Which coastal service would you use?

[Gazza]

Something I was thinking about...Imagine if one day Australia had it's HSR network, and it extended all the way to the Sunshine Coast.

Now, of course the network will run its intercity services to Sydney and Melbourne with nonstop (or limited stops).
But there is the potential for it to be run as high speed commuter, as is done in Japan, and on High Speed 1 in the UK.

Lets make a few of key assumptions.
-The HSR network would have less commuter stations....Eg on the Gold Coast there wouldn't be stops at places like Ormeau or Coomera, on the Sunshine Coast it wouldn't stop at any of the smaller towns.
-There would be interchange stations with the existing rail network. On the Gold Coast I imagine HSR would mirror the existing heavy rail, though on the Sunshine Coast it might go cross country a bit and not strictly mirror the north coast line and CAMCOS.
-There would be no frequency disadvantage by using the HSR...That is, it would be as least as frequent as the QR services available at the time.
-High Speed 1 offers a 56% saving in travel times, so lets assume that's the sort of savings we are talking about...Eg you could get to the Gold Coast in 30 mins or less.

My question is, if both services are on offer, would you continue to use QR.
Or would you pay extra and use HSR.

Its a 30% price premium to use High Speed 1 compared to normal tickets, so lets use that as an assumption.
Lets also assume that there is integration with GoCard, or whatever ticketing system is running down the track. Since HSR uses different platforms, the barrier layout would mean HSR travellers would pay a supplement on the way in and out/

[mufreight]

Something I was thinking about...Imagine if one day Australia had it's HSR network, and it extended all the way to the Sunshine Coast.

Now, of course the network will run its intercity services to Sydney and Melbourne with nonstop (or limited stops).
But there is the potential for it to be run as high speed commuter, as is done in Japan, and on High Speed 1 in the UK.

Lets make a few of key assumptions.
-The HSR network would have less commuter stations....Eg on the Gold Coast there wouldn't be stops at places like Ormeau or Coomera, on the Sunshine Coast it wouldn't stop at any of the smaller towns.
-There would be interchange stations with the existing rail network. On the Gold Coast I imagine HSR would mirror the existing heavy rail, though on the Sunshine Coast it might go cross country a bit and not strictly mirror the north coast line and CAMCOS.
-There would be no frequency disadvantage by using the HSR...That is, it would be as least as frequent as the QR services available at the time.
-High Speed 1 offers a 56% saving in travel times, so lets assume that's the sort of savings we are talking about...Eg you could get to the Gold Coast in 30 mins or less.

My question is, if both services are on offer, would you continue to use QR.
Or would you pay extra and use HSR.

Its a 30% price premium to use High Speed 1 compared to normal tickets, so lets use that as an assumption.
Lets also assume that there is integration with GoCard, or whatever ticketing system is running down the track. Since HSR uses different platforms, the barrier layout would mean HSR travellers would pay a supplement on the way in and out/

The thought is great, the reality is that there is not, and will not be in our lifetimes and possibly not in our childrens lifetimes a sufficent population base to support HSR of the nature that has been mooted, and it would probably be at least another generation beyond that time before there would be a sufficent population base to either justify or support both conventional rail and HSR.

[Stillwater]

You would not be able to use your go-card on HSR.     Most likely it would be operated by private enterprise and there would be no fare subsidies -- in the same way that the government does not subsidise Virgin or Jetstar.  HSR would require its own stand-alone track.  Having a high speed train at 300 km/hr bearing down on a cattle train equals a lot of mince, I suspect.  The stopping pattern of a HSR train would be Sunshine Coast, Brisbane (and not Roma Street, more like a suburban location in Brisbane), possibly Beenleigh/Logan next and then Coolangatta, next stop Coffs Harbour (if it followed the coast).

Catching HSR to and from work in Brisbane would be pie in the sky -- people would use their go-card and QR service on its own track.

The Infrastructure Partnerships Australia report into HSR had the northern terminus at Cooroy.  This would allow for a service facility to be located there, just inland from Noosa.  There would be a main SC station, possibly around Nambour, which is the geographic centre of the SC.  Then again, maybe the CAMCOS corridor could be used.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.  Let's await the findings of the feasibility report, now underway.

[Stillwater]

See Infrastructure Partnerships Australia report here: http://www.infrastructure.org.au/Content/veryfasttrains.aspx

[Gazza]

You would not be able to use your go-card on HSR.

You would hopefully. Its no different to Suica on JR, where the one card can be used for suburbans, Shinkansen,
both Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway, as well as compability with other rail networks in other Japanese cities.
(On some services they even have individual readers above seats in the "Green Cars", so you can load a reservation onto the card, board the train, touch the reader so it illuminates to confirm the booking)

Most likely it would be operated by private enterprise and there would be no fare subsidies

Right. And lack of subsidy prevents go card being used on Airtrain does it?

Of course it would be privately run, but they can still offer GoCard as a payment method.

HSR would require its own stand-alone track.  Having a high speed train at 300 km/hr bearing down on a cattle train equals a lot of mince, I suspect.

I thought this would be implied, Why are we even discussing this? Of course HSR would need its own track pairs, it wouldn't be narrow gaugue for starters, and the curves would need to be wider.

The stopping pattern of a HSR train would be Sunshine Coast, Brisbane (and not Roma Street, more like a suburban location in Brisbane), possibly Beenleigh/Logan next and then Coolangatta, next stop Coffs Harbour (if it followed the coast).

Perhaps I need to make some clarification about how high speed commuter is incorporated into a HSR network. The standard design is to have high speed turnouts, so at each station the track is quadded, with through trains whizzing down the middle and trains stopping diverting off the mainline. Acceleration and deceleration track of appropriate length is provided before and after the station.
Eg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebbsfleet_International

Two platforms serve international Eurostar services and four platforms serve Southeastern domestic services. There are also avoiding lines in each direction.

The idea is that the long distance trains would not call at any of the minor stations on the HSR network, rather the commuter stations 'piggy back' off the infrastructure, and use lower speed rolling stock configured to commuter requirments (As is done with South East Trains high speed commuter services)

Anyway, we have a whole thread about the pros and cons of HSR. The point of this is to gauge if people would use it for high speed commuter type services if it did exist.
Or as Tramtrain would say, if people were willing to pay for fresh, juicy apples rather than rotten ones.

[SurfRail]

Not really.  The GC service is fairly decent, and my time is not so valuable (nor is most commuters' I expect) that doubling my fare and taking half the time to get there represents actual value for money in terms of earnings.

Sunshine Coast is probably a different kettle of fish.

[O_128]

You would not be able to use your go-card on HSR.     Most likely it would be operated by private enterprise and there would be no fare subsidies -- in the same way that the government does not subsidise Virgin or Jetstar.  HSR would require its own stand-alone track.  Having a high speed train at 300 km/hr bearing down on a cattle train equals a lot of mince, I suspect.  The stopping pattern of a HSR train would be Sunshine Coast, Brisbane (and not Roma Street, more like a suburban location in Brisbane), possibly Beenleigh/Logan next and then Coolangatta, next stop Coffs Harbour (if it followed the coast).

Catching HSR to and from work in Brisbane would be pie in the sky -- people would use their go-card and QR service on its own track.

When a HSR goes ahead the main issue is that this is not for gold or sunshine to Brisbane trips. Do you catch a plane to work? This is the same thing.

The main stops that I can see are Somewhere on the Sunshine coast, Either Roma street or the Airport and then coolangatta airport then coffs harbour , newcastle and sydney.

The train I caught from Rome to Venice had only 2 stops Florence and Bolonga and in these sections it does use normal track before going onto its dedicated lines so for example through Brisbane you would have the Bowen Hills to Roma street section shared as there is no use having the lines built for low speed.

Ive always envisioned HSR in Australia being predominantly privately owed so the Government owns the track and Qantas, Virgin, QR etc can run there own services. I would also make the price prohibitively expensive to stop Brisbane to gold coast commuters

[Arnz]

You would not be able to use your go-card on HSR.    Most likely it would be operated by private enterprise and there would be no fare subsidies -- in the same way that the government does not subsidise Virgin or Jetstar.  HSR would require its own stand-alone track.  Having a high speed train at 300 km/hr bearing down on a cattle train equals a lot of mince, I suspect.  The stopping pattern of a HSR train would be Sunshine Coast, Brisbane (and not Roma Street, more like a suburban location in Brisbane), possibly Beenleigh/Logan next and then Coolangatta, next stop Coffs Harbour (if it followed the coast).

Catching HSR to and from work in Brisbane would be pie in the sky -- people would use their go-card and QR service on its own track.

When a HSR goes ahead the main issue is that this is not for gold or sunshine to Brisbane trips. Do you catch a plane to work? This is the same thing.

I think it's more of a "if a HSR goes ahead" rather than when, like many of the rail projects right now (Lockyer Valley, Browns Plains, Maroochydore, etc).

Of course the HSR is likely to be privately owned.  The question is if the "private operator" wants to work together with TransLink/QConnect to use their go cards (like the Airtrain), as they can easily refuse to do so, should a HSR ever happen at all.

[Gazza]

When a HSR goes ahead the main issue is that this is not for gold or sunshine to Brisbane trips. Do you catch a plane to work? This is the same thing.

So then why are there commuter services sharing the same tracks as Eurostar?

[O_128]

When a HSR goes ahead the main issue is that this is not for gold or sunshine to Brisbane trips. Do you catch a plane to work? This is the same thing.

So then why are there commuter services sharing the same tracks as Eurostar?

because the last thing we need is intercity services being slowed down by all stoppers when by 2050 or whenever this gets built most likely the GC and SC will be running those 160km trains and the infrastructure will be there. the only reason the HSR is used in england is there arent really any alternatives.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Do you catch a plane to work?

Depends on their wage