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Discussion: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
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pyno |
A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Mar 3 2008, 6:48 AM EST
Open up rail as an alternative to aircraft travel between this route... of course we'd have to make sure to aviod potential railway crossing disasters.
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Posted Anonymously |
1. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Mar 8 2008, 12:39 AM EST
"Open up rail as an alternative to aircraft travel between this route... of course we'd have to make sure to aviod potential railway crossing disasters." A super fast train between Melbourne and Sydney through Canberra would be a great project ... and eventually Adelaide and Brisbane ... it would probably go past most of the main locations of electrical power stations. Even if it took 4 hours from CBD to CBD, it would be faster and cheaper than flying. 13 out of 13 found this valuable. Do you? |
Randall_Berger |
2. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Mar 8 2008, 1:04 AM EST
"Open up rail as an alternative to aircraft travel between this route... of course we'd have to make sure to aviod potential railway crossing disasters." It should probably travel above ground ... off the ground ... which would let roads, animals, rivers, etc travel underneath. If it goes fast enough, it will create quite a slip stream. The route would probably be east through Gippsland, then through to Canberra and on to Sydney. 8 out of 8 found this valuable. Do you? |
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Posted Anonymously |
3. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Mar 31 2008, 8:04 PM EDT
In Germany they have trains that travel around 300km/h. One such example is between Frankfurt (with an extra stop at Frankfurt airport) to Cologne. The service is so quick that Lufthansa actually uses it in place of a flight. It even has a Lufthansa flight number and your luggage is transferred for you. Something like this would be great between MEL and SYD.
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Posted Anonymously |
4. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Apr 10 2008, 4:16 AM EDT
If this was economically viable, it would be done already. For these sort of distances, planes get you there much faster, much cheaper.
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Posted Anonymously |
5. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Apr 28 2008, 4:33 AM EDT
This very good idea, just never goes away, and given that Virgin is firmly established, it is high time to look at this, as a way to introduce further competition to the duopoly of the airlines and find a alternative greener option. But it will require a lot of work by Federal and both State governments, who have all given up on long-distance public transport. The speed of ICE and TGV trains makes this quite reasonable compared to air travel now. A recent BBC article showed the saving in time and money comparing flying a budget air carrier and the Eurostar to both Brussels and Paris. Let's look at CBD to CBD; it's around 40mins to Sydney Airport (if the traffic is good and you can get a taxi), there is 1hour check-in time, your flight is likely to be delayed by 30mins, it's a 90min flight, then a 10mins wait for your baggage, 20mins wait for a taxi, and a 40min drive into the CBD, all up; 290mins (4hr, 50mins) so let's just say 4hr to 5hr door-to-door. So a 963km journey with 50km @ 80km/h and then 913km @ 300km/h (but let's average it down to 250km/h) takes around 3.5hr so around 4.5hrs CBD-to-CBD, suddenly becomes competitive in time. It's just down to how you can finance it. 5 out of 5 found this valuable. Do you? |
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Posted Anonymously |
6. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
May 28 2008, 6:19 PM EDT
"If this was economically viable, it would be done already. For these sort of distances, planes get you there much faster, much cheaper."Economically, maybe ... but environmentally, not ... planes are dirty, noisy, growing costlier every day and when you factor in all of the support for aircraft and getting to and from airports, worse than an electric train. I think if someone did the maths, a superfast electric train would get 1000 people there faster, cheaper and cleaner than 8 - 10 aircraft, plus taxis, ground support, etc. 5 out of 5 found this valuable. Do you? |
dra_red |
7. RE: A superfast train between Melbourne and Sydney
Jun 20 2008, 9:18 PM EDT
Even better....add a superfast train that could carry cargo ie a car and then have a quick load and unload system so people could have their car transported with them. Who would not use it!!? Getting all that traffic off the roads and onto tracks for long hauls makes perfect sense. Cheers, Dale 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
antipathyincarnate |
8. XPT
Jan 21 2009, 5:54 PM EST
A new line would be 1000k's or so. Sure this would be a great idea but the initial outlay will be an incredible figure. The Bullet Train runs for about 400k's and is in a commuter catchment involving around 20M people (Tokyo-Osaka etc). You need LOTS of customers. The XPT is a 160kmh (really 200k) train already, but it currently averages 50k's or so. So it loses money because the full fare paying people can get there quicker by coach/car or plane. The problem is the rails: There's a vicious hill off the ranges past Goulburn. The XPT is geared for 160 primarily because those grades are so steep. This is a freight line, Getting XPT's to coexist with freight trains is already ruining both at 50k's. No chance at 160+. The track is crap. Fast trains need really good rails. Big money. So yes, you need a new line. But you need to pay for it. Give it customers. We should run the Melbourne XPT the 160k's to Nowra instead. This would make money as there's a good commuter market already, and the XPT will simply build on it by making the trip quicker. The track down to Wollongong is pretty good, and the track from there to Nowra is flat and straight. (North to Newcastle is much harder terrain) This would create a huge new coastal commuter area within which people could get to Sydney in under an hour, and so could make it's profits. From there a single line extension to Canberra would be simply be a viable extension to an existing profitable service. Would be relatively cheap to do. Trip time for the 400k's is sub 3 hours @160. After that you can extend to the Snow (skiers pay well), and from there to a Victorian railhead. All extra line would be cost justified extensions to a current paying line. And you can afford to build some stuff if you just stop the current loss making services to Melbourne and Canberra. 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
