Get rid of shareholders
every business that has shareholders has high prices and poor service
this is what kill businesses

Aidan; what you say with regard to the north is essentially correct, and with regard to passenger services!

However, one could make a compelling case for very fast conventional freight trains plying between Adelaide and Darwin, and then between Darwin and Port Headland.

And maybe up the guts between Melbourne and Brissy? Sydney to Perth?

And supplied as electrified double decker container trains at least a mile long and able to travel at speeds better than 300 Klms PH.

And there's a sound financial case to be made for re-engineering current rail routes to enable those speeds? Over/under passes, stock proof fencing and cambered corners i.e.

And where profitable, add a couple of tag-a-long double decker carriages; as say sleepers for passengers wanting to just get from Adelaide to Darwin/Melbourne to Brisbane i.e?

Although, I'm not sure how well rested they'd be, screaming around heavily cambered corners at better than 300 klicks?

Hasbeen, who's piloted both jets and racing cars would likely feel right at home; and even lean into the turns, or maybe constantly reaching for the ejection lever along with a few mumbled explosive expletives?

Me? I'd likely pass lots of wind with lots of lumps in it!?
Rhrosty.

Rhosty, I can tell you don't know much about railways – for a start you don't know the difference between camber and cant! Railways, having only two rails, do not use camber. The curves can be heavily canted, but there's a limit to how much cant can be used as the trains do sometimes have to stop.

You could not make a compelling case for very fast conventional freight trains at all. Compared with conventional trains, very fast trains are much more expensive to run. The track also needs to be built to a much higher standard. It is totally unsuitable for double stacked containers (both aerodynamically and in terms of wheel/rail forces. Even single decker container trains would be a big technical challenge at those speeds. If we could do it, we would find a lack of demand, as few companies would be willing to pay the cost of sending their containers that fast. What's needed for most freight is not speed but reliability and low cost.

BTW construction of the Adelaide to Darwin line didn't result in the anticipated container freight boom, but instead in a lot of bulk mineral trains. So if there were a demand for very fast trains on that line, and the track were good enough to run them, a lot of overtaking facilities would be needed.

The only thing more costly & inefficient than shareholder owned companies Aussieboy, are government owned corporations, or contractor. Nothing like giving the unions control of something to make it a catastrophe, just think our sub building efforts.

Rhrosty I'm afraid fast rail would make even greater losses than ordinary rail. In Oz, apart for commuter services they are catastrophically expensive to run, & are a dead loss to the community. We can largely thank the unions for that too.

In Queensland we built at huge expense, the tilt train system. Even then we only did half a job, with too many slow corners to slow them down, & add heaps to the fuel bill. The Brisbane Cairns trains are book out months in advance, & it is almost impossible to get an intermediate ticket for a part of the route.

They could fill twice as many trains & carriages, particularly with cheap pensioner passengers, but will never do it. The more passengers carried, the greater the losses, & that is with a half baked system. To allow the thing to travel anywhere near the speeds it could achieve would cost so much more in track development it just won't happen. The resumptions required to reduce those tight bends alone would be ruinously expensive.

Returning to using shipping is the answer, if only the unions could be controlled, to allow foreign ships to carry our bulk freight.

Rhosty

You say we shouldn’t give “foreigners an entirely unfair advantage”. My question to you is: shouldn’t an Australian who doesn’t work in the airline industry and is not a shareholder of QF or VA be entitled to choose from the widest array of airlines whenever and wherever he of she flies? Do you think Joe and Joanne Public in Darwin if given the choice to fly to Tullamarine with Etihad in a gleaming B-777-300 with a plethora of cabin staff for less than QF charges in an old rickety B-737 will choose to fly QF? And even if they do choose QF, shouldn’t they at least have the widest choice of carriers possible?

I don’t think typical passengers care about Etihad’s costs structures or how their decisions affect Alan Joyce’s bottom line.

How would the average consumer feel if she could only shop at Target? Imagine there being no Kmart, no Big W no David Jones. I don’t think when a person shops across different retailers they honestly care about the retailer’s bottom line. Or whether workers are paid for a good day's work. More often to the consumer it's his bottom line that matters.

This is proved daily at supermarkets when imported groceries outsell Australian products because to most folk: price is king. They don't have surplus cash to necessarily buy a 'feel good' local product.

You say we already have competition: “we already have that in spades “. I respectfully disagree when it comes to domestic air travel.

As to a VFT, if you are suggesting the billion dollar adventure be privately financed, then I am all for it! So long as:

(a) the taxpayer will not be on the hook for any sum the private sector doesn’t stump; and
(b) that QF and VA are forbidden from involvement in a VFT. By that I mean not seeing a repeat of the obscenity that not only saw Kingsford Smith Airport sold to MacBank, but Macbank was given the right of first refusal to build and operate the possible competitor to KSA, the new airport in western Sydney.

Pericles

You talk about banks and their cozy set up in Oz quering

Why do we put up with it?

I wonder if it’s due to our spineless politicians who don’t want to upset financial donors as well as a media that knows not to rub their advertisers the wrong way. Think the millions of $ tabloids make from retailer catalogue inserts.

And then you have the chumminess between retailers (oligopoly) and their financiers (banks).

It’s well known that both our media and supermarket retailing is more concentrated than that of even Russia.