (who have average costs) for building rail instead of the British or Americans (who like to compete on who can build the most expensive projects) like over east
Part of the cost includes the line duplication from Beerburrum to Beerwah, which is needed for the line to Caloundra to run regular services. Most of the current Sunshine Coast heavy rail line is single track...which is a major part of the problem. Long distance and freight trains also use this line to travel to places like Rockhampton and Cairns. They are planning to duplicate the line to Nambour...eventually. Unfortunately, this has also been talked about for years and other than a couple of improvements for parking at Landsborough and Nambour, nothing much has been done.
Nice video reminds me of RM Transit
Good video mate. As a Queenslander, we need better frequencies and more locations as our population is growing. I just hop this new line will encourage more people to use public transport.
Long term plan is 45 minute passenger rail to Gold Coast (I assume Gold Coast Airport, Coolangatta), Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba, by 2042. Will this happen, who knows, but even less likely if there's a change of government in October.
There are plans for a new train manufacturing centre at Maryborough that will produce the next generation of suburban passenger trains for the SEQ rail network in the immediate future. Assuming the new fleet is built with similar priorities to the NGR rollingstock that currently represents the most recent iteration of SEQ suburban trains, these will likely be designed with a 160km/h maximum speed, with the intent that they will take over the longer distance, highly utilised inter-city services, while pushing the oldest remaining EMU units into retirement. Presumably this is why the newer track sections are rated for 160km/h rather then the 140km/h the NGRs are capable of.
In terms of staging, getting to Maroochydore would be great, but at least reaching Birtinya is vital. The Sunshine Coast Mass Transit plan (which covers the potential LRT, but will likely be a BRT) plans it's stage 1 to run from Birtinya to Maroochydore. So the synergy between a heavy rail ending at the starting point of the rapid transit corridor is pretty obvious. The long term full build of both will be vital though, as even though the heavy rail corridor is close enough to the urban core of the sunshine coast to be serviceable as a commuter line, it's not really going to be optimally placed to provide a urban transits service in the same way the G:link does on the Gold Coast. The heavy rail mostly follows the freeway corridor and is beyond a walkable distance of the commercial and tourism driven beach-fronting hubs along the coast line. In contrast, the mass transit corridor basically runs through the major activity centres along the coast line, and would meet the heavy rail at 3 key locations (Maroochydore, Birtinya and Caloundra).
The hybridisation of Australia's heavy rail networks is not without it's drawbacks. Limitations of infrastructure in the inner core of the network means our need to run inner Brisbane sections of our network like a turn up and go metro compromise out ability to optimise the longer distance services that really push the boundaries between what would be considered a suburban commuter service and a true inter city service. The Beerwah - Maroochydore portion of the new line could, and should, function as both an intercity rail and a suburban service for trips entirely contained within the Sunshine Coast, but I think it's important to push on with the Mass Transit corridor, as it will provide a far better inner-urban service then the heavy rail ever could, whilst also allowing the heavy rail to focus more on what it is actually designed for, the longer distance services.
Sunshine Coast is an ever growing city with bus and train services that have barely had changes made since the early 90s.
Great video and very interesting. I do hope they build a lot of high density housing around the stations with all the infrastructure needed, so that a completely different, a lot more human lifestyle can be had, such as like Victoria Park/Green Square in Sydney. We Australians are champions at building suburban sprawl, which makes people car dependant, and therefore we get to enjoy the worst congestion on our roads. Lets build a different way of living where it is convenient and easy to walk around where we live, and/or jump on a fast comfortable train to go elsewhere.
Part of the reason for the high cost is that the Current Sunshine Coast line has to be realigned to be straighter as well as duplicated between Beerburrum and Beerwah as that section is currently single track and has a lot of bends
Light Rail is not happening on the Sunny Coast its going to be a BRT to save money and keep NIMBYS happy
Believe it will be all the way up to Nambour eventually.
I believe it when I see it
Infrastructure expenditure means the people in charge have planned to have a much bigger population. Yay!
I shave every morning before getting on the Gold Coast to Brisbane train but when I arrive I need to shave again.
the expenses is probably land cost. honestly the second/third stages will probably end up like GC's extension to Tugan.
To travel from Brisbane to Sunshine Coast you dont need to go to Brisbane. The change is at Eagle Junction.
If you want to do a great rail video, line to Redcliffe is a good one. Took 100 years to come to fruition.
Be interesting to see if Sunshine coast line get done. A lot is single track. Can be 20 minuits wait at times for oposing train to pass. There are side lines at stations. 8 years for around 100 km line is a big undertaking. All the stations from Caboolture north will need rebuilding. Line will need realining. A lot of gullys etc will need bridges.
The Main Line out of [into] Brisbane, is going to need MASSIVE work over the next 2 decades!
It depends on which station you are getting the train from. if you are on the northside and have to change onto the Caboolture/Sunshine Coast Line, the best stations after Bowen Hills are Eagle Junction and Northgate...other than that you have to go into the city.
Hopefully as part of Phase I they ensure a right of way is set aside for the future phases. Cost for land acquisition will only increase with time.
When comparing population density it’s probably worth also comparing the size of the area. Brisbane itself is a huge city in terms of size and it butts up against smaller neighbouring cities like Ipswich and Logan in a way that seems to form an even bigger single city - Ipswich and Logan just feel like regions on the edge of Brisbane.
The Sunshine Coast is huge and Maroochydore is only half way up it. The southern area that the rail line will service is the most built up and populated region but a substantial number of the stated population live further north. After Maroochydore there is the river then the airport and then many smaller regions with popular beach towns like Coolum but the train probably wouldn’t travel along the coast where it would displace too many people and cause too much disruption (from what I can tell) so Day trippers wanting to go somewhere like Coolum will probably need to catch a bus from the train station to the beach. I imagine Noosa is the next more densely populated coastal area and that’s probably the same distance again as the line detailed in the video. Maroochydore to Noosa is a long line to build with a lower population and a lot of environmental impact but a larger percentage of the people using the stops probably wouldn’t live at them.
Sounds good apart from the price as you say.
Though I would have though a couple of extra planed phases to extend to the Airport and maybe as far north as Noosa would be good even if its unlikely they're build before the end of the century.
the rich people in noosa don't want poor people taking the trains up there lol
I live in Maroochydore. This has been talked about for over 30years so it’s great to see funds committed but sad that it won’t be done by 2032.
A couple of years ago I complained to the local member of my electorate on the Gold Coast about parking at a train station. He asked in parliament about parking and about a week later a letter from QLD Rail turned up from the relevant ministers office. They said that they wouldnt be expanding car parking at train station because research showed that if they did more people would use the train. Since trains were already crowded they didnt want to encourage people to use the train. Queensland government, of all stripes, dont care about the future, they have no vision beyond the next election; hence 50c TransLink trips for six months.
The Central Coast/Newcastle and Sunshine Coast are cut from the same cloth. They start out as these satellite regions where people go to escape the big city life. Over time the big cities sprawl explosively, house prices balloon out of control, and the satellite regions slowly turn into the outer suburbs. Before you know it you're on a suburban line with a 2 hour commute to the city for work. That's what the Sunshine Coast line is heading for. They would do well to learn from our mistakes and protect a corridor to keep the journey under 60 minutes.
Ferries around those manmade canals would be sick
An infrastructure bank in Australia would aid in lowering the price of such a rail system. It all looks quite squiggly even from Beerwah so that’ll slow down the line. A line past the airport is a must while it seems to me that a line to Noosa or just west of there should be on the cards.
The median of the Bruce Highway would be great for express services and the existing alignment could then be serviced with an intercity tram. The Bruce is mostly straight from North Lakes, and would be a brilliant advertisement for leaving the car behind
the brisbane area is probably the ripest for rail development, sunshine coast 80km to the north and the gold coast 80km south, you dont even need fancy high speed rail, just go ol reliable commuter trains would beat out cars by a minimum of 30% faster travel times (thinking of a system like thameslink in london which btw the brisbane trains look and feel identical too if you've ridden on both, im sure they must be both siemens models correct me if i'm wrong)
like the existing 140km speed limit is still mooore than enough, you just need rail track that allows for those speeds, with brisbane being far less dense than london there's less pressure top have stations every km or two for all services (which mind you london manages to have plenty of frequent stop start train services that still beat out the majority of australian trains at speed)
the london underground has some sections that stop what feels like every 30 seconds and yet is still faster than driving at any point despite the stations being PAINFULLY deep underground (like seriously some stations it feels a minimum of 5 min is spent travelling up and down from the platforms)
It's sad that the Southshine Coast Council rejected the idea of doing light rail (in this video you said it "hasn't been confirmed yet". In fact, it has been outright rejected in favour of BRT). It would have been such an enormous boon to the area, _especially_ in combination with the heavy rail line.
Also on a side note, I really wish we were building new heavy rail lines to be compatible with a future high speed rail. Even if they can't actually run HSR right now, the value of it would be enormous, and the cost of building it out when we're doing new builds _anyway_ is so much lower than if we had to do all the old infrastructure _and_ redo these newer parts later. I feel it was a major error especially with cross-river rail, but is also going to be disappointing on the Sunshine Coast line when that gets built.
For future HSR proofing that would mean building the line as SG & thus being incompatible with the rest of the NG QR network
@@yappofloyd1905 no, you can build it dual-gauge, or at least provide comparatively straight routes and enough width that it can be upgraded to dual-gauge later without needing to widen the whole corridor.
Do you have any idea why the cost of the line in WA is soooo much cheaper?
I'm not too sure, but it seems like Perth is currently mostly immune to building really expensive transportation projects, unlike the rest of the English speaking world. I hope this doesn't change.
I have a feeling it's down to one of the reasons listed in NYU's transit costs project. Feel free to look up their executive summary, it's a good read.
Because here in Queensland our politicians are car minded
@@electro_sykes our politicians in WA are also pretty car minded as well. Though we have one trick up our sleeves, we closed the Freo line in the 70s, and that had a big backlash and then they reopened it. So now the government knows that closing rail service is a big no go.
@@illiiilli24601 back in the late 60s we lost our trams, in the 70s we almost lost passenger rail. Good thing they decided to keep passenger rail and introduce electrification and expanded it throughtout the 80s and 90s into the system we know today. but still, our politics are like one more lane bro. They would rather build toll road tunnels over rail
…hoping you’d say it would continue north to Noosa…
Whilst the SSC rail is upfront expensive, the opportunity for the Qld govt to reap a fortune from ToD's in such a region is very considerable!
The last thing the Sunshine Coast needs is to make it easier for the populous to overcrowd and choke the area more..
Would it not be more economical, easier, quicker and cheaper to build a light rail loop service from the heavy rail stop at the most southern point of the Suuny Coast into the heart of the Sunshine Coast up to the top of the heavy rail Sunshine Coast. The Gold Coast has seen tremendous value from its light rail system (Newcastle and Sydney less so).
some of the trains on the new line should run though to or from brisbasne international airport.
. it is really hard to change trains with alot of either or luggage or large vaction family group.
Sad, what about Metronet in your intro. Hi from Perth.
The Yanchep extension got a shoutout at least!
Why? What industries are there in SE Queensland that justifies this commuting and 'growth'…?
Firstly, Sunshine Coast City Council has decided on a Brisbane Metro bus rapid transit line rather than light rail, disappointing but not unexpected.
Secondly, the State government has announced they will run frequent bus services to connect Caloundra Station to the rest of the Sunshine Coast whilst the rest of the line is built.
I thought the cost was ridiculous too, and you had to go digging in to the media releases to find some explanation (which is dumb). While the first stage doesn't look like it should need really any land resumption at all, the budget announced along with stage 1 includes resuming all the land required for stage 2 and stage 3 as well. Which is good, because it shows a bit of commitment to those much needed other stages, but there still doesn't seem to be a LOT of land required to be resumed along that corridor. (though certainly a lot more than for stage 1)
But the worst thing is the timescale. It was meant to reach Maroochydore - the Sunny coasts unofficially CBD - in time for the olympics. In fact that was one of the driving forces behind the olympic bid!! Terrible that they can only make it to Colondra.
If you really want a damning comparison, look at Europe's Rail Baltica project, occurring right now. Well along, it is expected to cost 10bln aussie dollars and take 10 years, and it spans EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY F***ING KILOMETRES of HIGH SPEED rail, reaching 8 cities and 4 COUNTRIES!!
Why does it cost $5 billion in QLD versus $1 billion in WA? Perhaps because the labourers and traffic controllers get $220k salaries per year?
Sunshine Coast had a service which was axed when Queensland government went road happy
Just a small amount of research you would have been able to ascertain that this railway line is going to have to run along low lying sand swampland so an enormous amount of rock material is going to need to be truckedin. I suspect the reason the government is willing to spend this kind of money building a rail line is simply to move low income workers between the houses of people who can afford to live on the Sunshine coast.
Theyve been talking this for the last 30 years +
It really needs to go to the Sunshine Coast airport.
The Labor Premier Steven Miles just announced all public in Queensland will be 50¢ for any journey from early August for a 6 month trial. With the government gearing up for CRR soon to go live, I’m expecting some more major public transport announcements from Labor with the run up to the election.
this project is so overdue. has been in talks for decades, if only they got work started in advance, could have created better connections to locations such as the university, and decreased urban sprawl in advance
Metronet from Perth has joined the chat.
QLD and NSW in particular, have materially decentralised populations ie, people living outside the greater capital city areas. WA on the other hand, has a VERY HIGHLY "centralised population", with well over 8 out of every 10 voters, living in the Greater Perth region - makes the politics of doing Perth focused infrastructure obvious and easy!
who is getting from brisbane to the sunshine coast in 1 hour 15? it takes at least an hour and a half these days
Everything seems to be more expensive to build in QLD for some unknown reason. $2.7bn to add a few seats to the Gabba. Sydney built two new stadiums for $1.2bn with 70,000 seats across the two facilities. $7bn for a railway that is half the size of one being built in WA for just over $1bn. VIC isn't much better. $17bn gave NSW WestConnex, 22km of mainline tunnels and three huge, off the scale interchanges and stubs to connect future tunnels seamlessly. The 4km Westgate Tunnels in Melbourne seem like a raw deal, $8bn, by comparison and the job still isn't finished yet.
The NSW Intercity rail network is leaps and bounds ahead of those in other states. Whilst not featuring the fastest speeds, and this is only due to the mountainous terrain, the classic V-sets are Australia's most comfortable electric trains and there are lots of them. On the Blue Mountains Line and Newcastle Line they run every 15 minutes and are eight-car double deckers and not the six-car single deckers that feature elsewhere. Shorter trains run in the off-peak and on services that terminate at Lithgow. Some of these cars are nudging 50 years of age, yet you barely feel the bumps due to the airbag suspension. Sadly they are about to be withdrawn from service and replaced by the ten-car D-sets which are no doubt a capable train but will operate for decades before the nostalgia sets in.
And before anyone chimes in about Sydney's population being bigger - these trains were introduced when Sydney's population was less than 3 million and the frequency of service makes the network popular. Also, do not forget that many Wollongong trains don't terminate at Wollongong but continue to Kiama, further down the coast. This is more of a tourist route than one for commuters.
To boost tourism to the Southern Highlands, the line between Macarthur and Moss Vale should be electrified and prepared for D-sets. That would give the four intercity lines from Sydney some uniformity with the rolling stock and allow a higher frequency of service on that line.
I think the Gabba is in reality a rebuild not adding a few seats.
Possibly the railway is also upgrading the current line from Beerwah to Brisbane which is single line in sections. (and passing loops at the stations)
Trade Union/ALP govt
@@catprog The Gabba would have been a rebuild but that is beside the point. The nett result would have been a few thousand extra seats and $2.7bn is far, far too much.
They should get a train line between Brisbane to Cairns plus to port Douglas
There is a train Brisbane to Cairns?
The Bruce Parking Lot Way is so overcrowded these days that anything will be better than driving.
Alas we are so addicted to our suvs.
The CFMEU run Queensland. Thats why it costs more.
It doesnt matter how quick or nice the trains are, they are still way too expensive - QLD Rail has got to be one of the most expensive public train services in the world
Now if only billions wasn't wasted on road tunnels in Brisbane increasing congestion?
The road tunnel projects were mostly privately funded and have NOTHING to do with future rail projects!
Duplicate the line to nambour. Run buses from Landsborough to Caloundra and nambour to Maroochydore
Only about 20 years too late but we'll take it.
Firstly everyone involved in the project will have to work out just how much they can rip off before the money runs out and the project stops.
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I doubt it will actually happen. Cost vs profit stops most transport systems in Australia. We don’t have the population using it. So the cost would never be recovered. So investors will go somewhere else.
I live on the Sunshine Coast and I agree that it is greatly needed. It’s been a political hot potato for so many years and I’m fearful it will continue to be just that. The Sunshine Coast is the poor cousin to the Gold Coast sadly and could really do with this injection to breath life into the area. Another great video. Thanks.
The 2032 Olympics will never happen in Brisbane. It is almost 3 years since Brisbane were granted hosting rights and absolutely nothing has been done yet in way of planning for the Olympics. This State government couldn't organise a chook raffle
agree and they want a car centric legacy
The Olympics franchise is already in trouble with declining TV viewing, boycotts, corruption, scandals, discrimination against countries like Russia. Russia is launching its own friendship games franchise with over 70 countries interested. This year they already have riots in Paris and Los Angeles has surging poverty ...
The QLD and Federal government are nuffies who won't pull the trigger on anything because they're afraid of political backlash. Living in Brisbane, I highly doubt this project will ever get off the ground.
Anglophone governments can’t build infrastructure lol
The business case has been completed and funding has been locked in by both governments?
Yeah but when you take into account plans for this line have exsisted since the 90s
@@electro_sykes Funding was never locked in for those plans though.
What's the point in a train when it takes just as long to drive there as it does by train. Australia needs high speed rail. That's it.