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.

Sylvia Else fast passenger trains also see,s faster freight train
We will see both, nothing stays the same forever
I once parked the company car in a city with free parking and got the train to Sydney
To avoid city parking costs more than the return train fare
Faster trains will generate more passengers

//The NSW government has announced its 25 year vision for high speed regional rail.//

With Constance as transport minister? I wouldn't hold your breath, the man is hopelessly incompetent. I could almost put up with another 4 years of Liberals, as long as they promised to do a reshuffle and ditch the useless pillock.

In 1995 I traveled from Sydney to Canberra on an X2000 Tilt Train, loaned from Sweden. It was very comfortable, but NSW never bought any. http://www.tomw.net.au/atmttrn1.html

The NSW government's vision for high speed regional rail looks realistically modest. They are talking about higher speed, with improved track on existing alignments, rather than just promises of bullet trains.

The NSW XPT is based on the British InterCity 125 "High Speed Train". The last of these are being replaced in the UK with the "Hitachi Super Express", with electric and bi-mode models. The latter might be of use for NSW, where the train could run on electric power in the Sydney region and then switch to diesel in country NSW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_802

Again I can't agree.

The money spent on roads is way over returned to government in the form of fuel taxes, excise & GST. The fact is government make a huge profit on every road journey. Subsidies wasted on any form of public transport have to come directly out of tax payers pockets.

Public transport is always most unevenly distributed. CBD workers get the bulk of the money spent on them, where country town residents see not a penny, but they still keep paying. Yet another transfer from the have nots to the have too much.

Hasbeen just maybe you are overlooking the very real benefits freight trains are
We seem not to have any passenger only rail lines
In fact fast trains and freight, seem more than likely in our near future because of those benefits
I do not fear cheap fares or none at all for pensioners, for some it helps them continuing to live in the real bush

What most people don't realise is that the price of train tickets in the cities only covers about 40% of the cost of running the trains. In the cities, the alternatives to the buses and trains would be vastly increased road infrastructure which would be even more expensive to build. However, in the countryside the roads are lightly used, most trains are nearly empty, and there is little to no justification for this expensive hardware other than as Labor vanity projects fired by collectivist ideals.

Meanwhile, in India, dedicated freight lines are being built, thus separating passenger and freight trains in some areas.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/logistics/govt-may-open-part-of-dedicate-freight-corridor-in-fy19/article24682411.ece

Indian railways are big,

"Indian Railways (IR) is India's national railway system operated by the Ministry of Railways. It manages the fourth-largest railway network in the world by size, with 121,407 kilometres (75,439 mi) of total track over a 67,368-kilometre (41,861 mi) route.[3] Forty nine percent of the routes are electrified with 25 KV AC electric traction while thirty three percent of them are double or multi-tracked.[3][4]

IR runs more than 20,000 passenger trains daily, on both long-distance and suburban routes, from 7,349 stations across India.[3] The trains have a five-digit numbering system. Mail or express trains, the most common types, run at an average speed of 50.6 kilometres per hour (31.4 mph).[5] In the freight segment, IR runs more than 9,200 trains daily. The average speed of freight trains is around 24 kilometres per hour (15 mph).[6]

As of March 2017, IR's rolling stock consisted of 277,987 freight wagons, 70,937 passenger coaches and 11,452 locomotives.[3] IR owns locomotive and coach-production facilities at several locations in India. The world's eighth-largest employer, it had 1.308 million employees as of March 2017.[3]

In the year ending March 2018, IR carried 8.26 billion passengers and transported 1.16 billion tonnes of freight.[2] In the fiscal year 2017-18, IR is projected to have revenue of ₹1.874 trillion (US$26 billion), consisting of ₹1.175 trillion (US$16 billion) in freight revenue and ₹501.25 billion (US$7.0 billion) in passenger revenue, with an operating ratio of 96.0 percent"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways

Maybe we should send another study team to India.

Shadow Minister past governments, every one of them, never set out to profit from railways.
We for reasons I will never understand, sold out to big money
Privatising far too much
We are like it or not a big country and must subsidise those who do not live in the cities
In fact just as a decentralised move loss of money on providing this service will be good for the country.
Too not every poor person is a bludger, we are not a worthwhile community if we base policy on how much money you have

Big projects like these are really great to fund the payola between politicians, bureaucrats, big construction & big unions. They all do very well, while the taxpayer picks up the bill.

City rail systems basically carry well paid bureaucrats & industry staff into their comfortable high rise offices in the city. If nothing else, these should be full cost recovery. Meanwhile the check out chick & all her mates in the suburbs, the majority of the workforce, is paying through the nose for the car they need to get to work, to subsidise those city fat cats travel.

You'll never get me to approve of such a system.

The Very Fast Train proposal has been a perennial con pulled by governments in trouble for decades.

The Sydney to Melbourne proposal has been studied, costed and shelved many times but falls into "the vision thing" category when required and it keeps getting dusted off and talked about when elections get closer.

Whatever happened to the Federal Inland Rail proposal Barnaby Joyce was talking about?

Let's see how the Light Rail fiascos turn out on the Gold Coast plus the Newcastle, Sydney and Canberra constructions underway?

Rache I think this proposed fast train is part of Barnaby Joyce's inland plan'
It is a good plan, both party,s have supported it even promised it in time we will get it
Because decentralisation makes sense

//Let's see how the Light Rail fiascos turn out on the Gold Coast plus the Newcastle, Sydney and Canberra constructions underway?//

As a resident of the lower Hunter, I can confirm that the Newcastle light rail was f^%k-up of massive proportions, making the city far less accessible than it used to be. I don't bother going in any more; too much of a pain in the arse. A bit of a shame for all the businesses I used to frequent in town, although some of them have had the good sense to relocate out of Newcastle.

Belly,

At no point did I indicate that running trains should be profitable. However, while I also support services to rural areas, it has to be acknowledged that supplying train services to every hamlet is idiotic.

Sometimes it is better just to provide decent roads.

rache, the Federal Inland Rail proposal is now being coordinated by the Australian Rail Track Corporation, with 13 projects. https://inlandrail.artc.com.au/

Theres's only one word suitable for all of this:

incompetence
NOUN

inability to do something successfully; ineptitude.
"allegations of professional incompetence"
synonyms: ineptitude · ineptness · inability · lack of ability · incapability · incapacity · lack of skill · lack of proficiency · amateurishness · inexpertness · clumsiness · ineffectiveness · inadequacy · deficiency · inefficiency · ineffectuality · ineffectualness · insufficiency · cack-handedness · ham-fistedness · uselessness · hopelessness

http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/bill-to-fix-queenslands-botched-new-trains-blows-out-to-336-million/news-story/e9c36ca982fa04831b210467fb2c820e

Shadow Minister it was someone else who used an, well anti pensioner reason for not having a fast train
Dad was a railway fettler, he moved from section to section on the Sydney to Melbourne line
We moved often
Then my life took a different turn ,and my dutys in my last job, saw me look after rail workers
International track laying sleeper replacing firm
Learned quick, and like dad followed the work, all over NSW
They broke every record this country had laying as much rail in a day as my dads time took months to
We can build fast rail, out whole country will benefit costs even losses will be worth it

Toni Lavis,

I'm also a Novocastrian who no longer travels into town unless I have to simply on the basis of there being no reasonable parking.
I used to work in Hunter Street a few years ago and could catch the train to Civic station but that's now long gone.

Once all those high-rise buildings under construction are filled and most likely with car-owning tenants, what then? Even the "round-house" Council building is being converted to apartments.

I was in Canberra a few weeks ago and it's the same story - they build a light rail line and that in turns attracts more high-rise buildings.

Studies have shown that if Public Transport was far cheaper or even free the financial and social benefits would outweigh the costs. Less stress, less traffic, cleaner cities and no more expensive roads/tollways. Unfortunately nobody wants to be the Minister for "Losing Money" and the transport systems would also need to be improved.

rache then you will understand my drive from Coolongolook to a Broadmeadow car park then train to and from Sydney is a standard thing these days for many
Infrastructure, once owned by us is well was, about making our country livable, not meant for profit then we sold most of it

Belly,

Just as the Liberals, under Greiner, sold the Right-of-way for the line to LaPerouse.

To buy it back would cost billions.

One of the problems is that Passenger Rail in NSW makes more money by running buses than trains.

There have been attempts by community-based groups to run trains on such lines as the Great Northern Railway beyond Armidale, but these have come to nothing in the face of Government and Railways opposition.

Ise Mise yes true but a fast train is a different thing, in the current climate, it may not come
But even more likely if it comes it will be government owned because we only keep what does not make a profit

Just to clarify, the NSW Government were floating two high speed rail options. In the short to medium term upgrade existing routes to 200 km/h, and in the long term new routes at 250 km/h or more. https://www.nsw.gov.au/improving-nsw/projects-and-initiatives/a-fast-rail-future-for-nsw/

Tomw yes aware of that, and once done every line will want it, just may be the answer to traffic congestion

I'd forgotten about Greiner and the way he sold off the commuter car parking near railway stations and then a later Liberal government hired him as a private consultant to find a solution to the mess he'd created for rail travellers in the first place. I don't think he found one but made a tidy sum for his efforts.

Politics is certainly "the gift that keeps on giving" if you have the right connections.

rache you know I am a bad person, an active member of the ALP, that makes me some thing on the boot of a dairy farmer to some here
BUT we yes my ALP sold the NSW lotteries, including the one used to raise money for the Opera house
WE GAVE the buyers the unclaimed prize money as part of the deal *check it out*
We oh yes we, sold out NSW power, the incoming Government, winning on a wave of disgust at the Obeid gang of filth, sold the rest
See we, voters on both sides, let them do it, time and again we let our biases blind us to what *our side is doing*

Fast Trains cost much more because they need straighter tracks because of Newton's Third Law. They also require more maintenance. Elon Musk has some interesting ideas and more importantly interesting inventions on the technology surrounding Fast Trains- some of these ideas have been around for many decades. But implementation of pervasive new technology is difficult. I wish Elon Musk the very best.

For many years I believed that trains were viable for intercity travel- it was hard to admit differently. There is a potential for freight to be cheaper than trucks because of the labour component- but in reality the cost/ value proposition of tracks and trains is much more than the cost of roads and trucks- maybe someone needs to do a study of the reasons for this. I suspect that the competitive nature of the trucking industry is part of the reason.