The NSW government has announced its 25 year vision for high speed regional rail. The cynic in me says that we've seen this kind of thing before. From a political standpoint, these things have the advantage that the period of the next parliament can be taken up with relatively cheap studies, which have little budgetary impact.

However, in the background, there is something called the Regional Rail project, which is intended to replace the existing regional trains, because they are old and unreliable. I have tried to get information about it, but despite contracts supposedly being let early next year, I can get nothing but platitudes about focus groups, and the like.

So, I took the Dubbo line as an example, and created a computer model that takes into account the curves on the existing track. A modern diesel tilt train could cut two hours off the current journey time from Central Station of six and half hours, provided the existing track is maintained for 160km/h running over those sections where the train can run that fast (about 170km of it). Some more savings could be made by providing additional infrastructure to bypass the worst areas of winding track. This would also reduce the wear on the wheels, which has been an issue for the XPT.

The trouble is, a tilt train would cost more, and so would maintaining the track to a higher standard. At the moment, the people of Dubbo, Bathurst and Orange do themselves a disservice by voting so strongly for the National Party. The government knows they'll get those seats anyway, and the opposition knows they cannot possible win them. So why would any government spend the money?

Dear Sylvia,

Welcome to the forum.

What you say makes sense - but I, understand your
frustration. The only way to achieve results is
to send a clear message to the politicians that
your needs are not being met and unless they
listen - they will lose your vote. Hit them where
it hurts - in their jobs.

In the 1980s the Liberal government under Jeff
Kennett removed vital regional rail services and
ripped out train tracks to certain rural areas
with a potential for growth and connection to the
city of Melbourne.

In "their wisdom" the land was not wasted and
converted to cycle tracks enabling commuters to
maintain their access to the big city.
Can't fault that. (sarcasm).

Welcome Sylvia, under stand, we need modern trains but another issue is the hundreds of jobs lost in no longer making them here
Never liked long distance travel on trains once I grew up but loved the old steam trains EC Coma mail
National may be in trouble in the NSW election, a change in the seats they hold may shake them awake

Interesting Foxy. It was Wane Goss, Labour government that removed passenger rail services from many country towns in Queensland. The trains still run, but without passenger cars. I guess that avoids having to run to a timetable.

Sylvia Else, how many people actually catch that Dubbo train these days. As a boy I did a few train trips. One 4 days from Townsville to Sydney. Many stations had restaurants that opened to feed hordes of passengers. Those days are long gone.

At that time the Queensland northern line to Cairns had between 5 & 9 passenger services stopping at Howard, near Maryborough, each day. Today it is only one service, & it only stops if a passenger is booked to arrive or board. They used to run a little train from the mainline station into Maryborough. Today it is cheaper to use a taxi.

You have difficulty booking on that one train, as it is mostly booked out with pensioners taking their free rail trip to the north. The service makes huge losses.

Passenger trains, other than perhaps the Ghan, lose so much money that building a line capable of fast train transit would be a total loss of money, & invite more loss running a money loosing service, even if run full.

Freight, the real business of rail, doesn't care if the train is fast or slow. For perishable goods, the time wasted, & the cost of double handling by overpaid labour makes trucks a much more effective means of transport.

With any luck it will take as long to start building any fast rail system, as it took to start building a second Sydney airport, saving us a lot of money in that time.

Sylvia Else is not a new member here she had an approx 7 year break from here.

So welcome back Sylvia.

Hasbeen, one problem with the current service is that it takes so long - it's considerably quicker to go by car. A two hour reduction in journey time would change that, so that the fastest way from Dubbo to Sydney, other than flying, which costs an arm and a leg, would be to go by train.

The service could also be made more user friendly, by leaving Sydney in the morning at 9:13am, instead of 7:13am, and arriving back at at 6:42pm instead of 8:42pm.

Experience overseas is that the introduction of tilt trains onto a route increases the number of users.

As for the existing service being loss-making, public transport usually is. The rationale for subsidising it is that doing so keeps people off the roads, on which large somes of money would otherwise have to be spent.