New Railway Lines

[#Metro]

Aside from that, I think there should be an investigation as to whether it is beneficial having the Gold Coast line take over the SE busway and run up to Brisbane along the motorway, or use the existing Beenleigh line alignment. I fear without a rail line to the GC which isn't competitive with the car even in the off-peak, we are going to see an M1 in 20-30 years time which more resembles Canada's Highway 401 (the one which passes through Toronto with about 8 lanes each way at its peak).

I don't think there should be QR rail on the busway. It is not designed for heavy rail (though metro could work).

However, placing the lines up the SE Freeway could work. You would need to take the median lanes. As there would be no stations, the space isn't too much of a problem.

Question though is what happens when the train approaches the Clem 7 entry portal...

[SurfRail]

^ Something I found interesting was just how many different rail routes there were between Edinburgh and Glasgow and how much the Scottish government is flinging at them.  (Although Scotrail doesn't seem to move terribly many more people than QR does - around 80m pa I think.)

In the longer run I think we could conceivably end up with the legacy route (via connection at Beenleigh or a parkway station at say Yatala), a semi fast M1 alignment which has local benefits for Brisbane's south as well, and in the much longer run an east coast HSR running nonstop between the Brisbane and Gold Coast stops.

I'm deeply skeptical of expanding line capacity on the existing system on the southside until they can demonstrate it wouldn't be better to just build a new line from scratch.

[SurfRail]

Aside from that, I think there should be an investigation as to whether it is beneficial having the Gold Coast line take over the SE busway and run up to Brisbane along the motorway, or use the existing Beenleigh line alignment. I fear without a rail line to the GC which isn't competitive with the car even in the off-peak, we are going to see an M1 in 20-30 years time which more resembles Canada's Highway 401 (the one which passes through Toronto with about 8 lanes each way at its peak).

I don't think there should be QR rail on the busway. It is not designed for heavy rail (though metro could work).

However, placing the lines up the SE Freeway could work. You would need to take the median lanes. As there would be no stations, the space isn't too much of a problem.

Question though is what happens when the train approaches the Clem 7 entry portal...

The busways alignment is in fact better than a lot of the rail network.

Don't have to use it as is.  In particular, I'd use no part of it inbound of the back of the Greenslopes Hospital.

I might sketch something up.

[HappyTrainGuy]

- As a note to this one, the Trouts Rd line should be built at the same time as the ring road/motorway from Toowong to Carseldine (necessary long term to allow all trucks and non-Brisbane bound vehicles to bypass the Brisbane metro area a la the Gateway)

It's not a wide corridor. Its one or the other. Not both.

[SurfRail]

Legacy Way already fills the motorway gap.