High Speed and Fast Rail

[timh]

Most likely scenario is piggyback off existing networks. Minus tunnels and minus dedicated tracks initially.

But hang on, if there is no dedicated tracks and/or tunnels for at least some significant distance, then its not even MSR

Part of the reason regional trains are slow in NSW in particular is a lack of dedicated route for them to actually get into the city. (And the geographic constraints to literally every destination eg Newcastle, Wollongong, Bathurst/Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands just make it worse)

In VIC the situation isn't as bad because they built Regional Rail Link so Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong trains get a clear run from Sunshine to the SXS.
(Traralgon RFR services arent that fast because they share trackage all the way from Dandenong to the city)

In Qld, well we all know the issues on the Beenleigh line dont we.

Nobody is arguing it wont cost significant dollars to fix this.

Dedicated trackage out of the cities would definitely be your first big thing to tackle. There are large portions of the interstate lines which are already incredibly dead straight and run over flat farmland (especially in Vic). NSW has lots of winding bits that would take a lot to iron out but just getting from say Central to Berowra running at 140kph the whole way would save a huge chunk on your journey.

The same would be said for a straight 140kph run from Roma Street to say Beenleigh. Curvature, level crossings, and being held up by all stoppers extremely limits you.

I believe HTG has spoken before about how if the tilts had a completely clear track from Roma Street to Cabo you could shave a huge chunk off the travel time. I may be wrong though that may be dependent on other factors.

It's much smarter to attack those bits closest to the cities first, as at least then you're providing a benefit to the local networks as well. Take the example of California HSR where the first section they're building is in the middle of nowhere. If the project falls through, or only gets that stage 1 finished, it's effectively stranded infrastructure. Where let's say you build a dedicated ROW from Bris-GC first, if at the worst, nothing else comes of the project, you at least have 1) a regional Fast rail link from bris-GC and 2) one of the hardest sections of your HSR line out of the way if someone wanted to come along and tackle the rest of it later.

Yes there are significant portions of NSW network that would require significant tunneling/earthworks between Syd-Newcastle to achieve high speeds (even "Fast rail" standards quite frankly). I don't think that precludes that the highest priority for either speed network should be your dedicated ROW into the city

Sent from my SM-G780F using Tapatalk

[JimmyP]

Metro, different voltages etc really aren't a problem.
1) If built properly, HSR will have its own dedicated tracks (there's no other way to get the required speed/timings);
2) Even if HSR does share trackage in some parts with current lines, multi-voltage HSR locomotives are not new.
Example: Thalys PBA and PBKA trainsets:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF_TGV_Thalys_PBKA

[#Metro]

Line then follows approximately the Salisbury-Beaudesert line alignment, with some major curve straightening. It's likely the line would pass over the top of the existing line on a big viaduct (see California HSR).

Just south of Beaudesert there's a big wye. The line branches east in a big tunnel under Mount Tamborine, and comes into an underground station at Surfers Paradise (big dollary doos there). Sydney line continues south along farmland and tunnels under the border ranges.

I don't think many members here are a fan of this alignment.

* It seems BNE-OOL MSR running interlined with the Gold Coast Line trains would be better at least initially, and then possibly track amplification of the GC line.

* A better approach into Brisbane would be once an MSR train exits the GC, to continue either (a) up a straightened and amplified BNL line with dual gauge added if need be or (b) run the R1 alignment in the M1 motorway corridor.

* You could use line-specific tilt train technology to increase the average MSR speed as well. This is tried and known technology in Queensland.

* Freed from the 3-hour HSR magic window (to compete with aviation), MSR on the GC line would get a whole lot of traffic off the M1 motorway during am and pm peak hours.

* You can clearly stage it in incremental upgrades - control of the costs and risks

* If we do GC as MSR we already have the tunnel as well. Not sure if CRR can take DG but perhaps it doesn't need to if inter-capital services divert over Merivale in the very very distant future.

* It gets more complicated if the line needs to extend into NSW - should that be standard gauge, dual gauge or narrow gauge. Would the GC line have to be converted to standard gague or be dual gauged the entire length?

[aldonius]

Personally, I place very little probability on HSR crossing the Qld-NSW border. It's a much, much harder route than Sydney to Melbourne.

One quick look at terrain view on Google Maps shows why: there's pretty much only one 100km+ stretch of flat land east of the Divide: Grafton to Kyogle. And if you want to go through the Gold Coast... you can't really use it.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railjournal/status/1489547460426928131

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/railbotforum/status/1489700184716025857

[HappyTrainGuy]

Is HSR really the right profile for short interurban services, though? Say RST-OOL? I'd suggest not. There's not much to be gained by having a train that can do 350 km/h top speed running non-stop between those two points. I see far more benefit in a train with a slower top speed, but better acceleration profile, that can stop at say 5 or 6 stations along the way:

OOL
Robina
Helensvale
Loganholme
Springwood
Upper Mt Gravatt
Buranda or Woolloongabba
Roma St

The existing infrastructure (rail or busways/"Metro", with upgrades where required) can move pax between intermediate stations.

Depends on your definition of interurban. The Tilt Trains perform intercity and interurban roles depending on where you live. In HSR sense interurban roles shift those boundaries allowing for even greater distances and better town planning instead of cramming everything from Caboolture to the NSW/QLD border where theres a small bit of land available.

Most likely scenario is piggyback off existing networks. Minus tunnels and minus dedicated tracks initially.

But hang on, if there is no dedicated tracks and/or tunnels for at least some significant distance, then its not even MSR

Part of the reason regional trains are slow in NSW in particular is a lack of dedicated route for them to actually get into the city. (And the geographic constraints to literally every destination eg Newcastle, Wollongong, Bathurst/Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands just make it worse)

In VIC the situation isn't as bad because they built Regional Rail Link so Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong trains get a clear run from Sunshine to the SXS.
(Traralgon RFR services arent that fast because they share trackage all the way from Dandenong to the city)

In Qld, well we all know the issues on the Beenleigh line dont we.

Nobody is arguing it wont cost significant dollars to fix this.

Dedicated trackage out of the cities would definitely be your first big thing to tackle. There are large portions of the interstate lines which are already incredibly dead straight and run over flat farmland (especially in Vic). NSW has lots of winding bits that would take a lot to iron out but just getting from say Central to Berowra running at 140kph the whole way would save a huge chunk on your journey.

The same would be said for a straight 140kph run from Roma Street to say Beenleigh. Curvature, level crossings, and being held up by all stoppers extremely limits you.

I believe HTG has spoken before about how if the tilts had a completely clear track from Roma Street to Cabo you could shave a huge chunk off the travel time. I may be wrong though that may be dependent on other factors.

It's much smarter to attack those bits closest to the cities first, as at least then you're providing a benefit to the local networks as well. Take the example of California HSR where the first section they're building is in the middle of nowhere. If the project falls through, or only gets that stage 1 finished, it's effectively stranded infrastructure. Where let's say you build a dedicated ROW from Bris-GC first, if at the worst, nothing else comes of the project, you at least have 1) a regional Fast rail link from bris-GC and 2) one of the hardest sections of your HSR line out of the way if someone wanted to come along and tackle the rest of it later.

Yes there are significant portions of NSW network that would require significant tunneling/earthworks between Syd-Newcastle to achieve high speeds (even "Fast rail" standards quite frankly). I don't think that precludes that the highest priority for either speed network should be your dedicated ROW into the city

Sent from my SM-G780F using Tapatalk

Correct the TiltTrains through Brisbane are extremely slow (the Westlander is actually the fastest as it fits into a gap to get out of town) due to existing tracks/rollingstock stopping patterns, the cross over that CityTrain uses at Caboolture (long distance trains all use P1) but more so the single track north of Beerburrum. No point going as fast as you can only to sit at Beerburrum for 15 minutes while you wait for the cross of the Brisbane bound CityTrain because you caught up to the ass of the Nambour service. It's schedule to leave Brisbane is actually based on the single track north of Beerburrum. If you stand at Toombul in the afternoon you'll see a CityTrain heading north at 100kph. Not long after you'll see the TiltTrain doing 50kph on yellows because it caught the back of the Redcliffe express. It gets even worse on the single track as all stopping CityTrains go through one curve in both directions at 60kph while the DTT/ETT have a permitted speed of 75kph in both directions so any trains that they have to cross also have the travel trains coming at them even faster than a normal service. So they catch trains before Northgate, Caboolture and Nambour. With infrastructure improvements to curves Gympie North-Cooroy and the original Caboolture-Nambour realignment I think it was about 75 minutes could be taken out of the Gympie-Roma Street section for the TravelTrains with even more time on Caboolture-Petrie triple works for peak services. There were talks about getting more Tilts to operate services/more frequently but more money needed to be spent on realignment works on the NCL. Instead we got 1 new tilt train to replace another long distance TravelTrain, made the other one longer and none of the realignment works.


A speed sign at one of the many curves that could be realigned for 100/120kph running.

[#Metro]

I think Sunshine Coast line trains could be MSR and use tilt train rollingstock until the powers that be get the plans and funding to both (a) extend the line to Maroochydore and (b) steam-iron out all the curves / put in a new straighter alignment.

For a Gold Coast MSR, tilt train rollingstock would be useful to consider if we are retaining the Beenleigh line alignment for a little longer and considering extending into Northern NSW.

[HappyTrainGuy]

God knows how many times I've said this. Tilting trains for suburban rollingstock is redundant due to mtce operating costs and overall line capacity. Only benefit is slower speed sections with less traffic. This is one of the reasons why ICE had their higher speed runnings north of Northgate removed due to higher traffic numbers and trains catching freights/CityTrain rollingstock.

Tilting trains will never be in mass revenue service on the suburban network between Rosewood-Sunshine Coast-Gold Coast.

[#Metro]

Tilting trains for suburban rollingstock is redundant due to mtce operating costs and overall line capacity. Only benefit is slower speed sections with less traffic.

For us non-experts, could you elaborate mtce and operating costs?

I get your point about mixing trains with different speed profiles on the same track reduces line capacity, though that would be true of any faster train class, not just tilt trains.

[HappyTrainGuy]

The tilting mechanisms on each train need more work which increases their build and operating costs compared to your standard train.

Line capacity can be measured in a few different ways. Total output and total operating output. Core networks usually operating on total output as all the trains usually share the same speeds and stopping patterns. That changes when you get to outer parts of the network where you have express and all stoppers. You might get 20tph between Park Road-Beenleigh running the same limited speed and running pattern. That goes tits up when you then introduce limited express and full express as it eats into your available capacity. Having tilting rollingstock operating even further just destroys any potential headway that might be available. You either then have to upgrade the track ie quading/having bypasses set up which increases costs from a install and mtce standpoint. And we know what you are like with costs. This is what we saw during the com games where the capacity wasn't there for express service frequency increases. As a result the all stopping Beenleigh services were sh%t canned. The Ferny Grove line removed their express services due to the issues they were having where express trains running on the diamond boards were catching all stoppers mid trip ie express trains stuck behind an all stopper at Alderley (still a few stations to get to Mitchelton). Same with the Strathpine/Zillmere express trains. They were sometimes at walking pace between Sunshine-Northgate or if they missed their slot they followed express right behind the all stopper all the way to Bowen Hills. Was always an amusing sight having both trains depart Northgate at the same time and having the all stopper on the subs beat the non stopping service to Bowen Hills.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Tilting trains for suburban rollingstock is redundant due to mtce operating costs and overall line capacity. Only benefit is slower speed sections with less traffic.

I get your point about mixing trains with different speed profiles on the same track reduces line capacity, though that would be true of any faster train class, not just tilt trains.

Also expanding on this. The majority of the network all rollingstock can handle the track speed. The only sections that can't handle the posted speed is Caboolture to Beerburrum and Beenleigh-Varsity Lakes where speeds exceed the 100kph limitations of the EMU and SMU200/220 not being able to match the track speed limit/time tabling. Everywhere else on the network 100kph is the maximum track speed. If the Gold Coast services are tilting rollingstock you are further decreasing the headway gap if you choose to increase the track speeds Park Road-Beenleigh. If track speeds aren't increased why have the technology fitted to rollingstock. That becomes redundant anyway as more infill stations are added on the network. Also with regards to the track speeds express trains, out of service and all stopping trains use the same track speed regardless of their class. As far as I can remember Shorncliffe, Ipswich and Ferny Grove lines are the only lines that still have the diamond 'E' speed boards where out of service/express services run faster than all stopping trains (IIRC Between Deagon and Nudgee its 60-70kph boards for all stoppers while express trains get a 90kph board after passing Boondall North).

[#Metro]

Also expanding on this. The majority of the network all rollingstock can handle the track speed. The only sections that can't handle the posted speed is Caboolture to Beerburrum and Beenleigh-Varsity Lakes where speeds exceed the 100kph limitations of the EMU and SMU200/220 not being able to match the track speed limit/time tabling.

I think what you are saying in effect is that in core sections of the network, the speed is essentially set by the (s)lowest common denominator/station spacing. Which is fine.

Everywhere else on the network 100kph is the maximum track speed.

And this is the problem (or part of it). We have an 1800s network. 100 km an hour was fast in the times of horse and carts, and early cars. Cars now do 100 km/hr, rail does 50 km/hr or worse average speed in (sub)urban areas which is why rail is uncompetitive.

It would be great if we could find ways to increase average journey speed in addition to top speed. Sure, there will be urban areas where this will not be possible due to station spacing, but is compensated by higher frequency which reduces waiting time. For suburban areas, and regional or inter-regional areas, we need something faster. A modern regional rail network should be aiming for a 150-200 km/hr average speed. That is the speed that would be required to at least match car.

You either then have to upgrade the track ie quading/having bypasses set up which increases costs from a install and mtce standpoint. And we know what you are like with costs.

Accepted that Priority A infrastructure works are going to be expensive. Just 1km of new LSR (Low Speed Rail) rail is in the $100 - 200 million ballpark (yes, I think I just created a term - LSR. We could even have VLSR, Very Low Speed Rail which is rail below 50 km/hr).

Businesses often spend money and take on debt because the investment has a net positive return on making operations more efficient and effective. It's about value for money, the value proposition, business strategy and risk profile. An improved rail network would attract mode share from cars, which would raise the farebox and divert road expansion costs (as railway capacity maxes out at a higher pphd than road lanes do).

What we have in Brisbane is the commuter rail model - trains at peak hour and then barely anything else after that. Sydney has a metro now, Perth has 15 min trains everywhere, and Melbourne is moving to trains every 10 minutes. Their cities are now much more livable and easier to get around and that is a relative advantage to live, work, or set up a business there compared to us.

Note:
Personally, I would suggest the following speed bands and suggest that the speed band be specified in the first mention/use of the term when writing. e.g. HSR (250 km/hr - 350 km/hr) ...

TERM......SPEED
VLSR - Very Low Speed Rail - 50 km/hr and under
LSR - Low Speed Rail - 50 km/hr and up to 150 km/hr
MSR - Medium Speed Rail - 150 km/hr up to 250 km/hr
HSR - High Speed Rail 250 km/hr to 350 km/hr
VHSR - Very High Speed Rail - anything over 350 km/hr

More weight should be put on average speeds for the line characterisation. e.g. Acela would be classed as MSR not HSR.

[HappyTrainGuy]

And this is the problem (or part of it). We have an 1800s network. 100 km an hour was fast in the times of horse and carts, and early cars. Cars now do 100 km/hr, rail does 50 km/hr or worse average speed in (sub)urban areas which is why rail is uncompetitive.

Rollingstock speed isn't the main contributor to why people prefer to drive vs catching the train. That's a deeper complex issue involving a whole range of things from active transport, public transport, housing design, town planning, social infrastructure etc etc etc. Having BCC spending 2/3 of its budget on roads, councils/state government using pt as a vote for us service, gutting people with railway experience for people in other divisions with no experience or with people already with too many duties. There's a few other things but i won't dive into that. Then it all comes back to cost. Cost being a big thing that you are always going on about. You can speed up the trains by doing many things. But it comes at a cost. For example you can speed up the mains by removing all crosses from P10/P8 at Roma Street to cut down on headways but you increase dead running costs and crew costs. Take the Roma Street-Park Road extensions to clear the inner city core subs quicker. Simply extending them for 3 stations has increased dead running and crew costs as they run either to Kuraby (Rocklea turnarounds not allowed anymore/Coopers Plains needing all 3 tracks in use) to turn around or back via Tennyson to Mayne some of which have 2 crews onboard. In speeding up longer routes you then run into capacity issues with trains catching/following resulting in costly upgrades. And then ask what time savings would be for the cost.

I can also call bull on your comparisons to other states which once again comes back to town planning, culture and a few other things that I listed above. Boosting the frequency isn't always a guarantee that you'll get enough people to get on the service for its cost especially when the supporting feeding network is mostly made up of hourly services or services that don't run during peak hour (Fitzgibbon only has rockets in peak direction with no off peak services/first eastbound 335 arrives at Carseldine after 9am with the station having a massive car park expansion, 336/337 is a 2hr frequency between peak hour only arriving the same time the train does at geebung with no feeders through the area despite constant dead running of BCC buses from Chermside and Aspley interchange, sunshine is an industrial estate with no feeders but also has a lot of dead running buses from
Chermside interchange, bald hills has buses that don't feed into strathpine in peak despite dead running from the highway to form said service along with the basket case 338, strathpine-Petrie all have hourly bus services including hourly peak services.... I can keep listing similar issues and that's just from Virginia-Petrie. Other lines are just as bad. Oh Carseldine-Bracken ridge shops route got canned too due to low numbers - set up to fail). Lots of road upgrades to increase driving times. It's not all railways fault. Council, Translink/state gov all have a part to play. If you can't get town planning done right spending a lot of money on the railway is going to give limited return and you'll need to recoup costs somewhere.

[ozbob]

^^ Too complicated for every day use.

MSR and HSR is all that is needed for most discourse.  Other than that, just specify what is meant.

[#Metro]

Rollingstock speed isn't the main contributor to why people prefer to drive vs catching the train. That's a deeper complex issue

But we know the main drivers of PT use. The generalised travel cost equation, of which speed and waiting time are the main components. Knowing this allows us to predict and forecast patronage, which is what the HSR Part 2 study did.

We also know large parts of Brisbane, particularly inner Brisbane, have not changed their road layout, the housing is the same etc as it was in the 1940s, when PT use was much higher. What explains the variation then is that PT really was the best choice because cars and motorways were not there to provide a relatively faster trip.

Perth has more pax on rail than we do. Boosting frequency isn't a guarantee but we know from field data on Brisbane buses that a doubling in frequency halves waiting time which doubles patronage. We know that 15 min is the minimum for turn up and go like Perth is a basic requirement for high patronage.

By focusing on culture and town planning etc things we can't really change, you focus on the wind when really you should look at adjusting the sails so you can get the change in direction.

[Stillwater]

^^ "What explains the variation then is that PT really was the best choice because cars and motorways were not there to provide a relatively faster trip."

For very many families in Brisbane in the 1940s, PT was the ONLY means of getting about town. There was no 'choice', better or otherwise. My parents talked about catching the last tram to Annerley Junction and hiring a cab (or walking) home to Tarragindi! Few families could afford a car. Yes, if we took away the cars and motorways today, more people would use public transport.

[#Metro]

There were bikes, and walking. They might not be attractive, but that is still captured in the generalised travel cost concept. It's a good model because it also implies that when generalised transport costs get too high, people move house.

Yes, if we took away the cars and motorways today, more people would use public transport.

People use cars because they get a benefit from that better than the alternative. It's better because the generalised trip cost is much lower than for PT. Offer something better and you will get your mode share back.

Generalised Travel Cost Equation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalised_cost

the generalised cost is the sum of the monetary and non-monetary costs of a journey.

A typical journey can be divided into four parts:

Walk from the origin
Wait for the vehicle
Ride in the vehicle
Walk to the destination

So in other words: access time, waiting time, in-vehicle time, egress time. Those are your levers.

There isn't anything in the equation about car culture. People just decide on what's most convenient.

You can see how the "access to HSR" argument plays out in this framework. It's not arguing that HSR is faster than plane, but rather the access time + penalty from the station location is lower due to the train station being located in the city centre.

The HSR modelling assumed no second Sydney Airport and thus tacked on an 11 minute air congestion delay to all flights to sydney that then got multiplied by 3x penalty for the dislike factor.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Need to stop comparing brisbane to Perth and trains and buses. They share a few things but there are other major factors over in perth and along bus routes that increases patronage.

[#Metro]

Perth is a valid comparison. They almost shut down the train system, that's how low the patronage was in Perth. They shut down the Fremantle line for 5 years.

In 1990/91 there were less than 10 million passengers on rail, even less than Adelaide. Page 2 shows Perth vs Adelaide and how better access and better frequency boosted patronage to 3x that of Adelaide.

The higher patronage lines also happen to be the ones with wider stop spacing and higher average speed vs the older lines, which supports the idea that speeding up rail generally works.

Fremantle Line
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_of_Fremantle_Railway,_1979%E2%80%931983

Application of Commuter Railway to Low Density Settlement
https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-12/2009_infrastructure_colloquium_peter_martinovich.pdf

[HappyTrainGuy]

Other than population and the types of trains used yes. Otherwise it's not. QLD Government has closed a lot of infrastructure across the state over the years as part of its rationalisation of the railways (publicly it was to make the railways more 'efficient' and to cut costs but it all it did was hurt local industry, increase costs on the railway services, shift more services to road transport and hurt the local economy). Not so much locally here but a lot of areas to the north were just decimated by it (Bundy, Gladstone, Bowen, Mackay along with a bunch of branch lines across the state especially to the south west). Doomben was closed due to patronage. Rosewood was close to closure but was rumoured due to political influence it wasn't.

Yes, better access. You glossed over a big portion as to why the railway increased its patronage.  Councils worked on providing better active transport to/from stations. Not here as BCC has its interest in its own bus services. At night time there's next to nothing near stations in terms or access or lighting, footpaths etc. Buses in perth feed into stations. Not here in brisbane where buses still compete with the railway with the majority of buses still going to/from the cbd all while the council still actively fights against network redesign as it means a funding cut from Translink/TMR - this is why BCC spends millions each year propping up its own bus network (iirc their driver overtime bill is 5 million per year let alone the extra money to keep running buses). WA State government has moved to enable better pt usage. QLD government has removed powers from Translink by removing it as a statutory body and merging into an existing division in tmr, gotten rid of people with experience in the pt industry and given those roles to some that aren't experienced or into a division with an existing work load who keep working on managing the status quo instead of moving forward. QR is similar with it changing from a corporation to a statutory body with some staff being laid off or positions transferred to TMR. LNP created that mess but Labour are just as responsible for not moving to repair the damage to enable to move forward. It only contributed further with this whole metro project/crr bs of a mess.

If you are going to keep going on about stuff actually know what you are talking about or comparing stuff to.

[timh]

Gotta remind you Metro that competitively to Brisbane, Perth is dead flat. Perth's soil is also much less difficult to work with for tunneling/earthwork projects compared to Brisbane which is basically built on some kind of adamantium
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_tuff

You seem obsessed with the Perth model of running trains down highway mediums. Sure, it's great! But repeatedly you don't seem to get that you can just magically build them down all of Brisbane's highways (see your recent Centenary proposal)

Perth's highways were deliberately built with extra wide medians to accommodate this. There are very few sections of Brisbane highways with medians this wide. The only ones I can think of are out past Ipswich or on the Bruce north of the Pine River. Even the M1 heading to the GC does not have these kind of medians.

Which actually I'd like to bring up the whole R1 thing again. You realise it would have to be in an enormous viaduct like the Airport line right? The median isn't wide enough and you would have to make the viaduct super tall, tall enough that it would go over all of the road overpasses with enough clearance for trucks to go underneath. We're talking about a 10 metre high viaduct here.

This is also not even accounting for the grades and curvature of Brisbane's highways compared to Perth. Again, Perth is dead flat, and the Joondalup and Mandurah lines run along highways that are also very nearly dead straight.

Brisbane's network has evolved the way it has largely due to difficulties in the terrain. Ferny Grove line is a prime example of it running through a hugely hilly part of Brisbane, hence why it has to be so curved. So to reiterate, Brisbane and Perth are not easily comparable

Sent from my SM-G780F using Tapatalk

[#Metro]

Perth has high patronage simply because their service is superior to ours both in frequency and bus connectivity. It's not because it's flat.

Only relatively recently have we begun to put on 15 min services and we still struggle to connect buses to trains because of BCC operating philosophy.

[ozbob]

[Gazza]

https://www.railfutures.org.au/2022/01/rail-as-a-catalyst-for-regional-growth-discussion-paper-january-2022/

This was published a couple of weeks ago. good to see more and more organisations raising the issue in general.

Increasing the maximum speeds, up to 200km/h say, would have only limited impact on travel
times because of the relatively short distances that trains could operate at the higher speed. The
principal value of rail improvements lies not in the design speed per se, but in the interconnection
of cities such that the travel times are brought within acceptable bounds for frequent travel
(around one hour for commuters and regular travellers). Therefore, if significant sections of a line
can be upgraded at modest cost without major land acquisition, lifting the maximum line speed to
200km/h may be justified, particularly if it brings travel times to under the critical one-hour
threshold

While the case for HSR for connecting Victorian regional cities is not strong, there are arguments
for development of a national HSR which would have flow on benefits for intrastate travel for cities
along the inter-capital routes. This is discussed in Sections 5.6 and 5.7 below.

H

SR is best suited to longer distance journeys between centres of large population. This situation
does not occur in Victoria. However, HSR could be introduced in Victoria with a future national
HSR in mind. Indeed, there are significant co-benefits in planning faster regional rail in conjunction
with HSR. For example, to achieve significant reductions in Melbourne-Sydney travel times would
require improved alignments in north-eastern Victoria (to Seymour, Shepparton, Wangaratta and
Albury-Wodonga), to facilitate the operation of higher-speed trains. A faster rail route between
Sydney and Melbourne would provide a boost for Albury-Wodonga and, depending on the specific
route alignment, for Wangaratta and/or Shepparton.

Internationally, high-speed rail dominates travel over distances between 150 km and 800 km (up to
four hours travel time), where it has clear advantages over car and air travel when overall door-to -
door time and convenience is considered. It works as a catalyst for economic growth by
encouraging more people and businesses to relocate to regional cities.
Australia has been amongst the slowest of developed nations in adopting HSR.

[#Metro]

While the case for HSR for connecting Victorian regional cities is not strong, there are arguments
for development of a national HSR which would have flow on benefits for intrastate travel for cities
along the inter-capital routes. This is discussed in Sections 5.6 and 5.7 below.

If the case in Victoria is not strong, why would it be strong elsewhere? Nobody is going to catch a plane from MEL to Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, Shepparton... but a fast train works well precisely because there is no air competition/air is unattractive to these destinations.  :conf

Regionalisation/decentralisation does not have a good track record in Australia. Most people want to live within one hour of the coast/beach.

Increasing the maximum speeds, up to 200km/h say, would have only limited impact on travel
times because of the relatively short distances that trains could operate at the higher speed.

This is such a broad, sweeping statement. Would 200 km/hr trains going to the Gold Coast, NSW Northern Rivers or Sunshine Coast not be of value because "it's not HSR"? 

The Victorian case - Regional Fast Rail - improved patronage quite a lot, and the top speed there is only 160 km/hr not 200. Not only that, it was very useful for commuting and daytrippers. The trip generation rate for those users is much better than those for intercapital travel.

If you look at some of the travel websites, flying times between MEL-SYD are 80 minutes, BNE-SYD 95 minutes, and BNE-MEL 140 minutes. To build intercapital HSR you would have to cut a lot of places out and deviate the route to keep within the target speed window of 3 hours. A lower speed service not aiming to compete with air, but complement it, IMHO is better placed to connect eastern seaboard destinations simply because it is not trying to be a substitute to air and therefore its routing is freer to go to locations that would otherwise have to be cut.

That said, it does matter what the average line speed is. If the train is only doing 200 km/hr for a short 1 km section and then doing 80 km/hr everywhere else, that is not useful. I feel with the current QLD tilt train, that's what we have.

The classification of HSR, LSR, MSR etc should be reworked to be the average speed of the line over its length, rather than speed maximums or peaks.

[SurfRail]

The aim should be to develop something that is capable of interfacing with 300km/h + operation - it doesn't necessarily need to hit top speed within one minute of leaving the Brisbane CBD.  Internationally, stuff all HSR lines outside China operate in this fashion anyway (and there only because it's brand new and because the economic and political calculus is very different to elsewhere).  If we spend all our time focusing on something that is incapable of being used by an intercapital HSR we make the case for anything in this space even less viable. 

200kph-ish operation on a route from Brisbane to Robina-ish would be fine - then you need to get under the hinterland and into better terrain.  You would be able to use much of the existing alignment for this from Yatala to Robina.  A possible outcome is that you do not run narrow gauge services anywhere south of a parkway station between this route and the Beenleigh line - all Gold Coast services would then be provided by intercapital HSR trains, or local standard gauge MSR trains better configured for the shorter stopping distances.  You can still build a route beyond Robina to Coolangatta or to the population centres further south which would not be part of an intercapital route, building on the Varsity alignment and the preserved alignment towards Coolangatta.  The "local" train would serve all stops, and there would be intercapital trains running through stopping only at say Robina, Helenavale and Coomera.

In the very long run, with an intercapital line into Brisbane, this would ultimately allow for CRR to be used for non-Gold Coast services, which would create more capacity in the suburban system on the southside.  In the even longer run, you would look at an extension north to take Sunshine Coast line trains out of CRR and replace them with standard gauge sets.

[Gazza]

If the case in Victoria is not strong, why would it be strong elsewhere? Nobody is going to catch a plane from MEL to Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong, Shepparton... but a fast train works well precisely because there is no air competition/air is unattractive to these destinations.  :conf

I dont think the presence of air services is a determinant of wether a rail service is attractive for those kinds of journeys within a state. For regional Victoria the only real competition would be car and coach.

The main candidates for fast rail, Ballarat and Bendigo are about 120km from Melbourne with 100,000 people (plus some other towns on the way) and are already a decent speed and the route is fairly direct.
Lifting the speed from 160kmh to 200kmh is probably not going to be a game changer which is probably what the authors of the report were getting at.

Geelong is already sub 1 hour and most of the time savings thereare  going to come from the planned direct route via werribee and fishermans bend.

Regionalisation/decentralisation does not have a good track record in Australia. Most people want to live within one hour of the coast/beach.

Why cant we have both? The towns on the north coast of NSW should be more like Townsville for instance but poor transport links have held them back.
In my lifetime. The main route from Sydney to Port Maquarie used to look like this remember:
https://www.google.com/maps/@-32.3382888,152.2690641,3a,75y,334.37h,90.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKGwsGvNPdXtoMEVKV5Id7g!2e0!7i3328!8i1664

And this was the road from Brisbane to Ballina was this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@-28.4184717,153.4558101,3a,60y,305.88h,91.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZnr0IBTN2Qz1cKQ82ADP4w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

When i grew up in Shepparton the route to Melbourne was like this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@-36.6171913,145.2403948,3a,47.8y,358.9h,91.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXMvvRq99_yoJ076c8GjLng!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

But eventually became this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@-36.6130093,145.3151975,3a,70.3y,67.15h,91.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sunrIgvyUa0RDZ3zFpcGhLg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

I think regionalisation has largely failed to this point because I think every single regional centre actually has poor transport links, and its only been in the past couple of decades this has really started to be addressed, so there hasn't been enough time to shift.

This is such a broad, sweeping statement. Would 200 km/hr trains going to the Gold Coast, NSW Northern Rivers or Sunshine Coast not be of value because "it's not HSR"? 

It depends. For the GC to have 200kmh trains youd need far fewer stations, and a more direct route

The Victorian case - Regional Fast Rail - improved patronage quite a lot, and the top speed there is only 160 km/hr not 200. Not only that, it was very useful for commuting and daytrippers. The trip generation rate for those users is much better than those for intercapital travel.

Trip generation is one metric. What about vehicle kilometres travelled?

An 800km journey between capitals is equal to making forty trips on a local train of 20km (So one intercaptial trip is worth a month of ordinary commuting)

If you look at some of the travel websites, flying times between MEL-SYD are 80 minutes, BNE-SYD 95 minutes, and BNE-MEL 140 minutes. To build intercapital HSR you would have to cut a lot of places out and deviate the route to keep within the target speed window of 3 hours.

No arguments against doing that.
Its really just a larger scale version of the way a fast service to the GC has to deviate and skip a lot of suburbs in order to achieve an acceptable journey time.

But Nobody argues that we need to shut down the Beenleigh line in order to provide fast rail to the GC, so nobody should be arguing that we need to omit regional towns in order to provide a fast rail service.

A lower speed service not aiming to compete with air, but complement it, IMHO is better placed to connect eastern seaboard destinations simply because it is not trying to be a substitute to air and therefore its routing is freer to go to locations that would otherwise have to be cut.

I dont think you have to cut destinations anyhow. Because of the presence of the great dividing range, the main towns on each side en route between capitals tend to be in a straight line anyway, so the line is going to be passing nearby anyway.
Its perhaps only a few towns like Dungog, Scone and Casino that would get missed.

That said, it does matter what the average line speed is. If the train is only doing 200 km/hr for a short 1 km section and then doing 80 km/hr everywhere else, that is not useful. I feel with the current QLD tilt train, that's what we have.

Yes agree, however the section between Bundy and Rocky by and large does avoid a lot of speed restrictions. It travels 175km in 1h40m between Bundy and Gladstone, which blows any regional fast rail service out of the water.
The slow section through SEQ hurts the service.

[#Metro]

I dont think the presence of air services is a determinant of wether a rail service is attractive for those kinds of journeys within a state. For regional Victoria the only real competition would be car and coach.

It's about contestability. My point is that rail is great for those areas as air travel from those centres isn't on the radar.

Lifting the speed from 160kmh to 200kmh is probably not going to be a game-changer which is probably what the authors of the report were getting at.

Lifting the speed from whatever it was previously (~100 km/hr) to 160 km has caused patronage to go right up. That's a modest improvement for a big benefit.

Why cant we have both? The towns on the north coast of NSW should be more like Townsville for instance but poor transport links have held them back.

Transport is a derived demand. There needs to be jobs there to anchor the population. What jobs/industries would be induced by the connection?

I think in the US there is the phenomenon of people moving out of cities, but that has led to urban decay in the city rather than improvement. Are we diverting only new population growth or existing residents with this scheme?

Trip generation is one metric. What about vehicle kilometres travelled?. An 800km journey between capitals is equal to making forty trips on a local train of 20km (So one intercaptial trip is worth a month of ordinary commuting)

Is it really equal my 2x 5-day office commute compared to a once a week or once a month long-distance trip? Is the HSR about patronage or is it about being a coverage service? Is a trip on the inlander train, for example, 977 km "equal" to 48 urban trips to work?

But Nobody argues that we need to shut down the Beenleigh line in order to provide fast rail to the GC, so nobody should be arguing that we need to omit regional towns in order to provide a fast rail service.

But the GC line did omit Southport and all the other places that it used to go to (prior to being shut down) because it was designed for the higher speed... and traded off local access in doing so. It has tried to go in the other direction by adding infill stations now that CRR is being built.

[HappyTrainGuy]

This is such a broad, sweeping statement. Would 200 km/hr trains going to the Gold Coast, NSW Northern Rivers or Sunshine Coast not be of value because "it's not HSR"? 

Once again you are confusing the purpose of the network. In the QR network it has no value or place simply due to cost associated with rollingstock purchase costs, rollingstock mtce, infrastructure costs and while minimal increased electricity usage (this once again falls back to rollingstock with the gearing and the type of traction motors. You wouldn't know but the SMU260/IMU160 have had acceleration speeds detuned for a similar reason. The TiltTrains have slow acceleration from a stop but have excellent acceleration once up to speed) and the distances needed between stations to achieve sustained 200kph running.

Lifting the speed from whatever it was previously (~100 km/hr) to 160 km has caused patronage to go right up. That's a modest improvement for a big benefit.

In what instance?? Gold Coast or TiltTrain services? Patronage was higher in the ICE days where track running was at 120kph max. Outside the 12 car EMU specials the regular 8 car ICE trains were the longest used electric passenger trains in the fleet. The big "game changer" was track realignment which allowed for longer sustained top speeds. Google Map the NCL from Nambour north and just look at all the new realigned and bypassed towns. Some of the realignments. More realignments have been planned but have not been followed up on with the Bruce Highway getting priority. Gladstone was the big winner with massive realignments eliminating a lot of slow curves. Freight times also dramatically decreased. The most expensive section was near Landsborough. There's a reason why the original plans had a quad corridor with tunnels built for 4 tracks and 160kph running to shave over 70 mins off the trip time to Gympie/Maryborough.

Gunalda - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-25.9975525,152.5533944,4738m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.0421837,152.5673357,2368m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Curra - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.092736,152.6184126,1218m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.1027302,152.6332415,1024m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Tamaree - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.1228625,152.6519715,1218m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.133046,152.6664409,861m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.1400381,152.6724801,1024m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Emundi - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.4632849,152.9448754,2500m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
A view from the old alignment - https://www.google.com/maps/@-26.475876,152.9519466,3a,75y,321.32h,91.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sItNqwJLXECeL_blJai3W5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-US
Cooroy - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.400947,152.9014625,1083m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Tandur - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.2975086,152.760748,1084m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.2792144,152.7462987,1084m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.2662347,152.736587,2168m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Gympie - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.2265397,152.7041524,645m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-26.2082453,152.6869292,1534m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Maryborough - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-25.4955986,152.6408687,5659m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Rosedale - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.6417641,151.9597166,8788m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.6301823,151.8868425,2768m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Korenan - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.4717895,151.6795912,2017m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.4530668,151.6539149,2854m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Colosseum - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.3889955,151.6074229,2855m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.3745729,151.5877588,1428m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Mirimvale - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.3417852,151.5711566,2020m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
Gladstone - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.1063898,151.415885,2023m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.0876716,151.3956208,2024m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.0632024,151.3822097,2024m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.0300273,151.3467402,2024m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-24.0238538,151.3260121,2025m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/@-23.9157584,151.2811322,3a,58.8y,40.62h,90.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5AdAiOeS-QeJQS-nAl9vcg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-23.9146555,151.2814091,1205m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-23.927477,151.2835808,2026m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-23.9030913,151.2828354,1754m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-23.8881183,151.2776023,1754m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US

That's just a handful. You can dig into more realignments at Petrie, Morayfield, Caboolture.
Petrie - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gunalda+QLD+4570/@-27.252072,152.9732592,1315m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x6b94b22dfa7f32b7:0x400eef17f20ef80!8m2!3d-25.994203!4d152.5632554?hl=en-US

But the GC line did omit Southport and all the other places that it used to go to (prior to being shut down) because it was designed for the higher speed... and traded off local access in doing so. It has tried to go in the other direction by adding infill stations now that CRR is being built.

The current GC alignment was on government owned property along with limited funding (built single track). Going closer to the beach would have resulted in a lot of property resumptions and made the project unviable. Was cheaper to upgrade the main trunk routes to the coast than have the train head there. Also enabled them to have larger gaps between stations. Now they are adding infill stations slowing them down. Its patronage didn't come from speed but came from housing and SEQ lifestyle which is why we are getting more infill stations and a new connector highway. The problem with Southport was it only served Southport and not the entire coast line. Servicing southport would mean slower speeds, lots of expensive property resumptions. As I said a few sentences above it costs money. This is a reason why the old line failed. Even if the corridor remained it would still fail in todays world due to frequency, speed and costs (the gold coast changed a lot in 40 years).

[Gazza]

Transport is a derived demand. There needs to be jobs there to anchor the population. What jobs/industries would be induced by the connection?

What about induced demand? Applies to PT as much as it does to roads.
Its hard to say, but better transport links can encourage businesses to establish themselves in locations they previously wouldn't have considered, or people to move to locations that would have been a pain otherwise.

Is it really equal my 2x 5-day office commute compared to a once a week or once a month long-distance trip? Is the HSR about patronage or is it about being a coverage service? Is a trip on the inlander train, for example, 977 km "equal" to 48 urban trips to work?

Patronage, clearly. Most rail in Australia outside of the cities is a coverage service because its so slow.
A HSR trunk would change that and "open up" more the eastern seaboard.
But yeah id say the long trips are significant. People dont bother travelling hundreds of km without a good reason.

But the GC line did omit Southport and all the other places that it used to go to (prior to being shut down) because it was designed for the higher speed... and traded off local access in doing so. It has tried to go in the other direction by adding infill stations now that CRR is being built.

But it wasn't really a killer was it, so long as the feeder routes are good and the travel time savings compensate.
As I recall from seeing some old timetables, the train from Southport to Brisbane was about 3h.
Now it would be no more than a 30 min bus trip from any part of the GC to a station, and then an hour or so on the train.

So despite the current rail line missing southport, it still offers a faster trip overall.

And of course, urban development consolidated around the stations and those suburbs are booming.

Realistically a HSR line (Or even an MSR line) wont travel through most town centers, but its not really an issue.
Would be akin to what you see at Maryborough West or Gympie North.
So yeah you might have to spend 10-15 mins going to the station on the edge of town, but the tradeoff is your HSR trip is now only 2h, not 6-8h or more.

I think in the US there is the phenomenon of people moving out of cities, but that has led to urban decay in the city rather than improvement. Are we diverting only new population growth or existing residents with this scheme?

I think it would be catering to new growth.
Australia I feel has much stronger cities than the US.
Of course there are exceptions like San Francisco, NYC etc, but on the whole a lot of them just feel like enormous suburbs, which dead CBDs filled with surface parking.

On the other hand Australian cites are so strong and offer such a quality of life that people largely aren't going regional as a consequence, and in particular Sydney and Melbourne are being "loved to death", with phenomenal rates of growth, and it is quite costly to keep retrofitting the cities to keep that pace, and it will eventually come up against physical limits, like having enough water nearby, lest you want to pipe it at great expense.

And as a country do we really want about half the population concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne?

Personally I think spreading the load is the way to go.

We built the current line from Sydney to Brisbane 1910-1930 when the national population was only 6.5 million and construction technology was quite rudimentary.

So I refuse to believe its "too risky" or "not viable" build a fully modern substitute in the 2030s when our population is 30 million.

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/urbanizationist/status/1493007511708143616

[ozbob]

https://twitter.com/XiaoYewen/status/1494588071483875333

[ozbob]

Traveller --> Australia high speed rail: Why bullet trains here are a bad idea

[verbatim9]

There will be better outcomes if the Government can just focus on fast electric rail to Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast and Coolangatta, without getting side tracked with HSR election pledges.

When TMR completes fast electric rail to the destinations mentioned above they can then focus on using electric locomotives to haul freight from Rockhampton, Toowoomba Wellcamp to Brisbane and around Se Qld.

It may also be a good idea to realign and electrify the track between Townsville and Cairns. This can allow for commuter style trains to run every two hours at speeds up to 180kph.

[verbatim9]

Adding to the post, HSR is not necessarily economical for short distances like Brisbane to Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast.

The cost and the time it takes to accelerate between stations will not provide significant time savings.

Running electric fast rail up to 180kph can provide a service competitive to private vehicle use.

Saying that, I am all for designing and constructing these corridors for conversion to new HSR tech in the future, when it's viable and economical to do so.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Electric freight to Rocky would probably never return. Most freighters now start north of Rocky with aurizon operating hook and pull services for Linfox along with aurizon dewiring a lot of their infrastructure (IIRC the Rocky freight roads are now all unwired). Wellcamp wouldn't have electric locos also due to no facilities to service them along with no freight providers. There hasn't been a freight train that way in about a decade. It's only coal and grain. The majority would be traffic via inland rail.

And cairns-Townsville isn't high on the cards. They can't even secure funding for timber sleeper replacement to allow trains to travel at 100kph.

[#Metro]

Melbourne Airport has announced plans to construct of a third parallel runway to increase airport capacity.

There have been a lot of major air capacity increases since the HSR study, these are:

Melbourne - Third parallel runway (and Melbourne already has a second Avalon Airport)

Brisbane - Second parallel runway open

Sydney - New Nancy-Bird Walton Airport under construction

This means the capacity/busy corridor argument is really dead now.

The HSR study assumed an 11 minute (or thereabouts) delay penalty for planes flying into Sydney Airport (which then got penalised up by multiplying it with penalty multipliers to get a delay of 33 minutes for passenger experience).

Melbourne Airport's proposed third runway on public exhibition
https://www.melbourneairport.com.au/Corporate/News/Melbourne-Airport%E2%80%99s-proposed-third-runway

Melbourne Airport's plan to build a third runway will go on formal public exhibition tomorrow, with the community invited to provide feedback through until mid-May.

The new 3000-metre runway will run parallel to the existing north-south runway and will increase the airport's capacity by allowing for simultaneous arrivals and departures.

[Gazza]

Its like saying its pointless building a rail line once a freeway ha a 3rd lane added.

[HappyTrainGuy]

Melbourne Airport has announced plans to construct of a third parallel runway to increase airport capacity.

There have been a lot of major air capacity increases since the HSR study, these are:

Melbourne - Third parallel runway (and Melbourne already has a second Avalon Airport)

Brisbane - Second parallel runway open

Sydney - New Nancy-Bird Walton Airport under construction

This means the capacity/busy corridor argument is really dead now.

The HSR study assumed an 11 minute (or thereabouts) delay penalty for planes flying into Sydney Airport (which then got penalised up by multiplying it with penalty multipliers to get a delay of 33 minutes for passenger experience).

Melbourne Airport's proposed third runway on public exhibition
https://www.melbourneairport.com.au/Corporate/News/Melbourne-Airport%E2%80%99s-proposed-third-runway

Melbourne Airport's plan to build a third runway will go on formal public exhibition tomorrow, with the community invited to provide feedback through until mid-May.

The new 3000-metre runway will run parallel to the existing north-south runway and will increase the airport's capacity by allowing for simultaneous arrivals and departures.

A lot of air capacity has also been a result of additional freight, base operation relocations, noise/operational restrictions and freight pushing into the peak hour rather than purely passenger related services. For the last decade and a bit priority air freight services have been increasing dramatically with more airports moving to future proof long term trends and operations. IIRC Toll recently got out of the Townsville-Rocky-Brisbane night priority with their small aircraft to focus more on intercapital city services. StarTrack also offer a similar service to businesses along with many freight companies now offering similar priority. I can't remember where I read it recently but Amazon and StarTrack partnered to trial same day services between Sydney and Brisbane and from what I can remember it ran at a loss (not enough volume). The loss was acceptable as the main point of the trial was to gather data for both parties which it set out. Basically it was amazon using StarTracks Interstate Next Flight service. Order whatever you wanted from Amazon in Sydney before 2pm or something and it would be in the back of a van to be delivered in Brisbane at 6pm. The current 6pm home delivery that Amazon offer is now just selected stuff from their capital city warehouse.