The Story of (non-existent) High-Speed Rail in Australia
182,145
Published 2021-04-10
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- Dear rail-lovers, as you might already know, Australia still doesn’t have a high-speed rail line. For a country of that size, economic strength, and potential, you will agree that this is quite a startling fact.
However, throughout different periods there have been several initiatives related to the construction of high-speed rail network in Australia, but all of them had something in common - they all failed.
This is exactly what we want to discuss in today’s video on Railways Explained, and at the very least try to shed some light on each of these initiatives, their scope and potential, and finally give you the answer as to why they all ended the same way.
We started by explaining the most frequently studied route for a high-speed rail in Australia - the so-called East Coast Corridor. This corridor includes connections between the four major cities in four major regions located in the far east of the continent – Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.
After that, we set out to explain all the relevant Australian HSR initiatives, which include:
- CSIRO Proposal (Melbourne - Canberra – Sydney HSR, 1984)
- Very Fast Train Initiative (350 km/h, Sydney - Canberra - Goulburn – Melbourne, 1988)
- SPEEDRAIL Proposal (Alstom/Leighton Contractors joint venture, Sydney-Canberra, 1993)
- Government Public Call from 1997 (Capital Rail, Inter-Capital Express, Speedrail and Transrapid bidders for Sydney-Canberra line)
- Very High-Speed Train Scoping Study (The East Coast Very High-Speed Train Scoping Study, 2001)
- High-Speed Rail Study – PHASE 1&2 (Sydney–Melbourne line, Kevin Rudd’s Government, 2008)
- Consolidated Land and Rail Australia Proposal (a world-class 500 km/h rail service Sydney-Melbourne, 2016), and
- Government High-Speed Rail Business Cases from 2017 and 2019 (8 corridors assessment)
Finally, we have tried to give our opinion on whether it is reasonable to expect that Australia will get a high-speed rail in the near future.
For the whole story, check out our video!
Credits: drive.google.com/file/d/1y4hZtpSCp0LMgvNA-6O92yPKs…
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All Comments (21)
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Planning for high speed rail is a core industry in Australia.
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As an Australian, I wholeheartedly support high speed rail no-matter the cost.
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There needs to be a feasibility study on the need for any more feasibility studies on high speed rail in Australia
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They should have done it in the 80's, would have been profitable by now. 150 planes a day between Melbourne and Sydney is terrible for the carbon emissions and shows a real need in such infrastructure. I travel from Paris to the south of France for 10 euros in less than 3 hours with the TGV (Ouigo). It is just so easy and efficient and brings huge economic development. Fingers crossed for Australia.
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Pretty easy to explain why Australia never gets high speed rail between capital cities. It would challenge the Qantas (government) control on travel. There’s a really strange power that Qantas has over the travel routes in Oz. Set up anything that challenges it and Qantas will crush it.
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Qantas curates a list of the most influential people in Australia, who are invited to a complimentary membership of "The Chairman's Lounge". This lounge is by invitation only. These very same decision makers are the ones who decide on how "viable" high-speed rail is.
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There is an Australian comedy show called 'Utopia' that is shockingly accurate to the feel of working in the public sector. In one episode (S1E3) someone proposes a very fast train and it absolutely nails what it's like trying to make it work, even though it's doomed to fail. It pains every public servant how accurate that show is.
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Sydney - Melbourne seems like a pretty sweet spot for HSR, but seems like most cases here are sabotaged by the lack of commitment from government to support any private attempts.
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High speed rail in Australia is only talked about during elections and suddenly disappears afterwards
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3 hours including trip to/from the airport? That seems a little tight. Anyway, the distance between Melbourne <> Sydney and Sydney <> Brisbane is approximately the distance between Paris and Marseille. The TGV completely crushed the air shuttle between those cities as it runs just under 3h. And I can tell you tracks to get out of Paris center are much more saturated than any line in Australia. But they managed to make it work and trains already run as fast as 160km/h before entering the 320km/h HSR. When there's will...
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3:22 An interesting aside: It's the busiest air route that is entirely overland. If Seoul <> Jeju was entirely overland, South Korea would've built a high speed rail already.
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Considering the amount spent on studies, they could probably have had the line between Sydney and Canberra built already XD
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Pissing money away in repeated consultancies is the Australian way
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As an Australian, I want to thank you for making this video. I have been a rail/mass transit advocate for these past few years and has learned of the 2013 study that I do dream of happening one day. Advocating for it whenever I can! Hopefully, we'll get something one day!
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Well, we also have a non-existent high speed rail line in Brazil. More than one, actually.
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Another important factor to consider is the economic growth it encourages everywhere a train station gets built. They said ticket sales won't bring in enough money to pay for the cost of building it, but there is a lot more economic benefit than ticket sales. People who live near train stations will be on land that is more valuable and they will be able to do business faster and that translates to more tax revenue, as well as other positive benefits. It also increases tourism because more people will travel to Australia if you make it easier for them to get from city to city.
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Give the contract to the Chinese and you'll be riding your trains the next day
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HSR should be considered as more of a decentralisation initiative. Australia's population expected to double in 30 years and most of that will go to the capital cities putting increased pressure on them. Enticing population into the regional interior would help to ease growth whilst also giving people easier access to the capitals for work and such
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Apparently, studies and initiative aren't the key to success
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"Commercial viability" and "economic viability" are not the same thing. Practically no highway on Earth would be "commercially viable," but if governments decided not to invest in them that would obviously be economic suicide.
