When I lived in Canberra I got a lift in a car to Yass Junction station to take the slow train to Melbourne. Later when I lived in Yass I drove a car to Canberra airport to take a fast plane to Melbourne. Go figure.

Turnbull is in a nation building frenzy at the moment. To justify not building Badgery's Ck airport a train would have to get people from home to a destination maybe no more than an hour longer but say at 50% the total fares. That includes the extra time and cost of a bus or taxi to or from home to the station.

If the rail line was freight oriented not passenger avoiding city stations it might not get built. The east coast cities would go ahead with second airports. On the other hand if diesel and jet fuel doubled in price we'd need to electrify transport via rail as much as possible.

Like the Ghan a railway to nowhere which very few will use build it as a freight line may be,but generally its just another National party boondoggle

I'm afraid Everald, you have agreement from yet another who won't be around long enough to actually do anything.

Its a coalition initiative, they know what is good for you. Besides that it will be seen as good debt and not counted. It could be a good idea to see where this rail line is supposed to go. If it is going to be for passengers as well they probably need two different routes.
It is a long way you probably would need to routes to get there.
You can cover 2,000 kms at 80 kph in 25 hours Thats not bad.

The shallow thinking in this article does not bode well for the success of the project, even if one did not see it as another NBN-quality catastrophe.

John Howard failed to pay a multi-billion dollar political debt which existed only in Everald's mind, even though he had been an upaid fund-raiser for the Liberal Party with no strings attached.

"That decision blows the theory that politicians are duty bound to repay political debts, not that I ever expected him to do so," Everald says. So there was no political debt, but Howard was duty bound to repay it. But didn't. And wasn't expected to do so. Beats me.

According to Everald Compton, a truck is a truck. The huge B-doubles which "crush" highways will magically become suitable for local deliveries and their drivers will go home every night. Wonder how the economics of that would work out.

Everald's fantasy train would travel at 120 kph and thus be faster than trucks, even though it would stop at multiple freight centres along the way, not only to deliver freight, but to pick up freight, too, and deliver it to ports, notwithstanding that the only ports on the Melbourne to Brisbane route will be, ah, Melbourne and Brisbane.

All this despite the fact that his previously planned Toowoomba-Gladstone link "became unviable when the mining boom collapsed". Well, that must have been a shock!

Thank God Malcolm Turnbull is the PM who has committed to the Brisbane-Melbourne line. We're lucky we have a PM with his great record of success in managing the NBN project. And the ABC. Now for the inland rail line. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Quote "Turnbull is in a nation building frenzy at the moment."

WRONG Turnbull is on the nose with the voters and is desperate buy people to vote for him and party.

Next will come the lies of what he will do, but really has no intention of doing.

As an old Railways Man of 26 years keeping worn out Wagons on the rails& having done my time from Porter to Managing in part, a Wagon Repair Depot. I profess to know a little about Rail.

Passenger Rail outside City Transport is a huge waste of State & Federal Finances.

Our little Depot took a huge fleet of Wagons at about 60% efficiency to 99.8% back onto the rails in five years, despite Senior Managements interference.

This Depot has been sold to a third party. Their idea of keeping 100% of wagons in service is to remove them from the rails so they are no longer counted. I was informed of this in a meeting with my former Team Members & seeing the hundreds of Wagons parked alongside, but not on, the rails. The available fleet for service is half of what was in service 17 years ago.

I do believe that Rail is far superior than Trucks for the movement of Freight around Australia. Aircraft are far Superior than Rail for the Movement of people.

The cost of upkeep of the Road Network would halve using Rail.

This is all mute of course. This "New Idea" has been around, as far as ZI can ascertain for a hundred years. I even have a Map that shows the Rail line from Townsville to, Derby?, Broom?, Pt. Headland? to Meekatharra & on to Perth. Produced about 40 years ago. It also has the Rail line from Darwin to Adelaide marked on it. These are marked on as Proposed Lines. The Federal Government at the time claimed responsibility for the New Infrastructure. Yair right.

Cont.

Cont.

I remember when I moved to the Townsville North Yard Workshops there were survey markers everywhere around the Ross Creek. I was informed that this was for the new Townsville Station. That was in 1882. They opened the New Station in 2004/5. The New Workshops at Stuart were Surveyed in 1945 & not built until 1995. Of course the State Government at the time claimed the credit for the building of the New Infrastructure. Yair right.

So I do believe the New Melbourne to Toowoomba to Darwin via Mt Isa will eventually be built I won't hold my breath. Work has started at the Bromelton hub near Beaudesert already, so that's promising.

Looks like you may get your Rail Line Everald, But then, you are more privileged to that future information than us Peones.

How say you?

The problem with this railway proposal, apart from the cost and that much of the vision is based on fantasy, is that it bypasses our largest city Sydney, not to mention two of our busiest ports - Newcastle and Port Kembla - and the fast growing regional areas of the NSW North Coast, Central Coast and Hunter Valley.
If freight railway is a priority surely the better option is improving the existing railway line which currently links Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and upgrading the railway through and around Sydney. This would surely cost less than building hundreds of kilometers of new tracks and be more useful as it would deliver freight to much more population.
The article doesn't mention the impact on the freight industry of driverless vehicles. By the time this railway is complete, it is likely driverless trucks will be the norm, making road freight much more efficient than it is now. Considering trucks are already the mainstay of domestic freight, it is hard to see how this railway will compete.

AntP:is that it bypasses our largest city Sydney, not to mention two of our busiest ports - Newcastle and Port Kembla - and the fast growing regional areas of the NSW North Coast, Central Coast and Hunter Valley.

Obviously NSW centric. These Cities will have feeder Lines. The Idea is to carry Freight to Ports. Ports are areas where Freight is transferred to & from feeder lines or Roads. E.g.; Bromelton. Smaller Trucks take the freight to distribution Parks around the Cities. That's the theory anyway.

I guess they used to be called Shunting yards. Been there, done my time as a Shunter, using hand signals & Lights, in the most dangerous Shunting Yard in the World, South Yard Townsville. Shunting both ends towards the middle around a double S Bend. That was before Radios. There is no Fly shunting & Catcher or Switcher any more & it's all auto Couplers now. No swing links.

Just for fun, have a look at the Indian Railway system.
It probably carries more freight and passengers in one week than Australia does in a year.

On the proposed route there would be some passenger traffic but it will
only be justified by freight.
However the majority of freight will moves between Brisbane & Sydney,
Sydney & Melbourne, and a smaller amount between Brisbane & Melbourne.
The line from Newcastle to Sydney is at capacity. Long freights run
all night in both directions and they jam them in between passenger
services during the day.
So the proposed line would relieve that.
Unfortunately there are just too many bridges & tunnels to be altered
between Newcastle Sydney and Parkes to enable double stacking containers.

Freight between Brisbane & Melbourne might be best served by sea.

Into this jumble will be the decline of air passenger traffic.
The decline of air freight might change the balance also.
That will be followed by an irresistible demand for the VFT.
People like us cannot express an opinion on the viability without
having the freight data and knowledge of the costs.
In the longer term everything will be electrified trains.
There will be no aircraft, possibly not even military aircraft.

Predictions about the future are notoriously unreliable. Step back to the 1960-70's and look at what was being predicted for this century.

The Labor Party Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised that by 1988, the Hume Highway would be dual lane from Melbourne to Sydney, sadly it took at least another 20 years for that to become a reality.

Had not some far sighted men, taken the initiative the Snowy Mountain scheme would never have got off the ground. Sure it is not the magic bullet, yet it has helped with water supply and hydro electricity. Not to mention tourism.

I must declare that I no industrial or pecuniary interests in rail or road.

Infrastructure is expensive, and poorly maintained infrastructure is extremely expensive, when the bean counters go on cost saving exercises, this creates all sorts of disasters, from plane crashes, to the victorian bush fires and the gas explosion that robbed victorians of their gas supply for a fair while.

Part 2

The Sydney, Melbourne rail line is poorly maintained and there are sections of track where the trains are not allowed to exceed speed limits like 60 ks per hour. So in effect it is not efficient.

As rail lines have closed down, this has pushed the freight onto trucks and with the subsequent rise in heavy vehicles there is also a rise in heavy vehicles accidents and fatalities.

Heavy vehicles do cause damage to roads, just drive along a road with wheel ruts, that fill with water when it rains.

Personally I believe that in the future, that it is highly likely that rail ways will again become important for the movement of people and freight and building this future railway looks to a promising future, sure it may be a financial liability in direct costs, but if it manages to reduce the road toll for truckies then it is a positive step in the right direction.

It is possible that the route may be able to make use of existing rail corridors that only see the tracks used once or twice a year to shift grain.