It's 20 minutes to 5. My phone number is 1300 222 612, or you can send a text to 0467 922 612. We're going to talk about rail infrastructure, particularly regional rail, in a moment with Robert Dow from Rail Back on Track. The reason is that in a conversation with the ABC's finance correspondent and commentator Alan Kohler, the issue of rail, or fast rail, came up. Not very fast trains, not to be confused with that. You'll hear why in a moment. But fast rail. I was speaking with Alan Kohler because he's done the latest quarterly essay looking at Australia's housing crisis, and he came up with some ideas about what we need to do about it. And this discussion came out of that. 

This is the voice of Alan Kohler: "They've been talking for 40 years about fast trains in Australia, and it's always been about a fast train from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane. But that's not what we need. We do not need a train to replace the planes up the east coast because planes are fine. They're cheap enough, they're efficient enough. We don't need trains to replace them. What we need is fast trains to go from Brisbane to Toowoomba, and you need to be able to get from Toowoomba to Brisbane in less than an hour. That's what I think. Or, you know, the Olympics in 2032. Queensland got the Olympics on the understanding that there would be a fast train network between Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Brisbane. And then it quietly disappeared after we got the Olympics. They threw it away. In other words, Alan, they scrapped it. I don't know why, but they scrapped it. John Coates, the head of the Australian Olympic Committee, said we won't get it unless that was in place. It was said it was in place. The Olympics was announced, and then it was quietly dropped. I think for financial reasons. I reckon you'd be right there, Steve. Definitely financial reasons. Yeah, it's all too expensive. You know, they won't spend the money on it. And it's because they've been cutting taxes too much."

Robert Dow: "I think Alan's spot-on. Fast rail is looking at rail services up to about 200 kilometres per hour, 160 to 200 kilometres per hour. Very fast trains, as you mentioned. High-speed rail, as it's probably better known as, is looking at speeds greater than 250, running at 250, 300, 350 kilometres per hour, even faster. Now, that's very expensive, and I think with the Australian circumstances, we're never going to see true high-speed rail in Australia. But we certainly need to have fast regional rail, and it needs to be in place. Toowoomba is an ideal candidate, obviously, for fast rail. We had some hope with inland rail that there might be room in the corridor to allow a fast rail connection to Toowoomba, but sadly, it looks like the Queensland side of inland rail is in limbo at the moment. So the hope for fast rail in that corridor is no longer extant, if you like. It was no longer in place. So we need to think about what can we do for fast rail in Queensland. The two prime candidates, obviously, are the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast. Interestingly enough, on the Gold Coast, we do have elements of fast rail almost at the moment."

Steve: "What are they?"

Robert Dow: "South of Beenleigh, trains are capable of running at 140. Now, that can be approved slightly to lift them up a little bit quicker. Similarly, on the new section of line, believe it or not, between Caboolture and Beerburrum, is capable of 160 kilometres per hour running. But that's about it. We need to sort of improve our alignments and get trains set to be capable of sustained 160 to 200 kilometres per hour running. And that would then open up these regional areas to good, safe, rapid rail transport, get them off the roads. We can't keep adding more lanes to the Bruce Highway. We can't keep adding more lanes on the M1. It becomes the point where we reach an end point. The solution is fast rail."

Steve: "Robert Dow from Rail Back on Track is my guest. Let me just go back a bit. How fast would the train need to be between Brisbane and Toowoomba, Robert Dow?"

Robert Dow: "Running at a speed of 160 to 200 kilometres per hour. Now, that's affordable to build. Once you get into the high-speed trains running at 300 kilometres per hour or higher, the demands on the track make it a lot more expensive to construct."

Steve: "Right, I get it. Yeah, and one of the interesting things that listeners may not be aware of is that the Australian rail speed record is actually held by a Queensland Rail electric tilt train."

Robert Dow: "I did not know that. On our narrow gauge, 1067 millimetres or 3 foot 6 gauge railway, queensland Railways hold the Australian rail speed record, and it's at 220 kilometres per hour, believe it or not."

Steve: "On the tilt train?"

Robert Dow: "Yes, we're quite capable of running sustained services at fast rail speeds if we have the track to match it, Steve. That's the key thing."

Steve: "Why can't we run the tilt train to Toowoomba? The tilt train at the moment goes to what, Rockhampton and then to Cairns. Why can't we run it to Toowoomba?"

Robert Dow: "Well, we don't have the electric wires up past Rosewood, for a start. And we don't have a track that would handle those speeds. It's a very slow, tortuous climb up to Toowoomba, as listeners would know."

Steve: "Yep."

Robert Dow: "There would need to be a new track alignment, and there would need to be tunnels through Liverpool Range and a tunnel to get coming up into Toowoomba. But that's all achievable if we want to do it. It's a much more realistic proposition than investing millions of dollars in this high-speed rail authority, which I think is never going to produce anything."

Steve: "So let me jump in there. Anthony Albanese, when he became Prime Minister, set up the high-speed rail authority. It's getting... It would be... I mean, I'd love it. I'd love it if we were Japan, you know, riding the Shinkansen. That would be fantastic. But I don't know anyone who says realistically it's a proposition. So why do we have the high-speed rail authority? Should they be reduced to a fast rail authority and to help the states get what you've described between Toowoomba and Brisbane?"

Robert Dow: "I think they should. I think we should forget about high-speed rail and start building up our regional rail so that they have a reliable, rapid rail service. Now, Victoria's done a lot of work in their regional rail: Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong. At times, their trains do sit on 160 kilometres per hour, their velocity train sets. New South Wales has some work proceeding towards fast rail. Queensland, we don't do too much, unfortunately. Electric tilt doesn't run at those speeds anymore because the track doesn't allow it. We need to have improved track alignments, better operational planning in terms of train sets and whatnot. At the moment, the electric tilt trains are under maintenance, which has resulted in a reduced service on the main North Coast line. We don't have enough trains. We don't have enough trains on the city train network. We don't have enough trains in long-distance passenger rail. What's been going on? Everyone lives in a great hope of this high-speed rail dream, which is never going to happen. Let's get practical. Let's do what we can do. We can implement fast rail for all of regional Queensland in the same way that they're doing it for Victoria and parts of New South Wales."

Steve: "Let me ask you, Robert Dow, what's going on? I didn't realise that the tilt trains were out of service and we didn't have enough QR trains on the city train network at the moment because the State Government keeps saying, you know, we're building new trains at Maryborough. Can you explain?"

Robert Dow: "Well, they're building, and they've made a commitment to build 65 new trains under the Queensland train manufacturing program. The first one of those won't come along until 2028. I'm sure listeners have noticed that our beloved EMUs are still running around on our SEQ rail network here in South East Queensland. That's the older model train you're talking about?"

Steve: "Yeah, they were meant to be retired in 2018, Steve. That's a sign, isn't it? So we're already 10 years behind?"

Robert Dow: "Oh, well, we're a long way behind. And they keep saying that they're going to do something about long-distance passenger rail. They have a business case in study one after another, but nothing ever seems to translate into actual train carriages or train sets."

Steve: "Let me jump in. I mentioned that John Coates, the head of the Olympic Committee, told me prior to Queensland being awarded the 2032 Olympics. He actually told me that we wouldn't get it unless we had not very fast rail, but just fast rail between Gold Coast Brisbane, Brisbane Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba Brisbane. And then after it was announced we've won the Olympics, it was quietly dropped. No one even utters the word anymore. Do you happen to know what happened?"

RD: "I remember looking at a press conference one day where someone in the background said something about fast rail, and I believe that the Premier, I think, was heard to comment, "No, we're not doing fast rail, we're not doing fast rail." Yes, yeah. I think it was never really their intention to work fast rail into the Olympic planning. It was there as a sort of a lead item, I suppose, or bait. I think bait's probably a better word. Bait to get the regional mayors on board, you know, the southeast Queensland mayors on board is what I'm hearing. Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably the way it went, right.

RD (?) I still think there's time to do something decent for the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, and Toowoomba, right. It's going to be more difficult Toowoomba without inland rail, Steve, to be honest, right. And inland rail, the Queensland side of it doesn't look like proceeding for many a year if ever, right. Yes. And I put it in the same category as high-speed rail down the eastern Australian coast. It's not going to happen."

SA: All right, finally we saw the cutbacks or the balancing of the books and the reigning and the spending the Federal Government did, was it last week or the week before, and it looks like it's going to slow down the Sunshine Coast rail line upgrade. What can you tell me anything, what did you see in all of that?

RD: Yeah, I think that the best hope we have for the new branch line to Maroochydore is getting halfway, possibly to Birtinya, maybe even cut back further to Caloundra, right. But before that can be built, Steve, guess what, the main north coastline has to be upgraded north of Beerburrum through to Beerwah. They were originally going to go to Landsborough, they've cut it back to Beerwah because this is where the new branch line to Maroochydore will branch from Beerwah. Unless we upgrade the single line north of Beerburrum to Beerwah, there's no chance for the branch line out to Maroochydore. We've got to do that first and that was promised to be done in 2012, I think it was, and Maroochydore was actually promised to be done in 2015, a few years ago, and here we are, we're still going around in circles with vague promises and business cases and great hopes and aspirations that these lines will eventually be built.

SA: So Mark Bailey is Queensland's Transport Minister, what would you say to him if he was here with you?

RD: We have to expedite immediately the upgrade of the Sunshine Coastline between Beerburrum and Beerwah and preferably get it back to Landsborough where it was always going to be, the duplication through from Beerwah to Landsborough, and then you can think about doing the branch line into Maroochydore. Okay, it may be necessary to stage that line but it certainly has to get to Caloundra, preferably to Birtinya in the first stage. Remember the Springfield line, that was staged Steve, it was done the Richlands and then the Richlands out to Springfield Central. So there's nothing wrong with staging it, money's a bit tight, but before they can do that they need to upgrade the Sunshine Coastline, the main line itself, north of Beerburrum. We're still waiting for that to start Steve, it's been promised for years and years and years and we're still waiting.

SA: Has anyone promised a fast train from Toowoomba to Brisbane, coming back to my original question?

RD: Well, not direct promises but sitting on top of the Toowoomba Range in the road, the Toowoomba City Council has got a fast rail sign, bring it to Toowoomba. Well, I guess they're still waiting.

RD: They're still waiting and there's much hope in Toowoomba. Toowoomba is one of our major inland cities, it needs a decent rail service Steve.

SA: Yes it does. I'll leave it there. Robert Dow, thanks very much for your time. Good afternoon Steve, thank you. Robert Dow from Rail, back on track. Prior to that Alan Kohler, ABC Finance correspondent, who's written the latest quarterly essay looking at the problems of housing affordability in Australia and he said one of the big ones is housing affordability. Alan Kohler says we don't need a very fast train from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, what we need is fast train in the major regional areas like Toowoomba, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane.