High Speed and Fast Rail

[frereOP]

And we are hardly world-beaters in this country in estimating the value and viability of projects. The high speed rail projections are brought to you by the same firm responsible for the calamitous Lane Cove Tunnel, Sydney Cross City Tunnel and Brisbane Clem7 forecasts.

Hey, get your facts straight before berating the existing system.  The original funding model for the Clem 7 was economically viable but politically unacceptable.  It consisted of a toll-free tunnel funded by a toll (congestion tax) on Brisbane CBD.  Spineless politicians (read Campbell newman and Peter Beattie) more worried about their political scalps than what is best for the city and the state are to blame for the Clem 7 financial situation - NOT the company that modelled the projected use of the tunnel.

Moreover, under all standard accounting models even IF the Clem 7 is not breaking even, the benefit to cost ratio to Brisbane, Queensland and the nation as a whole (from reduced surface congestion, reduced road trauma etc etc etc) is positive, even if it isn't a financial success for the investors.  HSR should be viewed in the same light.

[Jonno]

What long term reduced surface congestion?  Law of Congestion says this is an urban myth!!

[ozbob]

IRJ --> California breaks ground on high-speed line

[ozbob]

Daily Telegraph --> Badgerys Creek to Parramatta in 7 minutes in fast train plan for NSW

[ozbob]

IRJ --> Japan breaks maglev speed record


http://www.railjournal.com/media/k2/items/cache/67dcbb6548fcaaeafe6b95a13e92965a_M.jpg

CENTRAL Japan Railway Company (JR Central) set a new maglev world speed record on April 16, when a manned seven-car L0 series train reached 590km/h on the company's test track between Uenohara and Fuefuki in Yamanashi prefecture.

The train sustained 590km/h for 19 seconds to surpass the record of 581km/h set on the Yamanashi Test Track in December 2003.

The new record may not stand for long as JR Central says it will attempt to break the 600km/h barrier in testing next week ...

[ozbob]

Checking out Japan's new maglev train on a test run

[colinw]

They did it ... 603km/h!!! 

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/japans-maglev-train-breaks-world-speed-record-20150421-1mqb04.html

[Stillwater]

They did it - on a flat track.

[ozbob]

News.com.au --> Aussie trains can't get over 600km/h, but what about 100km/h?

[dancingmongoose]

I wonder if Qantas is as enthusiastic about the proposal for Australia's own bullet train....
Probably not

[ozbob]

Twitter

Urban Transportation ‏@UrbanTranspoRRt 35m

Construction underway on first stretch of California's high-speed rail network
http://rightrelevance.com/tw/urbantransporrt/74ad57c8cf6fc470dcc0a5b45d7e9f2675ca6f01/high%20speed%20rail/high%20speed%20rail ...

[ozbob]

Domain --> A fast train would be a quick fix for housing affordability

[#Metro]

At 190 km north of Melbourne, it would be around $9.5 billion at a very modest $50 million/km.

[colinw]

That article is self serving real estate talk, and affordability is a straw man.

Any such fast link to Melbourne would of course drive up the prices in the newly served cities, making lots of real estate money for people, but doing nil for affordability.

When we're reduced to grasping at straws like that, it makes it clear there really is no business case for it.

Decent medium speed country rail, like Victoria already does well, is a different story.  Not hard to imagine 200 km/h speeds on modestly updated lines in the future.  Indeed the latest Victorian country trains probaby already have that design speed, as does the QR electric tilt and the TransWA Prospector.

[Stillwater]

In Qld, governments always talk about the speed capability of tilt trains, ignoring the fact that the line limitations mean the tilts have to slow to 40kph around some curves .... the tilts average less than 80kph south of Maryborough.   

[SurfRail]

It's around 80kph on average for the whole trip I think, all the way to Cairns.

[hU0N]

That article is self serving real estate talk, and affordability is a straw man.

This sort of argument presupposes that poor housing affordability is because our cities are somehow full.  They are only full if you accept that the ideal urban form is car dependent, low density sprawl.  And what exactly do you think would happen if we invested in a VFT to enable car dependent, low density sprawl dwellers to do their car dependent, low density sprawl in far flung enclaves like Golbourn?

More to the point, you are filling up regional areas with people who, by definition, need to be happy to regularly travel up to 50mins to get somewhere.  With a market that isn't fazed by long travel distances, the new schools, shops and other services this influx of population would require wouldn't necessarily feel the need to locate in the relatively expensive centres of these towns, but would be attracted to the outskirts, knowing people are happy to travel.

If providing any kind of sustainable transport is hard in our current cities, it would be nigh on impossible in the kind of world that this would create.

[hU0N]

To be clear, I'm not saying no to long distance commuting.  But encouraging it as a way to avoid having the hard conversation about unsustainably low urban density is a recipe for disaster.

[#Metro]

There are cities that are affordable, there are cities that are not.
What is the difference?

I think it is the businesses that need to move into the suburbs. A lot of smaller city centres are very affordable (i.e Ipswich, Beenleigh, Springfield etc).

[newbris]

Surely the massive daily return ticket prices for high speed long distance commuting would offset any perceived house price savings.

Would have thought these trains would be far more useful for business travel, tourism, occasional trips etc...

[verbatim9]

High Speed rail can now be built for less and only take 7 years to build between BNE and Mel  http://www.tandlnews.com.au/2015/07/15/article/high-speed-rail-can-be-a-reality-for-australia/

[ozbob]

Science Alert --> The US just partnered with China to build a bullet train between LA and Vegas

The US just partnered with China to build a bullet train between LA and Vegas

That's LA to Vegas in 80 minutes.

Americans can look forward to zooming between LA and Las Vegas at 240 km/h in a new high-speed bullet train that's set to whittle the 370-kilometre trip down, from 4 hours in a car to just 80 minutes by train.

That's only slightly longer than the hour's flight it takes to get there, except you'll have the added bonus of not having to deal with airport nightmares. Facilitated by a partnership between a private US venture and a China Railway Group-led consortium, construction on the so-called XpressWest is expected to begin in late 2016.

The project, which took four years of negotiations to finalise, is tipped to cost more than US$7 billion - all of which is coming from the private sector right now, with US government loans yet to be approved. There's no word yet on when the project is expected to be operational.

This will be the first Chinese-made bullet train in North America, and the idea is that both countries will benefit from the project: the US in better connecting two of its biggest cities, and China in being given the opportunity to inch ahead of Japan as the world's leading bullet-train innovator.

"This is the first high-speed railway project where China and the US will have systematic cooperation," Yang Zhongmin, a deputy chief engineer with China Railway Group, said at a press conference in Beijing. "It shows the advancement of China-made high-speed railways."

This won't be the first bullet train to run between major American cities. As Bryan Lufkin reports for Gizmodo, two major high-speed rail plans were announced earlier this year:

    "A private venture in Texas that proposes linking Dallas and Houston - two of America's fastest-growing urban centres - with a replica of Japan's famed shinkansen, or bullet train. Meanwhile, California officially started rail construction on its own high-speed rail project in January, despite having not yet chosen a country's trains to model its system on."

Back home, China has built more than 17,000 km of domestic high-speed rail lines, according to the local Xinhua News Agency.

Just as the proliferation of smartphones over the past decade has brought the world closer than ever before on a digital landscape, the coming decades look set to strengthen our physical connections, with incredible advances in transport technology promising to cut down travel times between even the most faraway places drastically. New York to London in 3 hours, anyone?

[ozbob]

Twitter

Daniel Andrews ‏@DanielAndrewsMP 7 minutes ago

Bullet train from Beijing - Nanjing. 1000kms in 4 hours. Incredible.

[ozbob]

Twitter

Sky News Australia ‏@SkyNewsAust 32m

.@AlboMP says he will re-introduce a bill for a high speed rail authority when Parliament resumes on Monday #pmagenda

[verbatim9]

At last 👍

[ozbob]

Twitter

Capital Monitor ‏@capitalmonitor 36m

Shadow #transport & #infrastructure Minister @AlboMP introduces PM Bill to create high speed rail planning authority #auspol @AboutTheHouse

[ozbob]

Twitter

Anthony Albanese ‏@AlboMP 36m

Full text of High Speed Rail Planning Authority Bill 2015 http://bit.ly/1RBsium 

[verbatim9]

Any psychics out there re: start date of HSR? I reckon service between Syd-Mel 2023-24 Bne-Syd 2025-26

[ozbob]

3031 you might be lucky .. 

[Stillwater]

Mr Albanese has a spare $80 billion on term deposit?

[pandmaster]

Any psychics out there re: start date of HSR? I reckon service between Syd-Mel 2023-24 Bne-Syd 2025-26

A bold prediction. I hope you are right, though I think that extremely unlikely.

[ozbob]

Rail Express --> Albanese pitches high speed rail to Canberra

[ozbob]

Sydney Morning Herald --> Six things we must do now if we want Sydney to be workable in 2050

...5. Build regional connectivity by developing Circular Metro routes

Metros are the tool to connect and distribute people around the new Sydney focused on the West. Initially, a circular inner metro through Rozelle as originally conceived could link the Olympic Park, and Bankstown. A middle ring metro can link Chatswood, Epping and Macquarie Park and to Parramatta fulfilling the ambition to link Parramatta to the "global arc". An outer Metro will link Rouse Hill to Airport City at Badgerys Creek and then loop around to Leppington, East Hills and Kingsford Smith Airport and the CBD. A new link between Airport City and Parramatta is possible and a 40-minute express link from Airport City to the CBD is possible via Leppington and Kingsford Smith Airport. This is a 50-year plan.
6. Implement the high-speed rail between Badgerys Creek, Newcastle and Canberra

The high-speed rail could come into Sydney from the south via an interchange at Airport City. This would avoid half the high cost of tunnelling into the CBD. It would open up the regional centres for decentralised living and working. No road upgrades can compete with the high-speed rail in terms of its transformative impact on the regions. In the context of a future city of 8 million people, and a more carbon-constrained airline industry, we need to think innovatively about this option and protect the route from further ad hoc development ...

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/six-things-we-must-do-now-if-we-want-sydney-to-be-workable-in-2050-20151013-gk7qde.html

[verbatim9]

Good article

[ozbob]

News.com.au --> Australian high speed rail: The little engine that can't

[colinw]

News.com.au --> Australian high speed rail: The little engine that can't

Meh.  Come back to us when there's a sensible business case for the vast investment for the thing, and more pressing concerns like actual functional urban transport, decent 160-200 km/h "medium speed" interurban trains have been implemented,  and efficient interstate freight have been addressed.

Right now, aviation provides an admirable and safe level of service between our major cities.  In a resource depleted and carbon neutral future, that may change, but for now I see little need for HSR outside of Newcastle - Sydney - Canberra, and even there a 160 to 200 km/h 25KV AC line would be a vast improvement on what we have now at far lesser cost.

If we wanted to build HSR some 20-30 years down the track, right now the name of the game is getting some decent quality lines for fast commuter/interurban trains built from the CBDs to the suburban boundaries.  THESE are your future HSR routes, but right now they are known by more prosaic titles like "regional rail link".

There is absolutely no point in trying to build HSR right now, when your 300+ km/h line is going to come to a screaming halt at somewhere like Campbelltown, change voltage to 1.5KV DC, and tool in the East Hills line at 70 km/h - because the cost of building true HSR in through the suburbs, and tunnel over the last 30km is enough to bankrupt the entire project.

In a Brisbane context, if we wanted eventual HSR to Sydney, right now we should be focusing on building some kind of fast replacement for the windy Beenleigh Line bit of the Gold Coast line.  A line that would give an immediate huge time improvement for ordinary interurban trains that could sit on 140-160 all the way in, and would also permit our future high speed trains to run on into the city at 200 km/h+.

[red dragin]

People are prepared to pay the airfares - whats the need for a government funded HSR?

HSR works in Europe where there are many large cities at reasonable spacing and time frames are faster than a plane. Same with Japan. The only journey I made in Europe that wasn't faster than air (start to finish) was Zurich to Munich, which was loco hauled. And given the scenery I am glad we took the slower way.

The focus should be on speeding up existing networks.

[colinw]

I also am of the opinion that the Governments and engineering contractors in this country are simply not competent enough to do a good job of HSR for a reasonable cost, and that includes my professional opinion as someone working for a rail engineering & signalling company.

Would make a mighty fine taxpayer funded gravy train for my employers 'though.

[ozbob]

We need to concentrate on urban and interurban transport, freight rail as Colin suggests above.

HSR has a spin cycle, every few years we reach ' peak  HSR ' , new sets of animations/videos etc. some satirical stuff, then it disappears into a trough of 'could be but won't be stuff ' only to resurface a few years on, as we surge towards another peak of ' HSR grand plans '.

The cycle then repeats ..

[colinw]

It would be entirely typical if we did end up with a shiny bullet train to the south, while retaining single 3'6" with 40 km/h curves and reversing at platforms north of Beerburrum