There seems to be a never-ending stream of railway proposals for the taxpayer to fund. They are rarely economic in our sparsely settled country. Indeed many recently-built railroads in this country were a waste of money.

Three obvious examples are the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, the Inland Rail project, and Canberra's light rail. They are all uneconomic porkbarrel projects. In the past few days the Grattan Institute has also come out and said that the idea of a fast train from Melbourne to Brisbane, via Sydney and Canberra would be ‘ruinously expensive’.

Enough of these pie-in-the-sky proposals.

I strongly believe in the principal of "put your money where your mouth is" this means if it is such a good idea you pay for it. If you do not have the money then get investors, otherwise no deal.
I love trains but when it comes to moving people nothing beats aeroplanes for long distances.
Cargo is always cheaper on ships. Hence revoke all our nonsensical laws on coastal shipping.
Always let the market decide and pay for what is required and that includes the Melbourne airport to the city rail/tram. I bet the government will pick the worst option and it will be shown to be the worst option.

Providing transport should be a service that pays for its costs, profit has no part of it !
If we were to really just focus on profit then millions of people would perish if left to their own merits !
That's why we need policies that focus on sustainable service to the community, a user pays for costs without profit system.
Those who desire profit should be free to do so via demand for their product ! No funding from taxpayers. If you can't sell your product, produce something that sells !
The entertainment industry too should make their money according to their talent ! If you can't entertain people don't ask others to pay for you ! Get another job where you can earn enough !
Welfare must not be a one size fits all ! Don't move to another town unless there's a job waiting for you ! The whole system needs change as well as mentalities must change !

With a Federal Parliamentary & Legislative Council Inquiry into this fiasco, landholders can and have proven everything they say & will continue to fight the lies & media propaganda. ARTC have no business case to support the viability of this project. The mismanagement and shifty greedy deals we find out about are mind boggling. Costly & detrimental last-minute route changes, Council mayors found guilty of misconduct. Deals done and FOI obtained to prove this. Senator Glenn Sterle, Chair of the Parliamentary Inquiry stated in Senate Estimates, ARTC are '$20 Billion short' which makes the cost of Inland Rail $30 Billion+. A 200% cost increase and they haven't really started yet. This rail is set to blow out greater than the NBN. It will never make a profit. Just to name a few, the 2015 business case does not provide any updated costing scope to account for the cost escalations associated with future proofing; increased cost in relation to raising bridges and lowering roads, crossings & replacement of structures not capable of carrying the new axle tonnage. It also never sought to update the scope of works costs established by the 2010 IRAS and so we are seeing massive blow outs in ALL SECTIONS. For example the new Narromine to Burroway section requires additional 8 kms of new track, increased culverting & embankments, much longer bridging & has a longer transit time than the accepted western concept alignment. This is in ADDITION to the $37 million extra for the last-minute change from the 8 year well researched & accepted route West of Narromine to the highly flood prone, high community risk East Narromine alignment. This change will waste well over $300 million of taxpayers money, become very costly to maintain, unnecessarily destroy farms, business, homes and almost certainly place our community at risk of flooding where no flooding has ever occurred before. And that’s just Narromine. Is it any wonder people are now seeking legal advice. There are 10's of thousands of affected landholders. We are not few, we are many.

An excellent personal advertorial for a project that good sense has denied, Everald.

In that vein the repetition of "REPORT THIS AD" three times in your essay is fitting.

Everald, surely your exalted meeting with Prime Minister Eyebrows, his agreement with your "visionary project" and his "green light to open negotiations with appropriate Ministers in his Cabinet"

- is homage enough, in lieu of payment for your good self, Sir Everald.

The simple truth is trains are viable in Europe, Japan, China, India and other high population areas, but not in underpopulated markets like Australia. Unlike those crowded places Australia lacks the fresh water for high population Everald.

Sorry mate, time to move on and accept that your run is done. There will be an inland railway just not as you conceived it, but one that avoids the troubling flood plain by detouring through already publically owned state forest?

Suggest you turn your attention to how we make it and the bullet train an economic proposition via the intended power supply.

Which has to be nuclear to stack up. No, not conventional but rather, walk away safe MSR thorium and as multiple factory-built, mass-produced SMR's we can perfect deploy and then export to an energy saved world! As vastly cheaper than coal, energy! See thorium in four minutes!

Thorium, abundant as lead, also has the advantage of producing the alpha particle, bismuth 213. And could be made available in nuclear medicine clinics the length and breadth of the outback to then encourage a million-plus, annual medical tourists, to visit for their treatment and possible remission from otherwise, death sentence cancer!

Other than that, there's a new space age method of desalinating water which uses, quarter of the energy of traditional desalination and produces as much as 95% potale water and as such. Cost-effective for broad-scale irrigation that then allows the rivers to flow and the aquifers to remain untouched!

Time to grab another even more pressing issue and use your persona to give it oxygen and some public awareness support, but only if you want to see a turbocharged, economic recovery as your real contribution and legacy
Alan B.