There’s a new RMTransit (@RM_Transit) video up about high-speed rail from Melbourne to Sydney.
It’s definitely worth checking out. Reece makes the case that more overnight sleeper services and electrification are an important first step: https://youtu.be/IMUcV_nxsWY?si=8reQjPjsrwVTcecx
My two cents on the topic is that HSR from Melbourne to Sydney should implemented as a series of incremental upgrades, rather than a single megaproject.
Between the 1970s and 2010s, the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney was incrementally upgraded to a freeway-standard continuous dual carriageway road: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/operations/roads-and-waterways/environment-and-heritage/heritage/hume-highway-duplication/history
It wasn’t done as single megaproject. Instead, it was done in small segments. A bypass around a town. A section of road between two town upgraded to dual carriageway. Eventually, over 40 years, the whole road was upgraded.
We should be doing the same thing with the train line from Melbourne to Sydney.
Not as a multi-billion-dollar megaproject, but as a series of discrete projects to upgrade sections of track to electrified HSR standard: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/24/start-building-now-to-fulfil-sydney-melbourne-high-speed-rail-ambition-labor-urged
That means faster train journeys from Melbourne to Sydney today, with full HSR rolled out incrementally over the longer term.
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@RM_Transit @jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars For sure, but the only way I see political will for decent regional and high speed railway appearing in Australia is if the major political parties get their butts kicked in the next few elections. Even then, any politician that pushes it (who I’d vote for BTW), would be mocked by the main stream media who are totally car focused.
As much as I’d love to see it happen, I just can’t see the Australian establishment supporting it.
@RM_Transit @paulwallbank @jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Yes but all the relevant infrastructure is owned by the ARTC, which is a freight railway focused organization still drowning in the Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail project that was designed, yes really, on Google Maps (to get it approved before it could be realized as a boondoggle).
Also owned by the federal government who don’t do passenger rail funding (essentially) and not the individual states that provide public transport.
@RM_Transit @paulwallbank @jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars I agree it can, but it’s fickle, unpredictable and unreliable. True growth comes from culture change. The downside is culture change takes time (a wise person I once worked with taught me that any worthwhile culture change will take 7 years). However, it does happen, and it has happened in my lifetime - even in community attitudes to public transport.