Anglo nations may be known in modern times for their extremely poor rail despite being big pioneers of it; but to me Aussie regional rail is the worst of the worst. Like the yanks; seems we've had a big problem with too many overpaid chiefs hiding behind the senate; for the amount of Indians actually building and servicing the lines. America were lucky to create Amtrack back when their federal government was still mostly trying to do its job, rather than just dancing for corporate donors.
i dont think you can really compare tbh, cost could easily be reduced, the thing is the train is a luxury train not a train designed to take people from A to B,
Are you looking at journey beyond there a private tourism operator not government run. Actual government run lines are usually fairly competitive in price with planes. I actually get sleepers cheaper then planes with pension discount.
@@RealNotOrrio Whilst I agree with you in the sense that the Indian Pacific is a luxury tourist train, would Australians be prepared to travel from Sydney to Perth in a seat or accept Russian style cheap sleeping accommodation?
XPT Melbourne to Albury is not too bad as the track has been improved heaps but after that is where the speed drops because of bends and track restrictions. Melbourne to Adelaide is a trip for tourists at best.
@@cabbagepatch8947And the Sydney to Brisbane "XPT" gets depressing with all its meandering to, and the fact it doesn't service many towns that would welcome the service on the coast
Important to hammer home the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@cabbagepatch8947 ikr i want to go to adelaide for a music festival later on and it is more expensive to travel by train than plane so im definitely staying away from that It is $80- Plane and it was $120- Train and not even on a close date i need
V/Line seems to be doing alright, trains are far more frequent today than 20 years ago and lines are being upgraded all the time. Melbourne to Warrnambool now sees more trains than Sydney to Canberra.
Victoria has no excuse not to have good regional services. It's a fairly flat place. NSW does have an excuse; really shit topography in every direction out of Sydney, meaning the old steam age tracks are winding and steep in places. ('Steam age' rail culture doesn't help either.) Possible but expensive to correct. Could be done in stages, just like how the Hume Highway got converted from a winding two lanes to a four lane motorway. A good place to start would be to do a new rail corridor parallel to the motorway from Menangle rejoining the existing tracks near Pheasants Nest, then improve it all bit by bit. Good luck. The other thing is, it's not just the passenger services, the Sydney to Melbourne route is primarily a freight line, and the public and industry would benefit even more greatly from its improvement. Could be in the same corridor (but not the same track as higher speed passenger services).
@@tacitdionysus3220 the legacy line could be relegated to freight and sleeper services, but a new set of rails - preferably HSR - would be needed for the daylight services
It's better than it was, but it still needs to improve. Check out the Wikipedia list of places in Victoria by population size and see how far down the list you get before you find a place you can't catch a train to. (Hint: it isn't far.)
@@spdfatomicstructure So do nothing for faster freight, so it remains uncompetitive against trucks for all except bulk, and pay for two separate systems? Yeah, nah.
@@shrikelet you get to 9, which is understandable as Mildura is so far from everywhere else in Victoria it’s further north than Canberra, and further west than Warrnambool. After that the next place that’s more than 20 kms from a station is Portland at 32nd, with a total population of about 10k.
Our prime minister in the 70's, Gough Whitlam, attempted to create a national operator called Australian National. Commonwealth Railways as well as those from Tasmania and South Australia all signed up but the other states didn't. The subsequent federal governments didn't invest in AN and forced lines to close, and John Howard sold off the AN's passenger operations such as the Overland, Indian Pacific, etc. These services are now essentially tourist trains.
*Not... quite* "Australian National was a re-branded "Commonwealth Railways" which was started around the time of the First World War, not in the 1970's In the 1970's, the South Australian govt jumped at the chance to offload it's trains onto someone else as did Tasmania, which then became "Australian National". That "subsequent federal government" you mention was Paul Keating's cut-backs (as Treasurer then Prime Minister). Paul Keating began the Privatisation Process by re-branding "Australian National" as National Rail, which eventually was combined with NSW government railways, the whole lot being eventually put up for sale, after a very complex process. Paul Keating started the Privatisation process for Australian National, a suggestion that cost him dearly in the subsequent election (1996). John Howard said he'd reverse such if he was elected; he was elected and did not reverse the privatisation process, the sale being completed in 2002.
@@ozsteamer2755 "In November 1996, the Federal Government announced a major rail reform package that included the sale of Australian National.[15]" - Cited from Wikipedia, that was Howard's government. On 1 July 1975, the Australian National Railways Commission took over responsibility for the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways and branded itself Australian National Railways. It wasn't quite a re-branded Commonwealth Railways either, it's purpose was integrating state networks such as SA and TAS which it did successfully.
Another big issue with travel to regional towns is that those towns are very car centric - so if I got the train from Sydney to Dubbo, it would be hard for me to get around Dubbo without a car... At which point I might as well drive the whole way. But more trains between smaller towns could be a winner - like why can't someone in Dubbo do a day trip to Bathurst or Orange by train? These are easy fixes, but will require a much bigger fleet to run these services.
it’s a pity all of the tram systems got torn up, because in the modern day they would be a great asset, e.g; bendigo - tram went to the hospital or past weeroona to the school, thales factory (which is next to a train line and a perfect place for a station), botanical gardens, down south to lansel square, etc. If places like Bendigo kept their trams as a way to commute more people would probably catch the train
@@createdforthemoment6740 pretty much every town that has had a train station has a railway hotel. Most of those towns you would avoid those the railway hotels haha
I recent spent Easter at conference in Parkes and went by xpt it was a great ride, but with a walking difficulty I had to rely on car pooling for transport.Parkes has almost no public transport system. If it does I couldn't find it.
My hometown of Armidale (~30000) is a university town and is as of mid2000s the end of a northern train line. You get 1 8.30am train to Sydney a day and that’s it it doesn’t get cancelled. Bad luck to all the communities past that have no other connection than poorly maintained highways to syd. I can’t speak for other State Governments but NSW it seems has especially underfunded regional rail for many years and would sooner rip out the rail for a bike trail than improve service
I'm also from Armidale and take this route on occasion. I don't think it's ever going to be upgraded to higher speeds so I think what would be ideal for this route is a night train.
The Gold Coast train will eventually terminate at Coolangatta, as well as the G-Link tram, right on the state border. When this happens, will people of northern NSW feel left out? Tweed Heads, Ballina and Lismore are much closer to Brisbane than Sydney.
Most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
100% agree. they used to have the adelaide melbourne service twice a day for about 40 dollars each way, sure beats 300 bucks there and back in petrol and having to drive or the hassle of going to the airport, yeah the flight is an hour but then you have to get to the airport, check in, wait around, airport beers, get off the plane, wait for luggage, get taxi or uber into town, etc so that is quite a few hours and expense there. on the train you get from the centre of one city to the centre of the city where you are headed. That overnight XPT is top shelf. on a side note one of my buddies used to live a couple of streets away from the puffing billy bridge. good times!
I just returned from a trip in Japan, and it's honestly astonishing how practical their train system is. Every major city has its own rail network and the cities themselves are either connected by bullet trains or limited express trains, both of which runs at least twice an hour from what I've seen. Unlike traveling by airplane, you don't have to go through the hassles you get at the airport, and you end up saving time even though the train technically takes longer (especially if you live close to the station.) Not to mention, sightseeing during train rides in Japan is really fun.
Yeah. I went to Japan in May 2023 and I really enjoyed the bullet trains there. It made me really wish for faster travel within the Sydney Trains suburban network to and from the Sydney CBD, something that was lost for about 7 years now following the timetable change in November 2017. I know it's not related to regional travel but I though I'd share this experience of mine that I've been unhappy with for many years now. As for regional travel, I've done a few in 2022 and most of them were not on time. The most eggregious one being from Tamworth back to my home in Sydney. It was about a four hour wait for a replacement bus due to flooding on the tracks, then a slower intercity service back to Central Station. It was extremely frustrating. It made me not want to go back to regional travel until at least we have more modern trains that are more reliable than the XPTs and Xplorers.
Tiny country, massive population, they are in a very different situation than Australia. I remember going there and the train culture is so different, the respect and ease of use is insane. Here in Australia I swear most regional train users are just people getting out of prison
A single national passenger operator would possibly help, but the states would never do that now. It would probably end up privatised anyway and we saw how badly that’s worked in the past on freight.
Rather than that, I think it would be better for a national funding system to funnel $$ into the state rail systems. Either by subsidising new services, or, by funding infrastructure that aligns to longer term benefits. Probably both. That gives some autonomy to the states, but still funnels the $$ into the right areas, rather than roads.
That's one of the Things the US does well because we have a single fast Fully Electrified passenger rail corridor through the most densely populated part of the country run by a nation passenger rail carrier (although they do get bullied by private freight railroads like Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National, Union Pacific, and BNSF) but they do own that section of Electrified track they inherited from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1971 after Penn Central fell apart
@@leonkernan I think that's where better federal funding would solve those issues. Having states still manage the regional rail systems doesn't mean you can't use fed funding to fix that.
I live at the literal halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney (Junee)… the XPT travels through here four times a day… but the night trains arrive very late at night. The morning trains departures from Melbourne or Sydney are far too early. There is a mid week train that leaves Sydney at lunchtime, comes to Junee around 6pm and then heads out to Griffith… it is an ideal train for my needs… but as mentioned is only once a week at that time. So more frequent trains through Junee would help… perhaps restore the Riverina Express but say have it run to Albury four days a week and out to Griffith three days a week. Also upgrade the trains so they have wifi available the entire trip (mobile coverage is non existent outside the towns it travels through. Have 20W USB charging ports at each seat… maybe even 240v power. Have an on board entertainment system with movies and tv shows that play on your own device (just like many of the airlines do now) Offer more leg room in between seats Offer small cabins that can be either bedrooms (with longer beds rather than the shorter than singles they have now) AND/OR small workspaces… I’d gladly take a laptop on board if I had the table space and wifi to do work while travelling Have better food options and not just one service time for cooked dinner meals. Follow Victoria’s lead and reduce the cost of tickets!
Not that this is incredible, but it is a 100% improvement...the Griffith train is now two days a week, on Wednesday and I think Friday, or Saturday - one of the two. Small wins
The very limited public transport within regional towns is one of the main reasons people rarely take inter-city trains. Example: Geelong with over a quarter million people has buses that on a sunday usually stop running by 6 and even on a weekday services are infrequent and very indirect. for most people they're just unusable unless you're desperate.
my town has 4 whole bus lines D: and only one of them runs past the train station (none at the moment) all of which stop running at 4 and dont run during school end times, its so frustrating as a non driver
Trains between Sydney - Melbourne - Brisbane are the NSW Rail XPT, operated by the State Government. Trains between Sydney - Adelaide - Perth (the Indian Pacific), Adelaide - Melbourne (The Overlander) and Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin (The Ghan) are operated by a private company who sells a journey, not a means of transport.
IIRC the Overlander is an outlier, as though it runs by GSR/JB, it does recieve subsidies from VIC and SA state governments to operate the route. For a long time, I think federal govt provided subsidies for low cost seat class coaches on the Ghan and Indian Pacific as well, but they got pulled years ago.
Personally, I use V/Line services on a regular basis, and I believe that they are a generally viable option for getting around regional Victoria. Of course, there are some things which could be improved: weekend frequencies, lack of comfortable long-distance facilities on the latest train orders, the privatised mess that is Southern Cross Station, etc., but every major system has its drawbacks. It's also good to see that the Victorian government is investing in our regional rail services, by duplicating single track and making other infrastructure optimisations which allow for more efficient train operation. It would also be great to see electrification of the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines, but this doesn't seem to be something that is going to happen any time soon, nor is the Geelong fast rail project. Both of these projects would've boosted capacity on the trains between our two biggest cities, providing a more comfortable trip for people on the train, and helping encourage more people out of their cars! I'm also going to be taking the daytime XPT from Sydney to Melbourne later this week. A range of factors contributed to my decision to do this: arriving and departing from the central railway station in each city provides more convenient transport options at a lower price than arriving at the airport. You also get the opportunity to see more of the countryside and regional towns while travelling by train than you do by air, and you can get up and walk around at your leisure. Of course, these benefits probably aren't so notable if you commute regularly on the service, but as a tourist to Sydney and NSW, it is certainly a selling point. Finally, I personally can't stand airports and anything related to air travel, so travelling by rail gets me out of that, and as a bonus is much better for the environment!
Some time ago the Victorian government developed the regional fast rail network for Victoria. While the system only has a maximum speed of 160 kph the improved standard of track and signalling as well as increased frequency of new trains on country lines the passenger numbers increased dramatically. This proves that if you provide a good service, the public will use it even if it does not travel at 250kph. Two car Velocity trains began the service but it wasn't long before 3 car trains were required. We currently use 6 car Velocity trains and in some cases we need 9 cars. One of the big costs to improved travel times is to modernise the safe working system which other states have not done.
Victoria will be quite interesting if they do run new lines again, they just spent a fortune converting a ton of our out of use passenger track to standard gauge (we use broad gauge for passenger rail here) for the grain trains, I think it creates an interesting prospect for a private operator to lease or purchase older rolling stock, and set up an alternate transit network using those lines, since they’re not used during the daytime (or really at all right now) Seeing as tourist trains have been able to run services on the lines it’s clear the possibility exists, it’ll just take someone with the right money to restart it. Because they’re using the standard gauge, it would even make it worth interlinking the network across the border with NSW, simply extend the Mildura line up to meet the Broken Hill line, suddenly you have a second route into NSW, and if routes to Adelaide could be opened up, that could also interlink too. I actually believe that the removal of the rail services up in the Mallee region at the start of the 90s actually likely contributed significantly to the decline of all the towns on that route, people living in Mildura have been screaming for a train line to reopen for over a decade now. And the other big problem with regional rail especially here is the fact that all lines lead down to Melbourne, and there are no cross links, for example if you were to specifically take a train from Bendigo to Shepparton, that can take up to 14 hours, despite the cities being less than 2 hours apart by car. You’re forced to travel to Melbourne, wait for one of the infrequent trains, and then travel back up the specific line. The fact the network has no interconnection also means that if a section of track is damaged or out of service, the entire line goes down, and the only alternative is bus transit, which is uncomfortable and cramped. There is no redundancy and there is no consideration that people outside of Melbourne have a right to reliable and frequent public transit. The only reason it’s not in demand is that people can’t even imagine what services would be, as we’ve spent decades not even having access.
melb - syd - bris is an obvious candidate for much faster rail, i think most people would prefer to avoid the hassle of security, waiting, delays, no wifi / phone reception and cramped conditions of flying. But travel times would need to drastically reduce. Sadly a new line would be needed at great cost.
In addition, high speed rail is a long term proposition and takes a lot of political will (as we've seen with HS2 in the UK) to see it through - our election cycles mean that even if one party ran with this, there's a risk that it would be cancelled when there's a change of office (particularly given the high costs involved). So you really need a bipartisan approach.
One important thing to mention is the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
First, we definitely need night sleeper trains to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. That should be a priority since we are getting sub par XPT replacements. Second, we should look to upgrade the windy track in places to get faster trains rather than straight to high speed rail. Although we should reserve the land corridor for high speed rail asap.
@@TheGreatUnwashedThing CAF civity hybrids, fine for a few hours but poor choice for the interstate runs I believe (based on others opinions too). th-cam.com/video/eOzRPynRgoM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AFHHoPZcpKYZk_VC
In my student days I travelled between Sydney and Melbourne and the end of each term. There was one daytime train each day "The Intercity Daylight Express" and three overnight trains. The Southern Aurora was an overnight sleeper express. The Spirit of Progress was an overnight train with first and second class seats as well as some sleeper carriages. In holiday and peak travel times there was also a train referred to as the Third Division which was just basic second class seats in non-heated carriages which were very cold in winter. From memory the Southern Aurora departed Sydney at 20:00 and the Spirit of Progress at 20:10. Travel between Sydney and Adelaide was also possible by catching the Daylight Express from Sydney then changing at Sunshine (suburban Melbourne) onto the awaiting Overland - an overnight train directly to Adelaide.
Yep. A good service pattern for the intercapitals (I'd for BNE-SYD / SYD-MEL / MEL-ADL and SYD-ADL via Broken Hill) would be four trains a day each direction, An early morning limited stop, a later morning stopper, an evening limited stop sleeper with motorail, and a late evening sleeper stopper, with no motorail. We should have the same pattern for BNE-CNS, as well as an hourly SYD-CBR semi high speed service through some limited realignments, electrification and level crossing removals.
@@Syulang-nt4kj Later in my student days when studying in Adelaide I would catch the Indian Pacific from Sydney and change at Peterborough onto an awaiting shuttle train to Adelaide. The Indian Pacific had economy class twin sleepers - but you could end up with strange travelling companions which is good practice for Chinese and Russian trains! I travelled to Brisbane a few times on the Brisbane Limited which was OK. The main problem travelling north is the ridiculous meandering track around Gloucester. I never knew why they ripped up the track from the Gold Coast Murwillumbah! In 1994 I travelled on a Tilt Train from Sydney to Canberra. The carriages were on loan from somewhere and the engine was just a normal NSW one. It was part of a trial but it was never taken up.
@@aussiebloke51 The Casino-Murwillumbah line was closed because in the end the XPT was the only train using it, so the cost of maintaining the line for only one return train a day could not be justified. The tilt train was the Swedish X2000, pulled by an XPT power car.
You mentioned Toowoomba!, Currently they is only a weekly rail service from Brisbane to Toowoomba. This ia due to the dreadful alignment over the Toowoomba Range, which resembles a goat track. If the route was duplicated and the line between Helidon and Toowoomba was realigned, a service with a 30-min frequency could be justified.
Yep. I've got family in Toowoomba, and it's crazy there isn't a frequent service into Brissie.... until I looked up the rail route on Google Earth. JFC... it's a shitshow.
The distance between Toowoomba and Brisbane is about the same distance from Lithgow and Sydney and yes it goes through the blue mountains and they come every hour
With inland rail, part of the route is between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Some reports I've read mention line upgrades, (realignment, conversion to dual gauge, possible electrification between the two). So improved service may end up a possibility
V/Line’s Bendigo to Melbourne route has increased growth year on year for quite a while now, in fact it’s gotten to the point where many services don’t have enough seats on a regular basis.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
Good video. I would argue Victoria is something of an exception to this, having invested quite a lot into upgrading the regional rail network and fleet, reducing travel times between Melbourne and key cities. The result is that patronage has massively increased. (I know some people will argue that there are many lines that have been closed down or left off; or that they hate VLocities but relative to other states, Victoria has an impressive regional rail network). The other challenge with all of this is our car-centric culture (similar to the USA). Most politicians don't see passenger rail as a vote-winner and hence, and when combined with short political cycles, we end up with poor decisions and focus on short term projects rather than wholesale improvements in the network. Out of interest, where did you get the B-roll footage (ie drone shots of cities etc) you used in your video?
Victoria haven't done didly. What they have is a diesel run intercity network instead of an electric one and they call it regional rail. They have very few actual long distance lines like NSW has and the new lines they have built have been to separate these intercity services from suburban services.
@@carisi2k11 I guess it's all a matter of perspective. If you call spending $750 million on the Regional Fast Rail project followed by $4 billion on the Regional Rail Link project, plus the billions spent on the VLocity fleet, insignificant, then sure. Yes a lot of that to separate regional and suburban rail, as you say, but there's no denying it's improved service and reliability (I'm not trying to say any of these projects are perfect - far from it, and I appreciate stuff went over budget etc etc). But everything is relative. I live in a state with no real regional rail services (South Australia), so to me - the SA Government is the one doing didly (other than chucking a few dollars towards The Overland). Sadly.
@@carisi2k11 they have less long lines because Victoria is so much smaller, but almost every city or town with at least 10k population is within 20kms of a passanger rail service running multiple times a day both ways, and most have service direct to the town centers.
@@carisi2k11not sure if “haven’t done didly” means they have or have not done much. I think Vic has done OK in the last 15 years. V/Locity trains do 160kph, and is much faster than driving from where I live (Castlemaine) than driving.
I live near Castlemaine (Bendigo line) and commute the 120km or so to Melbourne regularly. The trains do 160kph (100 mph) most of the journey, much faster than driving - especially at peak times. I agree that frequency is an issue. There is 1 train per hour outside of peak times. All in all I think Victoria has done well with Bendigo, Ballarat, Bairnsdale and Albury V/Locity services and deserve praise. Another issue is the debt run up to pay for it, but let’s not talk about that here!
One prime example of regional trains being successful in Australia is actually the tilt trains but even they need to be upgraded for 180kph operations + new trains soon.
There are no 180kph sections, they are 160kph. No track in Australia is rated for running any faster than 180kph. Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds. Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII! Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage. There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
I did the Brisbane to Cairns trip on the Tilt Train and it was great. The original Queenslander Service it replaced should have been kept in my opinion as this is one of the World's great train journeys. The scenery is quite spectacular as you move from Sub-Tropical to Tropical and traverse many interesting regions. I really loved the original Queenslander because it was all about getting there, and you had individual cabins. The Tilt Train is good though with wide panoramic windows and sleeper beds. I believe the original Queenslander rolling stock, built in Townsville, is now operating in Peru as a Luxury Andes Train.
The XPT hits 160km/h north of Albury. Curvy track is the main problem. We need to invest in realignment, and do it in stages. Every time we do this the travel time will go down.
I recently had to travel from brisbane to adelaide and even though i actively looked to see if rail was an option due to my dislike of flying i wasnt able to even find a rail service.
I think another thing is, Australia is so big that people just prefer to fly. Even with the inflation of domestic flights, 90% of the population would rather fly a $150 Jetstar flight from Sydney to Melbourne than sit on a train for hours. Ive done the Canberra-Sydney train twice and it took over 4 hours. It is 3.5 hours on a Murrays bus or a 40min flight.
Great video. And it only really touches on the lack of good trains between major and regional cities. I'd love to see one where you look at the lack of good trains (or lack of trains entirely) between regional towns. I can only really speak for my native Victoria, but the way we've dismantled the rail network here over the past 50 years borders on the criminal.
To be honest I don't blame any government for scrapping the rail services we no longer have. If people don't use the trains, it is pointless running them. Here in NSW, as little as 30 years ago, the railways were running empty trains all over the state. One car's worth of passengers on a train of up to ten cars, plus the locomotive, baggage car and motor generator car. That just doesn't make any sense. Trains to areas that still have rail services are mostly served by smaller DMU sets which have a smaller engine underneath each car for propulsion. No dining car, no sleeping car, no car carriers. Anything else would not meet fiscal requirements because again, they aren't always full. Even the mighty XPT is about to be replaced with dual-mode DEMU cars. Diesel generators for outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where there are no catenaries and when inside the suburban networks, they'll raise pantographs and switch off the engines. If there was a city with metropolitan population of 3 million or more every 200km or so like there is on the east coast of the USA then a train that hauls butt would be more economically feasible and what's more, it'd already be on the rails. Australia cannot keep comparing itself to Europe. The EU is less than half the size of Australia in land area and has a population of half a billion people.
@@vintageradio3404 Where did I say anything about Europe or electrification? This is why I said I can only speak to Victoria. We weren't running empty rural trains 30 years ago, because we shut down almost all our rural passenger services 50 years ago; when petrol was cheap and Melbourne was two and half million people. DEMUs are great. Build more of those. Just provide railway services to places that need them.
@@reubenab6005 yeah, like I said almost every city or town. It would be good if they fix the gauge conversion issues and ran services out to Mildura, but it’s small enough and far enough away that I can’t blame them for not making it a priority. Similarly they should replace the overlande with daily,vline run, standard gauge, velocitys to Adelaide, but short of that I can see why Horsham isn’t a priority.
When you have less population in the entire country than Beijing, a city smaller than Sydney or Melbourne in size, dreaming of nation-wide rail network like in that city is just a pipe dream.
Yea it’s so dumb, people talk about how good Europe and Asia are and then asking why we can’t have the same is weird af. We are a tiny population and a massive country, it’s not as easy for us to do it compared to other places. Obviously it’s not an excuse but it’s certainly something to consider
Followed by the Chairman declaring that Melton would not get upgraded roads or an upgrade to its rail service. The ABS still counts Sydney as the biggest anyway. Either way, it's a moot point. With both cities exceeding 5 million, a few thousand here and there means nothing. Sydney is the kingpin for Australia's largest electric railway and that is probably the most relevant statistic to this thread.
@@vintageradio3404ABS counts Melbourne as the largest "Significant Urban Area" (comparable to "metro area" in the US) and Sydney as the largest "Greater Capital City Regional Area" (comparable to "combined statistical area in the US). Basically the main difference is that Sydney is only larger than Melbourne when the 300,000 people on the NSW Central Coast are counted as part of Sydney, as they are in the latter category. I think counting the Central Coast as part of Sydney is pretty questionable. That's like counting the Sunshine Coast in Greater Brisbane's population, which it doesn't count towards. Even Geelong has better links and more daily commuting to Melbourne than the Central Coast does to Sydney, yet that doesn't count towards Greater Melbourne. It's a bit strange that Central Coast is included in Greater Sydney's population, and it isn't really consistent with comparable places elsewhere.
@@JesusManera It's not strange at all. As I said elsewhere, everything south of Broken Bay is geographically a part of the Sydney basin. Geelong's rail link is not better than that between Sydney and the Central Coast - the latter is electrified, is serviced by eight-car double deck trains that have a crush capacity of 2,000 passengers, and has been for decades. Whilst there is a timetable for this line, it's pretty much a turn up and go service because it is that regular. I don't have ridership figures for Melbourne-Geelong and Sydney-Wyong but the difference in the total ridership figures (source: Sydney Trains and Melbourne Trains websites) is quite large. For Melbourne is is 120m passengers but for Sydney it is 400m. Why? The electrified network in Sydney and surrounding regions is simply larger and there are more trains.
Perfectly explained! We are going down to Melbourne to holiday from Newcastle and it was both cheaper and obviously faster to fly... come on, they need to drop the prices to beat airtravel.
V/Line is probaby the exception, the fact that a line which serves less than 50k receives 2x services a day (Swan Hill past Bendigo) is pretty good. V/line should run the Overland and maybe even take over NSWtrainlinks XPT to Sydney.
Now, I’m not an expert on… well, anything really. But I am super in to urbanism and the idea of our country just not sucking so much. In other words, I wish I could frequently get from Sydney to visit my sister in Brisbane without spending the world, for example. I watched the latest video from Oh the Urbanity about urbanism projects happening across Montreal and the theme they’re taking in that city is small, progressive changes, rather than just master planning and building the whole thing all at once. Take the Sydney to Melbourne train route for example (and the Canberra branch line). Instead of wishing for the never-going-to-happen HSR, focus on small, incremental and CHEAPER projects like straightening a bit of line here or removing a bit of grade there. Over time, these will slowly add up to reduced journey times. I don’t think regional rail needs to be an alternative to flying, as much as I think it does need to be a better, cheaper and faster option than driving, for now.
Agree absolutely. If we were to do just one project per year that each shaved 30 minutes from Melbourne to Sydney, after 10 years we'd have knocked 5 hours of the total travel time. Not exactly HSR, but that would make it a FAR more appealing journey for many potential passengers. Obviously some projects would take longer than that, but Australia doesn't need HSR. Let's straighten the existing corridors, remove the level crossings and watch the journey times tumble.
Three letters. HSR. With it comes the possibility of fast overland travel and in turn much needed relief for air corridors that are facing significant pressure
The thing is is doesn't have to be super fast like it is in other countries. 160 km/h would be a massive improvement on the 60-80km/h our trains run currently.
@@JustinWatson23 but 300km/h is the world standard these days, and is a speed that gives the railways a fighting chance when compared to air travel. That is what we need to aim for, because there need to be long-term solutions to the climate crisis
@@spdfatomicstructure I don't disagree. It would come down to the cost different though. vWe can get 160km/h running now, with modifications as required. The other thing is things like wifi and power (i know they are on the continually delayed new NSW regional trains). Many business people would actually use the train if they got 2-3 hours of uninterrupted work done on the train versus the airport lounge and plane. They would be more productive for longer even if the plane was an 1 hr quicker. I'd probably even say we need both. Fast rail should only stop a few times. but a faster service doing the current lines would be good also.
As someone who has lives in Toowoomba and regularly travels to Brisbane I think every time I'm on that highway how much easier this journey would be if there was a train. There are plenty on people who would love a regular train service from Toowoomba to even Ipswich! Not to mention the dozen towns and villages along the highway that have scores of people commuting to either Toowoomba or Brisbane for work every day. It's a service that would be used! as proven by how many people take the coaches into Brisbane everyday. Yes the range is an issue and I have seen the freight trains climb that track up the range and it was painfully slow. But if there was a station at the bottom of the range at Withcott, that would fix the problem. Add a regular bus service down the range and it would be the best think to happen to Queensland. If I need to travel into the city of Brisbane I refuse to drive cause it's so congested, so I do the hour long drive to Ipswich just to catch the train or catch a coach. The reason why people don't use the exsisting services is because they aren't worth it, or they have no idea they existed!
The Blue Mountains line takes 40 minutes to get from Lithgow to Mt Victoria alone and takes 4 and a half hours to get to Central Station. It's crazy as you can drive to Sydney an hour quicker than taking the train.
Frequency is definitely a defining factor, I'm live in Bunbury and while the Australind line to Perth isn't running, the replacement Coaches are so infrequent that it's just not worth bothering, every time I look it's too late or too early. I really hope when the Australind does re-open it runs more often, more than once or so a day at least
Funny you mention this. I'm currently considering planning a rail trip from Sydney to Adelaide. It's been interesting to make sure everything lines up, but I have time on my hands, so I can spend a couple of days in Melbourne to be able to catch the Overland to Adelaide. The problem with the Overland is it's run a by luxury tourist rail operator, and is treated as such. If Vline, or the SA equivalent, ran it like a commuter service, it'd be a different story. Cost is in interesting factor, the Sydney - Melbourne XPT, with sleeper, is $230 with no food included, a flight is much cheaper.
Another option to consider is to skip melbourne and take the vline recommended route from sydney to adelaide. Change at albury at the arse crack of the morning and bus across victoria. Not the most comfortable route, but hard to beat on price for the vline sections of the route (unfortunately sydney to albury is nsw transport territory and costs so much more than it should) Maybe not the way to do it every time, but as a one time trip its quite the adventure
If you're doing more than a couple trips on NSW's trains, it becomes better value to get the Discovery Pass, which gives you unlimited access to the regional network at one price for the purchased period. When I do Melbourne to Brisbane, I buy a 14 day Pass and pay the extra sleeper fee on any overnight legs of the journey. Cheaper than paying individually for the four legs of the journey up and back.
i live on the melbourne to albury line and the hard thing is when there are works having to be done to improve intercity rail, the small town communities just go up in arms, or get upset that their train goes even slower, so the artc gets a lot of pushback from small town communities.
Definitely agree, as someone who travels between Adelaide and Melbourne very frequently and usually is done via air or car, but if Train was more affordable and faster it would definitely be the only travel I would be using
The QLD regional rail system between Rockhampton & Brisbane is as close to being in a sweet spot as I can ever recall. Prices are much cheaper than car fuel & ongoing highway upgrades have it being often the faster option. There is usually a few trains per day, and the trade off is about right between the quicker tilt trains or the roomier/fancier long distance haulers
Sydney to newscast route is quite slow, it turns me from going off sometimes. Also the fact they cut off trains between 1:30am to 4:46am, even on Friday and Saturday. It’s not actually as effecicient as it could be, but they don’t wanna spend more than needed, if it runs it’s good enough for them, but during the day it is about every 35 minutes which isn’t too bad. It takes just about 2 hours, even tho it takes 30 minutes less to drive
Just this week, I chose to take a coach from rural Victoria to Adelaide, even though the Overland did run that day from the same town. Why? Because the terminal in Adelaide is ridiculous! Interstate trains stop there, but suburban trains don't! And it's a completely pedestrian-hostile walk to the next suburban station. The V-line coach, OTOH, goes to a good terminal in inner-city Adelaide, with lots of nearby buses and the trams are pretty close, too.
nice video! it would be great to see higher frequency on regional routes in nsw but we don't have many regional trains, for example each year when trainlink runs the 'elvis express' to Parkes the scheduled Dubbo service is replaced by road coaches. I believe that the current XPT fleet only allows 4 power cars to be unavailable and the new regional fleet only provides 2 extra regional sets compared to the current XPT and Explorer fleet.
Strategically upgrade some lines to HSR and then boost and reactivate branch lines that cross them. And have a very high speed line between Melbourne and Brisbane via near to Newcastle and parts of Sydney at strategic transfer hubs like their metro and some express train stations and the HSR can replace existing express trains as it would run on its own tracks rather than like v/line that shares with local trains in Melbourne. Maglev can be successful if strategically done. With a tunnel to allow faster trains to Sydney to bypass the crazy turns on the blue mountain line.
I like V/line but I can say that the bus connections the NSW intercity network like the XPT or the Xplorer. These trains also aim to travel at speeds approaching 160Km/H. On a recent journey from Melbourne to Orange in NSW, I was shocked to see how quick the whole journey actually seemed in relation to driving there by car.
High speed rail between capital cities is a dangerous distraction from what is possible. Money needs to be spent on shorter distances now, such as Sydney to Newcastle. By all means, design them in such a way that they could be extended to capital cities but don’t make it the rationale. It is a regular distraction that manages to destroy sensible and justifiable rail upgrades as collateral damage. The RM Transit staging options were pure nonsense.
@@paulorocky Lots of people have run the numbers and the answer is always the same. The benefits are few and the cost is huge. We have much better things to spend our money on.
I agree mostly. And it's not an either/or proposition. You can do the incremental approach for the intercity routes, while also setting up a much needed focus on the other shorter regional rail lines. I do think that RM Transit is on the right track though (sorry for pun). He is trying to break down the intercity route to be more manageable, which is exactly what it needs. I just think he didn't understand that the approach needs to be far more incremental and systemic.
@@wolfblaide He had a crazy idea about building the easy bits first, say Albury to Goulburn which will have virtually no benefits until connected at either end 30 years later.
Been in Europe recently, Australia's rail network sure doesn't have trains as frequent as other countries but it's much more reliable (less delays and cancellations) as well as a hell of a lot cheaper, in Europe it's quite often less expensive to fly. Overall Australia (especially Victoria) have fantastic rail network systems!! We are very lucky
Victoria spends far more money per passenger on the regional services than it does metro, so I would argue that the problem is the reverse in Victoria.
The Goverment never extended the NSW South coast line towards Victoria as it ends in Bomaderry. There were talks back in the early 70s there were going to extend the line up to Jervis Bay as nothing has been said after this. It will never happen as the population in those areas isn't large enough, yet.
I caught the train from Brisbane to Sydney once , people fighting , people smoking weed and rolling around on the floor drunk, people getting kicked off the train in the middle of the night at random stations. Just wild, never again
Regarding branding and name recognition: I don't think we'd actually need a single Amtrak-style Branded Rail Service to achieve better public recognition of Australia's rail services. For one thing, with only 6 states instead of 50, and with comparatively few people who commute across state borders regularly, each state could simply market its own statewide service and achieve substantial name recognition. But for another thing, right now there are only two companies that actually operate intercapital rail -- the state-owned NSW Trainlink (Syd-Bris, Syd-Can and Syd-Mel) and private company Journey Beyond (Adl-Per, Adl-Syd, Adl-Dar, Adl-Mel and seasonal Adl-Bris). Either of these companies could do a big marketing blitz and substantially increase their patronage if they could find the money for it. (The reason I say "intercapital rail" is because V-Line operates a single route which is technically interstate, the Melbourne to Albury service, but that's a long way from Sydney. Also, Journey Beyond has very much been tightening their belts recently, they did not do well over the pandemic, so I don't like their odds of doing a marketing blitz unless the Victorian government can either convince them to run the Overland daily or they can just sell the Overland to V-Line instead.)
I think the trains in my area are pretty good to be honest. We have V/line because Victoria, and there is a train on the Melbourne - Traralgon line every hour, which means you can get from basically every town on the line whenever you need.
it's also worth mentioning, having grown up on the overland route, that it's designed more as a tourist train. day-to-day, people in these towns take vline buses and trains and stateliner buses if they don't want to or can't drive. the firefly bus runs twice daily, and even that is a more practical option for travel between melb and adl.
Which will be first? Improving Australia's regional and interstate trains or a contactless smartcard fare collection system for use on all Australian public transport services.
You Aussies have it pretty good when it comes to regional trains. Up here in Canada, although we have a national carrier, it’s anemic and may as well be a tourist train with the speeds it runs at. Your State governments seem to be doing a pretty good job connecting to smaller centres and providing transit options.
Newcastle - Central Coast - Sydney should be the priority of HSR. It would be most patronized. Then you can go north and south from there. North to Brisbane. South to Melbourne.
Generally agree. But. I have lived in many parts of the world and used trains and planes extensively here and in Europe and event the USA. What many people don't understand is that business people want to get to a major city, do their day's meetings / conferences etc and GET HOME the SAME day. So that means to compete with a plane let's assume 2 hours for travel to airport, check in and catch flight. Then the flight (e.g. 1hr 15 Melb to Syd) and same 2hrs for travel to aiport and return. That means a travel component of the day under six hours TOTAL. Even a maglev Melb to Sydney cannot do that - or anything close to it especially if it needs to stop in regional towns for extra patronage. And forget Brisbane or Adelaide. SO realistically, for business it's planes in and out between our major cities. For closer regional cities I agree with your main premise: it's all about frequency. I catch Geelong / Melb frequently and it's generally great - you don't have to worry about which exact train you are going for - there's always another one - even at night. But the other regional towns are a problem. We don't need trains to be FASTER. We need them more FREQUENTLY. But can we PLEASE get off the topic of super high speed trains between Sydney and Melb - or even more problematically Melb to Adelaide as it's not going to work for a daily piece of work. If you force people into overnight then everything changes and again you don't need the super high speed train. Our major cities are just too far apart for the time / cost logistics. Plus with EVs coming onto the scene (next 20 years transition) a lot of trucks and cars up the Hume Hwy will no longer be highly polluting. And some will be autonomous. That's halfway to an electric train in my book.
Thanks for the interesting video. i wish that they would consider upgrading the Overland train services between Melbourne and Adelaide to compare with the Melbourne to Sydney train services. Back in 2013, when I rode the Overland train, it ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though since then, it has reduced to Monday and Friday only. It really needs to run both ways, seven days a week. Also, various regional train lines no longer run, especially in NSW, like Tenterfield, Murwillumbah and Mudgee, which really all should be reinstated. I remember some years back, we almost lost the Warrnambool Vic train service, but fortunately, that has been retained.
By the time electrified rail corridors could even be completed (to say nothing of how the funds and political willpower are raised), alternative clean aeroplane fuels would likely be propelling jets through the skies, at no cost to the taxpayer. Frequent Regional rail is all that is needed for most corridors, adding night trains for the longer journeys is a brilliant solution as well. Great video!
Another issue to Australia’s regional long distance trains is privatisation where the government doesn’t fund the long distance trains of the Ghan and the Indian Pacific thus that’s why most of the trains in Australia are so expensive and thus they become tourist trains rather than public transit
While I live in a rural town in Victoria of decent size we have struggled to get decent rail here and only in last couple years gone to a better train when it b works
One of the reasons for the failure of regional trains is due to some politicians (most likely) having a financial interests in the companies that build & maintain the Highways, freeways & road networks.
It would make all the sense in the world to connect the cities better. Not only public transport but also for transit, we’re so dependant on vehicular transport. Also, better developed train lines would be great for getting people out of overcrowded cities and use the expansive land that we have.
A great video. I would add that one of the things holding back regional rail in Australia (certainly at least in my state, NSW) is that politicians and transport officials see regional rail merely as a welfare service for disadvantaged people who can’t drive. It is a basic, no frills, bare-bones service for people who don’t have a choice. The NSW railways are currently purchasing an entirely new regional fleet from Spain to replace the existing XPT, Xplorer and Endeavour fleet entirely - yet the new trains won’t have any sleeper cars, nor are they ordering more trains than the existing fleet so service improvements will be impossible. Only a government that sees rural passenger transport as “welfare on wheels” could make such anger-inducing, short-sighted decisions. We need to somehow convince policy makers that regional rail can be so much better & can make economic sense. Victoria has done a somewhat better job of this.
Many people including myself prefer to work with the regional and metro PT services on offer and don't bother with driving much unless there's no choice.
I did Sydney to Adelaide return back in 2010 when the Indian Pacific had their Red DayNighter seats & it took about 24 hours. In 2022 I did Adelaide to Sydney return via a 13 hour Adelaide to Albury bus followed by the 8 hour XPT. They did apparently do a trail of a bus to Broken Hill from Adelaide that would connect with the Xplorer but last I looked they discontinued it, sad as it's a nice trip.
Used the regional trains in Victoria and was impressed. However, NSW regional trains don't allow bicycles unless they are boxed. If any form of public transport can carry bicycles it has to be trains.
Im so disapointed I nwver got to take the train down to Bombala. I would have like to have taken a train to the snow in Australia. I reckon they need to open the line up again to Tumut or Cooma and have it go to the snow. Make it part of the hydro project or something. At the very least, extend the skitube further down the mountain.
Honestly the fact that the Sydney - Canberra train is an hour longer than driving is bizarre to me. Imagine how much government travel is constantly happening between the two cities, not to mention everyone travelling for any other reason
Sydney to Melbourne already have a overnight sleeper train every night (approx $240 each way) and between Sydney and Brisbane each way as well approx $250 for sleeper cabin) on NSW Trainlink
Another thing to look at is that the Overland, Ghan, and India Pacific, three of the longest train journeys in Australia are _luxury_ experiences so are prohibitively expensive and unsuitable for someone who just wants to _get there._ I mean, stopping in Marla to watch the sunrise with a bacon sandwich is nice, but if you were commuting that's just unnecessary stopping, also with the off-train excursions, if you're commuting you don't wanna have to get off the train and do something for a few hours instead of, you know, _moving towards your destination._ That's where US trains are actually better, because they allow you to make an experience out of it, or you an just get from A to B without it costing thousands of dollars.
The Melbourne to Adelaide line used to be direct broad gauge, they made it standard gauge to link up with the rest of country but it’s very indirect now turning off at Ararat going via Geelong, they need a standard gauge link from Ararat to Melbourne through Ballarat
Perth to Sydney by train is $2400 and 4 days.
Perth to Sydney by plane is $260-$800 and 5h30m.
Anglo nations may be known in modern times for their extremely poor rail despite being big pioneers of it; but to me Aussie regional rail is the worst of the worst. Like the yanks; seems we've had a big problem with too many overpaid chiefs hiding behind the senate; for the amount of Indians actually building and servicing the lines. America were lucky to create Amtrack back when their federal government was still mostly trying to do its job, rather than just dancing for corporate donors.
i dont think you can really compare tbh, cost could easily be reduced, the thing is the train is a luxury train not a train designed to take people from A to B,
Are you looking at journey beyond there a private tourism operator not government run.
Actual government run lines are usually fairly competitive in price with planes.
I actually get sleepers cheaper then planes with pension discount.
@@nathnathn You need to work on your English, as your comments are poorly written.
@@RealNotOrrio Whilst I agree with you in the sense that the Indian Pacific is a luxury tourist train, would Australians be prepared to travel from Sydney to Perth in a seat or accept Russian style cheap sleeping accommodation?
its wild how much of an issue all the bends in routes adds to distance, sydney to melbourne for example the train makes 72 full rotations each way
XPT Melbourne to Albury is not too bad as the track has been improved heaps but after that is where the speed drops because of bends and track restrictions. Melbourne to Adelaide is a trip for tourists at best.
@@cabbagepatch8947And the Sydney to Brisbane "XPT" gets depressing with all its meandering to, and the fact it doesn't service many towns that would welcome the service on the coast
Important to hammer home the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@cabbagepatch8947 ikr i want to go to adelaide for a music festival later on and it is more expensive to travel by train than plane so im definitely staying away from that
It is $80- Plane and it was $120- Train and not even on a close date i need
Hills exist chief. Trains weren’t just built to move 7 people city to city each day.
V/Line seems to be doing alright, trains are far more frequent today than 20 years ago and lines are being upgraded all the time. Melbourne to Warrnambool now sees more trains than Sydney to Canberra.
Victoria has no excuse not to have good regional services. It's a fairly flat place. NSW does have an excuse; really shit topography in every direction out of Sydney, meaning the old steam age tracks are winding and steep in places. ('Steam age' rail culture doesn't help either.) Possible but expensive to correct.
Could be done in stages, just like how the Hume Highway got converted from a winding two lanes to a four lane motorway. A good place to start would be to do a new rail corridor parallel to the motorway from Menangle rejoining the existing tracks near Pheasants Nest, then improve it all bit by bit. Good luck.
The other thing is, it's not just the passenger services, the Sydney to Melbourne route is primarily a freight line, and the public and industry would benefit even more greatly from its improvement. Could be in the same corridor (but not the same track as higher speed passenger services).
@@tacitdionysus3220 the legacy line could be relegated to freight and sleeper services, but a new set of rails - preferably HSR - would be needed for the daylight services
It's better than it was, but it still needs to improve. Check out the Wikipedia list of places in Victoria by population size and see how far down the list you get before you find a place you can't catch a train to. (Hint: it isn't far.)
@@spdfatomicstructure So do nothing for faster freight, so it remains uncompetitive against trucks for all except bulk, and pay for two separate systems? Yeah, nah.
@@shrikelet you get to 9, which is understandable as Mildura is so far from everywhere else in Victoria it’s further north than Canberra, and further west than Warrnambool. After that the next place that’s more than 20 kms from a station is Portland at 32nd, with a total population of about 10k.
Our prime minister in the 70's, Gough Whitlam, attempted to create a national operator called Australian National. Commonwealth Railways as well as those from Tasmania and South Australia all signed up but the other states didn't. The subsequent federal governments didn't invest in AN and forced lines to close, and John Howard sold off the AN's passenger operations such as the Overland, Indian Pacific, etc. These services are now essentially tourist trains.
*Not... quite*
"Australian National was a re-branded "Commonwealth Railways" which was started around the time of the First World War, not in the 1970's
In the 1970's, the South Australian govt jumped at the chance to offload it's trains onto someone else as did Tasmania, which then became "Australian National".
That "subsequent federal government" you mention was Paul Keating's cut-backs (as Treasurer then Prime Minister). Paul Keating began the Privatisation Process by re-branding "Australian National" as National Rail, which eventually was combined with NSW government railways, the whole lot being eventually put up for sale, after a very complex process.
Paul Keating started the Privatisation process for Australian National, a suggestion that cost him dearly in the subsequent election (1996).
John Howard said he'd reverse such if he was elected; he was elected and did not reverse the privatisation process, the sale being completed in 2002.
Tourist Traps
John Howard again. I feel like John Howard doesn't get nearly enough credit for ruining Australia.
@@MrGeocidalno chance under Australia's current media ownership
@@ozsteamer2755 "In November 1996, the Federal Government announced a major rail reform package that included the sale of Australian National.[15]" - Cited from Wikipedia, that was Howard's government. On 1 July 1975, the Australian National Railways Commission took over responsibility for the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways and branded itself Australian National Railways. It wasn't quite a re-branded Commonwealth Railways either, it's purpose was integrating state networks such as SA and TAS which it did successfully.
Another big issue with travel to regional towns is that those towns are very car centric - so if I got the train from Sydney to Dubbo, it would be hard for me to get around Dubbo without a car... At which point I might as well drive the whole way.
But more trains between smaller towns could be a winner - like why can't someone in Dubbo do a day trip to Bathurst or Orange by train? These are easy fixes, but will require a much bigger fleet to run these services.
A bigger fleet and duplicate the lines would help but if there is no votes in it it ain't going to happen.
it’s a pity all of the tram systems got torn up, because in the modern day they would be a great asset, e.g; bendigo - tram went to the hospital or past weeroona to the school, thales factory (which is next to a train line and a perfect place for a station), botanical gardens, down south to lansel square, etc. If places like Bendigo kept their trams as a way to commute more people would probably catch the train
I wonder if the trick is you build a railway hotel that does deals. Train and stay is cheaper then other alternatives.
@@createdforthemoment6740 pretty much every town that has had a train station has a railway hotel. Most of those towns you would avoid those the railway hotels haha
I recent spent Easter at conference in Parkes and went by xpt it was a great ride, but with a walking difficulty I had to rely on car pooling for transport.Parkes has almost no public transport system. If it does I couldn't find it.
My hometown of Armidale (~30000) is a university town and is as of mid2000s the end of a northern train line.
You get 1 8.30am train to Sydney a day and that’s it it doesn’t get cancelled.
Bad luck to all the communities past that have no other connection than poorly maintained highways to syd.
I can’t speak for other State Governments but NSW it seems has especially underfunded regional rail for many years and would sooner rip out the rail for a bike trail than improve service
I'm also from Armidale and take this route on occasion. I don't think it's ever going to be upgraded to higher speeds so I think what would be ideal for this route is a night train.
The Gold Coast train will eventually terminate at Coolangatta, as well as the G-Link tram, right on the state border. When this happens, will people of northern NSW feel left out? Tweed Heads, Ballina and Lismore are much closer to Brisbane than Sydney.
@@bena8121 Good reason for QR to start SG'ing there rail line.
Looks like everyone from Armidale is here. Warm day today.
Most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
It's mind bending how the entire country understood the value of trains, and then over the course of two decades, all of that knowledge was unlearned.
100% agree. they used to have the adelaide melbourne service twice a day for about 40 dollars each way, sure beats 300 bucks there and back in petrol and having to drive or the hassle of going to the airport, yeah the flight is an hour but then you have to get to the airport, check in, wait around, airport beers, get off the plane, wait for luggage, get taxi or uber into town, etc so that is quite a few hours and expense there. on the train you get from the centre of one city to the centre of the city where you are headed. That overnight XPT is top shelf. on a side note one of my buddies used to live a couple of streets away from the puffing billy bridge. good times!
I just returned from a trip in Japan, and it's honestly astonishing how practical their train system is. Every major city has its own rail network and the cities themselves are either connected by bullet trains or limited express trains, both of which runs at least twice an hour from what I've seen. Unlike traveling by airplane, you don't have to go through the hassles you get at the airport, and you end up saving time even though the train technically takes longer (especially if you live close to the station.)
Not to mention, sightseeing during train rides in Japan is really fun.
Yeah. I went to Japan in May 2023 and I really enjoyed the bullet trains there. It made me really wish for faster travel within the Sydney Trains suburban network to and from the Sydney CBD, something that was lost for about 7 years now following the timetable change in November 2017. I know it's not related to regional travel but I though I'd share this experience of mine that I've been unhappy with for many years now. As for regional travel, I've done a few in 2022 and most of them were not on time. The most eggregious one being from Tamworth back to my home in Sydney. It was about a four hour wait for a replacement bus due to flooding on the tracks, then a slower intercity service back to Central Station. It was extremely frustrating. It made me not want to go back to regional travel until at least we have more modern trains that are more reliable than the XPTs and Xplorers.
Tiny country, massive population, they are in a very different situation than Australia. I remember going there and the train culture is so different, the respect and ease of use is insane. Here in Australia I swear most regional train users are just people getting out of prison
@100StepProgram getting out of prison?
A single national passenger operator would possibly help, but the states would never do that now.
It would probably end up privatised anyway and we saw how badly that’s worked in the past on freight.
Rather than that, I think it would be better for a national funding system to funnel $$ into the state rail systems. Either by subsidising new services, or, by funding infrastructure that aligns to longer term benefits. Probably both. That gives some autonomy to the states, but still funnels the $$ into the right areas, rather than roads.
That's one of the Things the US does well because we have a single fast Fully Electrified passenger rail corridor through the most densely populated part of the country run by a nation passenger rail carrier (although they do get bullied by private freight railroads like Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National, Union Pacific, and BNSF) but they do own that section of Electrified track they inherited from the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1971 after Penn Central fell apart
Unless you take it out of the states hands, they’ll never cross the borders like they should. See v/line ignoring Wagga for example.
@@leonkernan I think that's where better federal funding would solve those issues. Having states still manage the regional rail systems doesn't mean you can't use fed funding to fix that.
@@leonkernan hmmm yeah not a problem in the US because while yes many routes are state sponsored they are still operated at the Federal level
I live at the literal halfway point between Melbourne and Sydney (Junee)… the XPT travels through here four times a day… but the night trains arrive very late at night. The morning trains departures from Melbourne or Sydney are far too early.
There is a mid week train that leaves Sydney at lunchtime, comes to Junee around 6pm and then heads out to Griffith… it is an ideal train for my needs… but as mentioned is only once a week at that time.
So more frequent trains through Junee would help… perhaps restore the Riverina Express but say have it run to Albury four days a week and out to Griffith three days a week.
Also upgrade the trains so they have wifi available the entire trip (mobile coverage is non existent outside the towns it travels through.
Have 20W USB charging ports at each seat… maybe even 240v power.
Have an on board entertainment system with movies and tv shows that play on your own device (just like many of the airlines do now)
Offer more leg room in between seats
Offer small cabins that can be either bedrooms (with longer beds rather than the shorter than singles they have now) AND/OR small workspaces… I’d gladly take a laptop on board if I had the table space and wifi to do work while travelling
Have better food options and not just one service time for cooked dinner meals.
Follow Victoria’s lead and reduce the cost of tickets!
Not that this is incredible, but it is a 100% improvement...the Griffith train is now two days a week, on Wednesday and I think Friday, or Saturday - one of the two. Small wins
The very limited public transport within regional towns is one of the main reasons people rarely take inter-city trains. Example: Geelong with over a quarter million people has buses that on a sunday usually stop running by 6 and even on a weekday services are infrequent and very indirect. for most people they're just unusable unless you're desperate.
my town has 4 whole bus lines D: and only one of them runs past the train station (none at the moment) all of which stop running at 4 and dont run during school end times, its so frustrating as a non driver
Trains between Sydney - Melbourne - Brisbane are the NSW Rail XPT, operated by the State Government. Trains between Sydney - Adelaide - Perth (the Indian Pacific), Adelaide - Melbourne (The Overlander) and Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin (The Ghan) are operated by a private company who sells a journey, not a means of transport.
IIRC the Overlander is an outlier, as though it runs by GSR/JB, it does recieve subsidies from VIC and SA state governments to operate the route. For a long time, I think federal govt provided subsidies for low cost seat class coaches on the Ghan and Indian Pacific as well, but they got pulled years ago.
Personally, I use V/Line services on a regular basis, and I believe that they are a generally viable option for getting around regional Victoria.
Of course, there are some things which could be improved: weekend frequencies, lack of comfortable long-distance facilities on the latest train orders, the privatised mess that is Southern Cross Station, etc., but every major system has its drawbacks. It's also good to see that the Victorian government is investing in our regional rail services, by duplicating single track and making other infrastructure optimisations which allow for more efficient train operation. It would also be great to see electrification of the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines, but this doesn't seem to be something that is going to happen any time soon, nor is the Geelong fast rail project. Both of these projects would've boosted capacity on the trains between our two biggest cities, providing a more comfortable trip for people on the train, and helping encourage more people out of their cars!
I'm also going to be taking the daytime XPT from Sydney to Melbourne later this week. A range of factors contributed to my decision to do this: arriving and departing from the central railway station in each city provides more convenient transport options at a lower price than arriving at the airport. You also get the opportunity to see more of the countryside and regional towns while travelling by train than you do by air, and you can get up and walk around at your leisure. Of course, these benefits probably aren't so notable if you commute regularly on the service, but as a tourist to Sydney and NSW, it is certainly a selling point. Finally, I personally can't stand airports and anything related to air travel, so travelling by rail gets me out of that, and as a bonus is much better for the environment!
Some time ago the Victorian government developed the regional fast rail network for Victoria.
While the system only has a maximum speed of 160 kph the improved standard of track and signalling as well as increased frequency of new trains on country lines the passenger numbers increased dramatically.
This proves that if you provide a good service, the public will use it even if it does not travel at 250kph.
Two car Velocity trains began the service but it wasn't long before 3 car trains were required.
We currently use 6 car Velocity trains and in some cases we need 9 cars.
One of the big costs to improved travel times is to modernise the safe working system which other states have not done.
Victoria will be quite interesting if they do run new lines again, they just spent a fortune converting a ton of our out of use passenger track to standard gauge (we use broad gauge for passenger rail here) for the grain trains, I think it creates an interesting prospect for a private operator to lease or purchase older rolling stock, and set up an alternate transit network using those lines, since they’re not used during the daytime (or really at all right now) Seeing as tourist trains have been able to run services on the lines it’s clear the possibility exists, it’ll just take someone with the right money to restart it.
Because they’re using the standard gauge, it would even make it worth interlinking the network across the border with NSW, simply extend the Mildura line up to meet the Broken Hill line, suddenly you have a second route into NSW, and if routes to Adelaide could be opened up, that could also interlink too.
I actually believe that the removal of the rail services up in the Mallee region at the start of the 90s actually likely contributed significantly to the decline of all the towns on that route, people living in Mildura have been screaming for a train line to reopen for over a decade now.
And the other big problem with regional rail especially here is the fact that all lines lead down to Melbourne, and there are no cross links, for example if you were to specifically take a train from Bendigo to Shepparton, that can take up to 14 hours, despite the cities being less than 2 hours apart by car. You’re forced to travel to Melbourne, wait for one of the infrequent trains, and then travel back up the specific line. The fact the network has no interconnection also means that if a section of track is damaged or out of service, the entire line goes down, and the only alternative is bus transit, which is uncomfortable and cramped.
There is no redundancy and there is no consideration that people outside of Melbourne have a right to reliable and frequent public transit. The only reason it’s not in demand is that people can’t even imagine what services would be, as we’ve spent decades not even having access.
melb - syd - bris is an obvious candidate for much faster rail, i think most people would prefer to avoid the hassle of security, waiting, delays, no wifi / phone reception and cramped conditions of flying. But travel times would need to drastically reduce. Sadly a new line would be needed at great cost.
In addition, high speed rail is a long term proposition and takes a lot of political will (as we've seen with HS2 in the UK) to see it through - our election cycles mean that even if one party ran with this, there's a risk that it would be cancelled when there's a change of office (particularly given the high costs involved). So you really need a bipartisan approach.
One important thing to mention is the fact that most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
We never spent much time bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
First, we definitely need night sleeper trains to Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide. That should be a priority since we are getting sub par XPT replacements.
Second, we should look to upgrade the windy track in places to get faster trains rather than straight to high speed rail. Although we should reserve the land corridor for high speed rail asap.
Oh no what you are guys getting saddled with? - someone from the original South Wales
@@TheGreatUnwashedThing CAF civity hybrids, fine for a few hours but poor choice for the interstate runs I believe (based on others opinions too).
th-cam.com/video/eOzRPynRgoM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AFHHoPZcpKYZk_VC
In my student days I travelled between Sydney and Melbourne and the end of each term. There was one daytime train each day "The Intercity Daylight Express" and three overnight trains.
The Southern Aurora was an overnight sleeper express. The Spirit of Progress was an overnight train with first and second class seats as well as some sleeper carriages. In holiday and peak travel times there was also a train referred to as the Third Division which was just basic second class seats in non-heated carriages which were very cold in winter. From memory the Southern Aurora departed Sydney at 20:00 and the Spirit of Progress at 20:10.
Travel between Sydney and Adelaide was also possible by catching the Daylight Express from Sydney then changing at Sunshine (suburban Melbourne) onto the awaiting Overland - an overnight train directly to Adelaide.
Yep. A good service pattern for the intercapitals (I'd for BNE-SYD / SYD-MEL / MEL-ADL and SYD-ADL via Broken Hill) would be four trains a day each direction, An early morning limited stop, a later morning stopper, an evening limited stop sleeper with motorail, and a late evening sleeper stopper, with no motorail. We should have the same pattern for BNE-CNS, as well as an hourly SYD-CBR semi high speed service through some limited realignments, electrification and level crossing removals.
@@Syulang-nt4kj Later in my student days when studying in Adelaide I would catch the Indian Pacific from Sydney and change at Peterborough onto an awaiting shuttle train to Adelaide. The Indian Pacific had economy class twin sleepers - but you could end up with strange travelling companions which is good practice for Chinese and Russian trains!
I travelled to Brisbane a few times on the Brisbane Limited which was OK. The main problem travelling north is the ridiculous meandering track around Gloucester. I never knew why they ripped up the track from the Gold Coast Murwillumbah!
In 1994 I travelled on a Tilt Train from Sydney to Canberra. The carriages were on loan from somewhere and the engine was just a normal NSW one. It was part of a trial but it was never taken up.
Didn't The Spirit of Progress go throuh Wallangarra when it was running? That meant you had to change at Wallangarra for break of guage (NSW to QLD.)
@user-co2vz4py3r The Spirit of Progress was between Syd and Mel only. It did not go north to Qld.
@@aussiebloke51 The Casino-Murwillumbah line was closed because in the end the XPT was the only train using it, so the cost of maintaining the line for only one return train a day could not be justified.
The tilt train was the Swedish X2000, pulled by an XPT power car.
You mentioned Toowoomba!, Currently they is only a weekly rail service from Brisbane to Toowoomba. This ia due to the dreadful alignment over the Toowoomba Range, which resembles a goat track. If the route was duplicated and the line between Helidon and Toowoomba was realigned, a service with a 30-min frequency could be justified.
Yep. I've got family in Toowoomba, and it's crazy there isn't a frequent service into Brissie.... until I looked up the rail route on Google Earth. JFC... it's a shitshow.
The distance between Toowoomba and Brisbane is about the same distance from Lithgow and Sydney and yes it goes through the blue mountains and they come every hour
With inland rail, part of the route is between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Some reports I've read mention line upgrades, (realignment, conversion to dual gauge, possible electrification between the two). So improved service may end up a possibility
I live in Toowoomba and I didn’t even know we had a service to brissy.
V/Line’s Bendigo to Melbourne route has increased growth year on year for quite a while now, in fact it’s gotten to the point where many services don’t have enough seats on a regular basis.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
Bendigo is also growing rapidly in population.
Are they running 9 car sets yet? I know they did some testing few years back
@@galliman123 I think they are to Melton and Wyndham Vale but not further afield.
The reason people take the train from Newcastle to Sydney in spite of it taking longer than driving is that finding a park takes even longer.
Good video. I would argue Victoria is something of an exception to this, having invested quite a lot into upgrading the regional rail network and fleet, reducing travel times between Melbourne and key cities. The result is that patronage has massively increased. (I know some people will argue that there are many lines that have been closed down or left off; or that they hate VLocities but relative to other states, Victoria has an impressive regional rail network). The other challenge with all of this is our car-centric culture (similar to the USA). Most politicians don't see passenger rail as a vote-winner and hence, and when combined with short political cycles, we end up with poor decisions and focus on short term projects rather than wholesale improvements in the network.
Out of interest, where did you get the B-roll footage (ie drone shots of cities etc) you used in your video?
Victoria haven't done didly. What they have is a diesel run intercity network instead of an electric one and they call it regional rail. They have very few actual long distance lines like NSW has and the new lines they have built have been to separate these intercity services from suburban services.
@@carisi2k11 I guess it's all a matter of perspective. If you call spending $750 million on the Regional Fast Rail project followed by $4 billion on the Regional Rail Link project, plus the billions spent on the VLocity fleet, insignificant, then sure. Yes a lot of that to separate regional and suburban rail, as you say, but there's no denying it's improved service and reliability (I'm not trying to say any of these projects are perfect - far from it, and I appreciate stuff went over budget etc etc). But everything is relative. I live in a state with no real regional rail services (South Australia), so to me - the SA Government is the one doing didly (other than chucking a few dollars towards The Overland). Sadly.
@@carisi2k11 they have less long lines because Victoria is so much smaller, but almost every city or town with at least 10k population is within 20kms of a passanger rail service running multiple times a day both ways, and most have service direct to the town centers.
@@carisi2k11not sure if “haven’t done didly” means they have or have not done much. I think Vic has done OK in the last 15 years. V/Locity trains do 160kph, and is much faster than driving from where I live (Castlemaine) than driving.
I live near Castlemaine (Bendigo line) and commute the 120km or so to Melbourne regularly. The trains do 160kph (100 mph) most of the journey, much faster than driving - especially at peak times. I agree that frequency is an issue. There is 1 train per hour outside of peak times. All in all I think Victoria has done well with Bendigo, Ballarat, Bairnsdale and Albury V/Locity services and deserve praise. Another issue is the debt run up to pay for it, but let’s not talk about that here!
The biggest challenge for regional and intercity trains is Qantas. The lobby to stop these improvements.
One prime example of regional trains being successful in Australia is actually the tilt trains but even they need to be upgraded for 180kph operations + new trains soon.
Still need about double the number of trains to run at a frequency that's "useful" instead of just a tourist/curiosity product.
There are no 180kph sections, they are 160kph. No track in Australia is rated for running any faster than 180kph.
Victoria is an exception for the following reason: most of Australia's regional tracks were built at a time when Australia was extremely poor and thus were built cheaply with minimal major earthworks, bridges, tunnels, viaducts and culverts - and thus the lines were ambling and had low average speeds.
Whereas for example the lines in England, Germany, the US and others were built during a time where those countries were already wealthy, and were built straighter to a higher standard resulting in much higher speeds as train technology improved - Britain and Germany were already running trains at 160kmh before WWII!
Aus never spent much time improving or bypassing the old alignments, the exception being some of the lines in regional Victoria which were built when Victoria had money due to the Gold Rush and have also now been upgraded to have long sections with average speeds between 130-160kmh, are often faster than driving, and therefore get very decent patronage.
There aren't many sections in NSW where it would be worthwhile doing this sort of upgrade rather than just building a whole new line capable of 200kmh+. Corridors like Sydney to Canberra via Goulburn, Sydney to Newcastle/Maitland via Tuggerah or Sydney to Wollongong should just be new fast lines bypassing the old ones, the old lines are junk and can be given to freight. I honestly don't know what to do out West beyond the Blue Mountains between Lithgow-Bathurst-Orange-Dubbo, it might be worthwhile upgrading those since they will connect with the Inland Rail at Parkes & Dubbo.
@@BigBlueMan118electric tilt train reached 210kph during testing.
@@nicholasbyrne6485 I'll say it again though just in case it wasn't clear: no track in Australia is certified + rated for faster than 160kmh.
I did the Brisbane to Cairns trip on the Tilt Train and it was great. The original Queenslander Service it replaced should have been kept in my opinion as this is one of the World's great train journeys. The scenery is quite spectacular as you move from Sub-Tropical to Tropical and traverse many interesting regions. I really loved the original Queenslander because it was all about getting there, and you had individual cabins. The Tilt Train is good though with wide panoramic windows and sleeper beds.
I believe the original Queenslander rolling stock, built in Townsville, is now operating in Peru as a Luxury Andes Train.
The XPT hits 160km/h north of Albury. Curvy track is the main problem. We need to invest in realignment, and do it in stages. Every time we do this the travel time will go down.
I love Australia's regional trains and catch them whenever I can. You hit the nail on the head in regards to service problems with this video
I recently had to travel from brisbane to adelaide and even though i actively looked to see if rail was an option due to my dislike of flying i wasnt able to even find a rail service.
I think another thing is, Australia is so big that people just prefer to fly. Even with the inflation of domestic flights, 90% of the population would rather fly a $150 Jetstar flight from Sydney to Melbourne than sit on a train for hours. Ive done the Canberra-Sydney train twice and it took over 4 hours. It is 3.5 hours on a Murrays bus or a 40min flight.
erkk Jetstar. put sand under my eyelids and rub.
Great video. And it only really touches on the lack of good trains between major and regional cities. I'd love to see one where you look at the lack of good trains (or lack of trains entirely) between regional towns. I can only really speak for my native Victoria, but the way we've dismantled the rail network here over the past 50 years borders on the criminal.
To be honest I don't blame any government for scrapping the rail services we no longer have. If people don't use the trains, it is pointless running them. Here in NSW, as little as 30 years ago, the railways were running empty trains all over the state. One car's worth of passengers on a train of up to ten cars, plus the locomotive, baggage car and motor generator car. That just doesn't make any sense.
Trains to areas that still have rail services are mostly served by smaller DMU sets which have a smaller engine underneath each car for propulsion. No dining car, no sleeping car, no car carriers. Anything else would not meet fiscal requirements because again, they aren't always full.
Even the mighty XPT is about to be replaced with dual-mode DEMU cars. Diesel generators for outside of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where there are no catenaries and when inside the suburban networks, they'll raise pantographs and switch off the engines.
If there was a city with metropolitan population of 3 million or more every 200km or so like there is on the east coast of the USA then a train that hauls butt would be more economically feasible and what's more, it'd already be on the rails.
Australia cannot keep comparing itself to Europe. The EU is less than half the size of Australia in land area and has a population of half a billion people.
@@vintageradio3404 Where did I say anything about Europe or electrification?
This is why I said I can only speak to Victoria. We weren't running empty rural trains 30 years ago, because we shut down almost all our rural passenger services 50 years ago; when petrol was cheap and Melbourne was two and half million people.
DEMUs are great. Build more of those. Just provide railway services to places that need them.
@@shrikelet again almost every city or town of any real size in Victoria has rail service.
@@jakal0except mildura ☹️ and horsham (the overland isn’t a proper commuter service)
@@reubenab6005 yeah, like I said almost every city or town. It would be good if they fix the gauge conversion issues and ran services out to Mildura, but it’s small enough and far enough away that I can’t blame them for not making it a priority. Similarly they should replace the overlande with daily,vline run, standard gauge, velocitys to Adelaide, but short of that I can see why Horsham isn’t a priority.
one of the things we desperately need is high-speed railways between Brisbane and Melbourne using maglev technology.
When you have less population in the entire country than Beijing, a city smaller than Sydney or Melbourne in size, dreaming of nation-wide rail network like in that city is just a pipe dream.
Yea it’s so dumb, people talk about how good Europe and Asia are and then asking why we can’t have the same is weird af. We are a tiny population and a massive country, it’s not as easy for us to do it compared to other places. Obviously it’s not an excuse but it’s certainly something to consider
Melbourne is Australia's largest city, not second, it passed Sydney last year because they added a city from metropolitan area into their city limits.
Followed by the Chairman declaring that Melton would not get upgraded roads or an upgrade to its rail service. The ABS still counts Sydney as the biggest anyway. Either way, it's a moot point. With both cities exceeding 5 million, a few thousand here and there means nothing. Sydney is the kingpin for Australia's largest electric railway and that is probably the most relevant statistic to this thread.
@@vintageradio3404 well, Melbourne's public transport is overrall better, also trams.
@@vintageradio3404ABS counts Melbourne as the largest "Significant Urban Area" (comparable to "metro area" in the US) and Sydney as the largest "Greater Capital City Regional Area" (comparable to "combined statistical area in the US).
Basically the main difference is that Sydney is only larger than Melbourne when the 300,000 people on the NSW Central Coast are counted as part of Sydney, as they are in the latter category.
I think counting the Central Coast as part of Sydney is pretty questionable. That's like counting the Sunshine Coast in Greater Brisbane's population, which it doesn't count towards. Even Geelong has better links and more daily commuting to Melbourne than the Central Coast does to Sydney, yet that doesn't count towards Greater Melbourne. It's a bit strange that Central Coast is included in Greater Sydney's population, and it isn't really consistent with comparable places elsewhere.
@@JesusManera It's not strange at all. As I said elsewhere, everything south of Broken Bay is geographically a part of the Sydney basin. Geelong's rail link is not better than that between Sydney and the Central Coast - the latter is electrified, is serviced by eight-car double deck trains that have a crush capacity of 2,000 passengers, and has been for decades. Whilst there is a timetable for this line, it's pretty much a turn up and go service because it is that regular.
I don't have ridership figures for Melbourne-Geelong and Sydney-Wyong but the difference in the total ridership figures (source: Sydney Trains and Melbourne Trains websites) is quite large. For Melbourne is is 120m passengers but for Sydney it is 400m. Why? The electrified network in Sydney and surrounding regions is simply larger and there are more trains.
@@JesusManera The Mornington peninsula being counted as both Melbourne's urban and metro is is even more questionable!
Perfectly explained! We are going down to Melbourne to holiday from Newcastle and it was both cheaper and obviously faster to fly... come on, they need to drop the prices to beat airtravel.
V/Line is probaby the exception, the fact that a line which serves less than 50k receives 2x services a day (Swan Hill past Bendigo) is pretty good. V/line should run the Overland and maybe even take over NSWtrainlinks XPT to Sydney.
Stop fooling yourself here. Vline isn't the exception whatsoever. Vline lack an ability to run those services.
Now, I’m not an expert on… well, anything really. But I am super in to urbanism and the idea of our country just not sucking so much. In other words, I wish I could frequently get from Sydney to visit my sister in Brisbane without spending the world, for example. I watched the latest video from Oh the Urbanity about urbanism projects happening across Montreal and the theme they’re taking in that city is small, progressive changes, rather than just master planning and building the whole thing all at once. Take the Sydney to Melbourne train route for example (and the Canberra branch line). Instead of wishing for the never-going-to-happen HSR, focus on small, incremental and CHEAPER projects like straightening a bit of line here or removing a bit of grade there. Over time, these will slowly add up to reduced journey times. I don’t think regional rail needs to be an alternative to flying, as much as I think it does need to be a better, cheaper and faster option than driving, for now.
Agree absolutely. If we were to do just one project per year that each shaved 30 minutes from Melbourne to Sydney, after 10 years we'd have knocked 5 hours of the total travel time. Not exactly HSR, but that would make it a FAR more appealing journey for many potential passengers. Obviously some projects would take longer than that, but Australia doesn't need HSR. Let's straighten the existing corridors, remove the level crossings and watch the journey times tumble.
On holiday, I caught the train from Brisbane to Maryborough.
Can't fault the service, staff were very helpful.
Watching in New Zealand.
Three letters. HSR. With it comes the possibility of fast overland travel and in turn much needed relief for air corridors that are facing significant pressure
The thing is is doesn't have to be super fast like it is in other countries. 160 km/h would be a massive improvement on the 60-80km/h our trains run currently.
@@JustinWatson23 but 300km/h is the world standard these days, and is a speed that gives the railways a fighting chance when compared to air travel. That is what we need to aim for, because there need to be long-term solutions to the climate crisis
@@spdfatomicstructure Climate crisis? What a laugh...
@@vintageradio3404 Laugh all you will. Let's see who has the last laugh
@@spdfatomicstructure I don't disagree. It would come down to the cost different though. vWe can get 160km/h running now, with modifications as required. The other thing is things like wifi and power (i know they are on the continually delayed new NSW regional trains). Many business people would actually use the train if they got 2-3 hours of uninterrupted work done on the train versus the airport lounge and plane. They would be more productive for longer even if the plane was an 1 hr quicker. I'd probably even say we need both. Fast rail should only stop a few times. but a faster service doing the current lines would be good also.
Just a correction for you, Melbourne is actually Australias Largest city, if you just googled "Australias largest city" you could see this.
No thats wrong its obviously newcastle
For people not in a hurry trains can be a very pleasant way of travel, so long as they do run where one is going.
As someone who has lives in Toowoomba and regularly travels to Brisbane I think every time I'm on that highway how much easier this journey would be if there was a train. There are plenty on people who would love a regular train service from Toowoomba to even Ipswich! Not to mention the dozen towns and villages along the highway that have scores of people commuting to either Toowoomba or Brisbane for work every day. It's a service that would be used! as proven by how many people take the coaches into Brisbane everyday. Yes the range is an issue and I have seen the freight trains climb that track up the range and it was painfully slow. But if there was a station at the bottom of the range at Withcott, that would fix the problem. Add a regular bus service down the range and it would be the best think to happen to Queensland. If I need to travel into the city of Brisbane I refuse to drive cause it's so congested, so I do the hour long drive to Ipswich just to catch the train or catch a coach. The reason why people don't use the exsisting services is because they aren't worth it, or they have no idea they existed!
The Blue Mountains line takes 40 minutes to get from Lithgow to Mt Victoria alone and takes 4 and a half hours to get to Central Station. It's crazy as you can drive to Sydney an hour quicker than taking the train.
Never ever with such unaccountable leaderships
Frequency is definitely a defining factor, I'm live in Bunbury and while the Australind line to Perth isn't running, the replacement Coaches are so infrequent that it's just not worth bothering, every time I look it's too late or too early. I really hope when the Australind does re-open it runs more often, more than once or so a day at least
Funny you mention this. I'm currently considering planning a rail trip from Sydney to Adelaide. It's been interesting to make sure everything lines up, but I have time on my hands, so I can spend a couple of days in Melbourne to be able to catch the Overland to Adelaide. The problem with the Overland is it's run a by luxury tourist rail operator, and is treated as such. If Vline, or the SA equivalent, ran it like a commuter service, it'd be a different story. Cost is in interesting factor, the Sydney - Melbourne XPT, with sleeper, is $230 with no food included, a flight is much cheaper.
Another option to consider is to skip melbourne and take the vline recommended route from sydney to adelaide. Change at albury at the arse crack of the morning and bus across victoria. Not the most comfortable route, but hard to beat on price for the vline sections of the route (unfortunately sydney to albury is nsw transport territory and costs so much more than it should)
Maybe not the way to do it every time, but as a one time trip its quite the adventure
If you're doing more than a couple trips on NSW's trains, it becomes better value to get the Discovery Pass, which gives you unlimited access to the regional network at one price for the purchased period.
When I do Melbourne to Brisbane, I buy a 14 day Pass and pay the extra sleeper fee on any overnight legs of the journey. Cheaper than paying individually for the four legs of the journey up and back.
i live on the melbourne to albury line and the hard thing is when there are works having to be done to improve intercity rail, the small town communities just go up in arms, or get upset that their train goes even slower, so the artc gets a lot of pushback from small town communities.
Definitely agree, as someone who travels between Adelaide and Melbourne very frequently and usually is done via air or car, but if Train was more affordable and faster it would definitely be the only travel I would be using
The QLD regional rail system between Rockhampton & Brisbane is as close to being in a sweet spot as I can ever recall.
Prices are much cheaper than car fuel & ongoing highway upgrades have it being often the faster option.
There is usually a few trains per day, and the trade off is about right between the quicker tilt trains or the roomier/fancier long distance haulers
Just something small to note....NSW to VIC train already does have sleeper. It's about $230 each way
Here in Tamworth ,the bridge over the river is now so bad ,now the train has to crawl over it.
Sydney to newscast route is quite slow, it turns me from going off sometimes. Also the fact they cut off trains between 1:30am to 4:46am, even on Friday and Saturday. It’s not actually as effecicient as it could be, but they don’t wanna spend more than needed, if it runs it’s good enough for them, but during the day it is about every 35 minutes which isn’t too bad. It takes just about 2 hours, even tho it takes 30 minutes less to drive
Just this week, I chose to take a coach from rural Victoria to Adelaide, even though the Overland did run that day from the same town. Why? Because the terminal in Adelaide is ridiculous! Interstate trains stop there, but suburban trains don't! And it's a completely pedestrian-hostile walk to the next suburban station. The V-line coach, OTOH, goes to a good terminal in inner-city Adelaide, with lots of nearby buses and the trams are pretty close, too.
nice video! it would be great to see higher frequency on regional routes in nsw but we don't have many regional trains, for example each year when trainlink runs the 'elvis express' to Parkes the scheduled Dubbo service is replaced by road coaches. I believe that the current XPT fleet only allows 4 power cars to be unavailable and the new regional fleet only provides 2 extra regional sets compared to the current XPT and Explorer fleet.
Strategically upgrade some lines to HSR and then boost and reactivate branch lines that cross them. And have a very high speed line between Melbourne and Brisbane via near to Newcastle and parts of Sydney at strategic transfer hubs like their metro and some express train stations and the HSR can replace existing express trains as it would run on its own tracks rather than like v/line that shares with local trains in Melbourne. Maglev can be successful if strategically done. With a tunnel to allow faster trains to Sydney to bypass the crazy turns on the blue mountain line.
I like V/line but I can say that the bus connections the NSW intercity network like the XPT or the Xplorer. These trains also aim to travel at speeds approaching 160Km/H. On a recent journey from Melbourne to Orange in NSW, I was shocked to see how quick the whole journey actually seemed in relation to driving there by car.
RMTransit says much without saying anything
High speed rail between capital cities is a dangerous distraction from what is possible. Money needs to be spent on shorter distances now, such as Sydney to Newcastle. By all means, design them in such a way that they could be extended to capital cities but don’t make it the rationale. It is a regular distraction that manages to destroy sensible and justifiable rail upgrades as collateral damage. The RM Transit staging options were pure nonsense.
Can’t help but feel it’s the road building, trucking and air transport lobbies who are responsible for those “proposals”
@@paulorocky Lots of people have run the numbers and the answer is always the same. The benefits are few and the cost is huge. We have much better things to spend our money on.
Totally agree.
I agree mostly. And it's not an either/or proposition. You can do the incremental approach for the intercity routes, while also setting up a much needed focus on the other shorter regional rail lines.
I do think that RM Transit is on the right track though (sorry for pun). He is trying to break down the intercity route to be more manageable, which is exactly what it needs. I just think he didn't understand that the approach needs to be far more incremental and systemic.
@@wolfblaide He had a crazy idea about building the easy bits first, say Albury to Goulburn which will have virtually no benefits until connected at either end 30 years later.
Been in Europe recently, Australia's rail network sure doesn't have trains as frequent as other countries but it's much more reliable (less delays and cancellations) as well as a hell of a lot cheaper, in Europe it's quite often less expensive to fly. Overall Australia (especially Victoria) have fantastic rail network systems!! We are very lucky
Which Europe were you in?
@@eddaines237germany i’d guess
Victoria spends far more money per passenger on the regional services than it does metro, so I would argue that the problem is the reverse in Victoria.
The Goverment never extended the NSW South coast line towards Victoria as it ends in Bomaderry. There were talks back in the early 70s there were going to extend the line up to Jervis Bay as nothing has been said after this.
It will never happen as the population in those areas isn't large enough, yet.
Our biggest problem is the low population densities outside of major citys
I caught the train from Brisbane to Sydney once , people fighting , people smoking weed and rolling around on the floor drunk, people getting kicked off the train in the middle of the night at random stations. Just wild, never again
Economy class in the XPT used to be like that. Cheepskate!
Regarding branding and name recognition: I don't think we'd actually need a single Amtrak-style Branded Rail Service to achieve better public recognition of Australia's rail services. For one thing, with only 6 states instead of 50, and with comparatively few people who commute across state borders regularly, each state could simply market its own statewide service and achieve substantial name recognition. But for another thing, right now there are only two companies that actually operate intercapital rail -- the state-owned NSW Trainlink (Syd-Bris, Syd-Can and Syd-Mel) and private company Journey Beyond (Adl-Per, Adl-Syd, Adl-Dar, Adl-Mel and seasonal Adl-Bris). Either of these companies could do a big marketing blitz and substantially increase their patronage if they could find the money for it.
(The reason I say "intercapital rail" is because V-Line operates a single route which is technically interstate, the Melbourne to Albury service, but that's a long way from Sydney. Also, Journey Beyond has very much been tightening their belts recently, they did not do well over the pandemic, so I don't like their odds of doing a marketing blitz unless the Victorian government can either convince them to run the Overland daily or they can just sell the Overland to V-Line instead.)
4:50
I have never seen Bendigo look so beautiful and appealing 💀
I think the trains in my area are pretty good to be honest. We have V/line because Victoria, and there is a train on the Melbourne - Traralgon line every hour, which means you can get from basically every town on the line whenever you need.
Thank you!
I live in Griffith NSW, regional town, trip times to Sydney, by train 12hr, car 6hr, we never even think of using the train.
I caught the train from Armidale to Sydney, took a 6.5hr drive to a 9 hour ride. Cost the same as fuel, never losing my licence again after that haha
it's also worth mentioning, having grown up on the overland route, that it's designed more as a tourist train. day-to-day, people in these towns take vline buses and trains and stateliner buses if they don't want to or can't drive. the firefly bus runs twice daily, and even that is a more practical option for travel between melb and adl.
Which will be first? Improving Australia's regional and interstate trains or a contactless smartcard fare collection system for use on all Australian public transport services.
It costs $10-$15 to catch a train from Melbourne to Bendigo. Which is 150 kms. I estimate it will cast about $20 to travel each way by car .
You Aussies have it pretty good when it comes to regional trains. Up here in Canada, although we have a national carrier, it’s anemic and may as well be a tourist train with the speeds it runs at. Your State governments seem to be doing a pretty good job connecting to smaller centres and providing transit options.
Newcastle - Central Coast - Sydney should be the priority of HSR. It would be most patronized. Then you can go north and south from there. North to Brisbane. South to Melbourne.
Aren't they meant to be building a HSR from Newcastle to Sydney and then to Wollongong?
@@AntonHandel-bw7vv They're planning it. Whether we get to see it is another story 🤣🤣
'Public transit systems in Australia are pretty decent'
cOuGH COuGH cOUgh AdElaIdE
Generally agree. But. I have lived in many parts of the world and used trains and planes extensively here and in Europe and event the USA. What many people don't understand is that business people want to get to a major city, do their day's meetings / conferences etc and GET HOME the SAME day. So that means to compete with a plane let's assume 2 hours for travel to airport, check in and catch flight. Then the flight (e.g. 1hr 15 Melb to Syd) and same 2hrs for travel to aiport and return. That means a travel component of the day under six hours TOTAL. Even a maglev Melb to Sydney cannot do that - or anything close to it especially if it needs to stop in regional towns for extra patronage. And forget Brisbane or Adelaide. SO realistically, for business it's planes in and out between our major cities. For closer regional cities I agree with your main premise: it's all about frequency. I catch Geelong / Melb frequently and it's generally great - you don't have to worry about which exact train you are going for - there's always another one - even at night. But the other regional towns are a problem. We don't need trains to be FASTER. We need them more FREQUENTLY. But can we PLEASE get off the topic of super high speed trains between Sydney and Melb - or even more problematically Melb to Adelaide as it's not going to work for a daily piece of work. If you force people into overnight then everything changes and again you don't need the super high speed train. Our major cities are just too far apart for the time / cost logistics. Plus with EVs coming onto the scene (next 20 years transition) a lot of trucks and cars up the Hume Hwy will no longer be highly polluting. And some will be autonomous. That's halfway to an electric train in my book.
Thanks for the interesting video. i wish that they would consider upgrading the Overland train services between Melbourne and Adelaide to compare with the Melbourne to Sydney train services. Back in 2013, when I rode the Overland train, it ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though since then, it has reduced to Monday and Friday only. It really needs to run both ways, seven days a week. Also, various regional train lines no longer run, especially in NSW, like Tenterfield, Murwillumbah and Mudgee, which really all should be reinstated. I remember some years back, we almost lost the Warrnambool Vic train service, but fortunately, that has been retained.
By the time electrified rail corridors could even be completed (to say nothing of how the funds and political willpower are raised), alternative clean aeroplane fuels would likely be propelling jets through the skies, at no cost to the taxpayer. Frequent Regional rail is all that is needed for most corridors, adding night trains for the longer journeys is a brilliant solution as well.
Great video!
Another issue to Australia’s regional long distance trains is privatisation where the government doesn’t fund the long distance trains of the Ghan and the Indian Pacific thus that’s why most of the trains in Australia are so expensive and thus they become tourist trains rather than public transit
I'd love to see proper sleeper trains linking our cities. Something with enclosed cabins and roomettes like they have on Amtrak.
Lack of patronage in regional areas! Australia is such a huge country compared to Europe, I tried Brisbane to cairns for 32 hours!
While I live in a rural town in Victoria of decent size we have struggled to get decent rail here and only in last couple years gone to a better train when it b works
One of the reasons for the failure of regional trains is due to some politicians (most likely) having a financial interests in the companies that build & maintain the Highways, freeways & road networks.
It would make all the sense in the world to connect the cities better. Not only public transport but also for transit, we’re so dependant on vehicular transport.
Also, better developed train lines would be great for getting people out of overcrowded cities and use the expansive land that we have.
Some of the most successful Amtrak routes are owned locally by the individual states, but operated by Amtrak.
A great video. I would add that one of the things holding back regional rail in Australia (certainly at least in my state, NSW) is that politicians and transport officials see regional rail merely as a welfare service for disadvantaged people who can’t drive. It is a basic, no frills, bare-bones service for people who don’t have a choice.
The NSW railways are currently purchasing an entirely new regional fleet from Spain to replace the existing XPT, Xplorer and Endeavour fleet entirely - yet the new trains won’t have any sleeper cars, nor are they ordering more trains than the existing fleet so service improvements will be impossible.
Only a government that sees rural passenger transport as “welfare on wheels” could make such anger-inducing, short-sighted decisions.
We need to somehow convince policy makers that regional rail can be so much better & can make economic sense. Victoria has done a somewhat better job of this.
Many people including myself prefer to work with the regional and metro PT services on offer and don't bother with driving much unless there's no choice.
I did Sydney to Adelaide return back in 2010 when the Indian Pacific had their Red DayNighter seats & it took about 24 hours.
In 2022 I did Adelaide to Sydney return via a 13 hour Adelaide to Albury bus followed by the 8 hour XPT.
They did apparently do a trail of a bus to Broken Hill from Adelaide that would connect with the Xplorer but last I looked they discontinued it, sad as it's a nice trip.
Used the regional trains in Victoria and was impressed. However, NSW regional trains don't allow bicycles unless they are boxed. If any form of public transport can carry bicycles it has to be trains.
Im so disapointed I nwver got to take the train down to Bombala. I would have like to have taken a train to the snow in Australia.
I reckon they need to open the line up again to Tumut or Cooma and have it go to the snow. Make it part of the hydro project or something.
At the very least, extend the skitube further down the mountain.
Honestly the fact that the Sydney - Canberra train is an hour longer than driving is bizarre to me. Imagine how much government travel is constantly happening between the two cities, not to mention everyone travelling for any other reason
Frequency is still a problem for suburban trains in Sydney. Regularly a 30 minute wait on weekends to get from the CBD to places like Liverpool.
Sydney to Melbourne already have a overnight sleeper train every night (approx $240 each way) and between Sydney and Brisbane each way as well approx $250 for sleeper cabin) on NSW Trainlink
The major limitations' is Electrification of the rail network, most train service intervals frequencies stop at the end of Electrification
Laziness and the inability to ask another country,Japan, Korea Germany,for assistance. "Don't mention it, so people will forget about it!"
Another thing to look at is that the Overland, Ghan, and India Pacific, three of the longest train journeys in Australia are _luxury_ experiences so are prohibitively expensive and unsuitable for someone who just wants to _get there._ I mean, stopping in Marla to watch the sunrise with a bacon sandwich is nice, but if you were commuting that's just unnecessary stopping, also with the off-train excursions, if you're commuting you don't wanna have to get off the train and do something for a few hours instead of, you know, _moving towards your destination._ That's where US trains are actually better, because they allow you to make an experience out of it, or you an just get from A to B without it costing thousands of dollars.
Great video, thanks! :)
Federal Govt has to invest in the hard infrastructure of actually building, owning and maintaining double-tracked railway lines
And the NSW government has squandered it's dosh on a bloody metro and forgoing regional services.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to towns south of Perth if a quality regional rail was built in these modern times.
The Melbourne to Adelaide line used to be direct broad gauge, they made it standard gauge to link up with the rest of country but it’s very indirect now turning off at Ararat going via Geelong, they need a standard gauge link from Ararat to Melbourne through Ballarat
Can we just appreciate the Moose's beautiful narration voice? Purr.