The Story of (non-existent) High-Speed Rail in Australia
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- Dear rail-lovers, as you might already know, Australia still doesn’t have a high-speed rail line. For a country of that size, economic strength, and potential, you will agree that this is quite a startling fact.
However, throughout different periods there have been several initiatives related to the construction of high-speed rail network in Australia, but all of them had something in common - they all failed.
This is exactly what we want to discuss in today’s video on Railways Explained, and at the very least try to shed some light on each of these initiatives, their scope and potential, and finally give you the answer as to why they all ended the same way.
We started by explaining the most frequently studied route for a high-speed rail in Australia - the so-called East Coast Corridor. This corridor includes connections between the four major cities in four major regions located in the far east of the continent - Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.
After that, we set out to explain all the relevant Australian HSR initiatives, which include:
- CSIRO Proposal (Melbourne - Canberra - Sydney HSR, 1984)
- Very Fast Train Initiative (350 km/h, Sydney - Canberra - Goulburn - Melbourne, 1988)
- SPEEDRAIL Proposal (Alstom/Leighton Contractors joint venture, Sydney-Canberra, 1993)
- Government Public Call from 1997 (Capital Rail, Inter-Capital Express, Speedrail and Transrapid bidders for Sydney-Canberra line)
- Very High-Speed Train Scoping Study (The East Coast Very High-Speed Train Scoping Study, 2001)
- High-Speed Rail Study - PHASE 1&2 (Sydney-Melbourne line, Kevin Rudd’s Government, 2008)
- Consolidated Land and Rail Australia Proposal (a world-class 500 km/h rail service Sydney-Melbourne, 2016), and
- Government High-Speed Rail Business Cases from 2017 and 2019 (8 corridors assessment)
Finally, we have tried to give our opinion on whether it is reasonable to expect that Australia will get a high-speed rail in the near future.
For the whole story, check out our video!
Credits: drive.google.com/file/d/1y4hZ...
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#Railways #Australia #HighSpeedRail
Planning for high speed rail is a core industry in Australia.
So true.
The "Planning Part" is a core industry in Australia
hahahaha
@@Cheesecake99YearsAgo Only the "feasibility study" section of the planning part.
Sounds like Canada......
There needs to be a feasibility study on the need for any more feasibility studies on high speed rail in Australia
ahhh....that's the Australian way!! but but you forgot the feasibility studies on the impact on the trans Australian snail...
Apparently it’s will take Australia 100 years to study it. It will get ready by 2121.
I'm not sure that's really feasible. Let me study it for a while.
What abput the feasibility studies on that
It's Nation Building!
They should have done it in the 80's, would have been profitable by now. 150 planes a day between Melbourne and Sydney is terrible for the carbon emissions and shows a real need in such infrastructure. I travel from Paris to the south of France for 10 euros in less than 3 hours with the TGV (Ouigo). It is just so easy and efficient and brings huge economic development. Fingers crossed for Australia.
I would like to see it built, but it isn't viable by any measure. The problem is that both Melbourne and Sydney are huge cities of over 5 million people that are further apart than the usual distance where high speed trains are considered competitive. All the rail corridors leading out of them are full with no room for extra tacks. That means a choice between putting high speed trains on very slow commuter lines or the expense of building 35 km tunnels in both cities to get to the open countryside. Then there are very complex planning laws with the legal appeals process taking up to 10 years. Even small projects such as building a 1 km gondola up a hill outside Melbourne to replace an existing chairlift cost A$10 million in planning and legal fees. Magnify that by 1000 and we are looking at billions of dollars in planning and legal fees over maybe 20 years before any tracks are laid. Finally the existing air route is very competitive and fares are cheap, so even if the train was built it would only attract a minority of passengers between the two cities.
@@Dave_Sisson as long as it's less than 1500km it's feasible.
@@Dave_Sisson it's not much more than DC to Boston in the states, and even they have a somewhat fast train on the route. Not high speed really but it gets rides. Between new York and DC it's actually most of tree air/rail market even though it takes as long and barely gets over 100
A real high speed train could do the route in about 3 hours, especially as an express service between the two. Some of Japan's newer trains could do it in abbot 2 and a half with no stops and good track.
@@Joesolo13 Similar distance perhaps, but imagine that there were basically nothing but a couple of small, medium sized cities between the two, and most of those clustered near one of the major centres.
I wish it weren’t so, but Australia WILL NEVER HAVE HIGH SPEED RAIL. Nuclear winter will happen before Australia gets HSR. We might get a few MSR lines near our big cities. Hell, I could see regional rail being totally abandoned beyond the small clusters around our cities and substituted with coach service. They’d be faster, too. OUr motorways while not perfect aren’t at all bad between our major cities.
@@Dave_Sisson Beijing - Shanghai = 1200 km
Sydney - Melbourne = 900 km
As an Australian, I wholeheartedly support high speed rail no-matter the cost.
Qantas curates a list of the most influential people in Australia, who are invited to a complimentary membership of "The Chairman's Lounge".
This lounge is by invitation only.
These very same decision makers are the ones who decide on how "viable" high-speed rail is.
The country would be better off doing HSR just for the regional development it would bring, which is gold. And subsidise Qantas if necessary.
There is an Australian comedy show called 'Utopia' that is shockingly accurate to the feel of working in the public sector. In one episode (S1E3) someone proposes a very fast train and it absolutely nails what it's like trying to make it work, even though it's doomed to fail. It pains every public servant how accurate that show is.
I had to turn it off after 5 minutes. Too real.
Should be included in the starter pack for all new public service employees.
Funniest documentary on tv ;)
First thing I through of when this popped up haha.
The show pretty much isn’t even fictional. There is are points when it might as well just be a documentary
Why don’t Australia get China to build it, cheaper, faster and the truth is, it’s good quality. Many Australian disagree, but it has been proven in China 😂 oops of course Australian pride. Not to work with China. Alright get America for help then, oh they have no idea about a high-speed rail. They got none.
Sydney - Melbourne seems like a pretty sweet spot for HSR, but seems like most cases here are sabotaged by the lack of commitment from government to support any private attempts.
I thought so too, but with how cheap airlines prices are, I think I was convinced that it's not worth the cost.
@@Gnefitisis I read some people here claiming that airplane is heavily subsidized though, and air travel actually has a limit
The sweet spot is actually the Newcastle to Wollongong corridor, where you will find high volume of travel. Go back to 2010 and you'll find the original Phase 1 HSR Study. In that document you'll find the Newcastle to Sydney corridor being analysed separately and being treated as the spine of the network. That's because the terms of reference specified this. Then the 2013 Phase 2 Study came along and the Canberra bureaucrats ended up pushing Sydney to Melbourne. To justify this corridor required some creative accounting. For example their baseline (pre-HSR) travel market estimates showed far more people travelling from the Southern Highlands to Sydney than from Newcastle and the Central Coast (50 thousand people versus almost a million). It was a sham created to push a predetermined outcome.
The airlines don't want competition (some are even run by ex-party members), then for some reason are invited to sit on any discussion about HSR with the government, of course, nothing gets done when you have an invested interest pulling the strings.
@@tomflavel7312 The airlines are rather irrelevant.
High speed rail in Australia is only talked about during elections and suddenly disappears afterwards
This is standard procedure. Make proposals - Recommendations - Promises before elections and
forget about them a week after the elections.
Politicians should sign a performance contract with the people, and should they be in breach of contract
because of their deceit then it's off to prison for 4 years and banned from public office for life.
@@andrew_koala2974 It is called gas lighting your electorate... Promise anything, deliver nothing...
@Amin Yashed let’s see how North Korea is doing
Basically the plot line of most of the episodes on the Utopia TV Series @polelot mentions in the above comment.
Amin Yashed umm I’d take current Australia over a totalitarian dictatorship any day of the week. Dictators do weird sh!t once they reach that level of power and no one can do a thing about it.
3:22 An interesting aside: It's the busiest air route _that is entirely overland._ If Seoul Jeju was entirely overland, South Korea would've built a high speed rail already.
Out of place and context, though spoken truthfully
Chinese: just build a fuckin bridge.
@@steveding2006 Too bad Jeju is under UNESCO world heritage site so a bridge is out of question
@@RoyMcAvoy Chinese doesn't give a fuck about UNESCO
South Korea squeezes twice Australia's population into a landmass the size of Tasmania.
3 hours including trip to/from the airport? That seems a little tight.
Anyway, the distance between Melbourne Sydney and Sydney Brisbane is approximately the distance between Paris and Marseille. The TGV completely crushed the air shuttle between those cities as it runs just under 3h.
And I can tell you tracks to get out of Paris center are much more saturated than any line in Australia. But they managed to make it work and trains already run as fast as 160km/h before entering the 320km/h HSR.
When there's will...
Considering the amount spent on studies, they could probably have had the line between Sydney and Canberra built already XD
Probably have one from Melbourne to Cairns and another from Melbourne to perth
knowing our government, they'd bring in the Chinese to build it.......
are you sure.....
Does anyone who isn't a politician actually go to Canberra from Sydney?
LOL IFKR??!?!?? this country is so damn backwards!
Pretty easy to explain why Australia never gets high speed rail between capital cities. It would challenge the Qantas (government) control on travel. There’s a really strange power that Qantas has over the travel routes in Oz. Set up anything that challenges it and Qantas will crush it.
We keep voting in Qantas's mates in the liberal gov, while they are in it will never happen.
@@daskurka you said it. Lib gov only looks after their "mates"
@@daskurka I haven't seen Labor out there swinging pickaxes either.
@@trainstrains1 They haven't been given the chance TBF. Last time they prioritized the NBN project, which makes sense if you think about the opportunities it would have given the bush and that it effected the whole of Australia. I think next time they are in it may be the project they go for, but there is lots of other damage for them to fix. The libs have sold off our ports, our water, our farming, our land and privatised just about anything they lay their gaze upon. At the end of it I think Labor 'might' build it, but the Liberals never will.
@@daskurka I’ll vote liberal next time thx I don’t like political correctness and their awful tax policies like getting rid of franking credits. Vic government is enough labor for me
As an Australian, I want to thank you for making this video. I have been a rail/mass transit advocate for these past few years and has learned of the 2013 study that I do dream of happening one day. Advocating for it whenever I can!
Hopefully, we'll get something one day!
The 2013 Phase 2 HSR Study was a disaster for Australian HSR. The earlier 2010 Phase 1 HSR Study had a terms of reference that specified the Newcastle to Sydney corridor as the "spine" of the network. A lot of work was done on modelling this corridor and all this work was dumped when the Canberra bureaucrats decided to push the intercapital routes. I've read the 2013 Study in forensic detail. It deserves an episode in a future series of Utopia for all the creative analysis therein.
Corrupt
Well, we also have a non-existent high speed rail line in Brazil. More than one, actually.
haha, good one!
Well, not every dreams comes true 🤣
But don't ever stop dreaming, maybe one day it's become reality
Brazil, just like Australia, has most of its major cities in a line which should make it easier to build high speed rail.
From that chart in the video, it seems like you really need a high speed Rio to São Paulo line. Not sure how feasible that would be; I don't know how much uphill a train can go, and I believe the terrain is pretty rough?
@@RailwaysExplained Just get China to Build it, and then don’t pay!
Pissing money away in repeated consultancies is the Australian way
Another important factor to consider is the economic growth it encourages everywhere a train station gets built. They said ticket sales won't bring in enough money to pay for the cost of building it, but there is a lot more economic benefit than ticket sales. People who live near train stations will be on land that is more valuable and they will be able to do business faster and that translates to more tax revenue, as well as other positive benefits. It also increases tourism because more people will travel to Australia if you make it easier for them to get from city to city.
The same applies to airports and highways... Railroads don't have a monopoly on economic development...
unless the government own and operate the rail, but that's communist thing, australians don't like it.
I believe if Japanese maglev is built Parrahub/Canberra people will come from all over the world to experience it although it must be built to an international standard.
The problem is every station you add, significantly slows the train more and more.
@@ronclark9724 nope, you cant build too close to airports and there are noise complaints from residents that can limit the size of the airport as well. highways are often regarded to decrease property value because they are awful to be near. we build walls to protect communities from them. railroads dont have nearly the same noise or traffic issues and you can literally build commercial properties directly above them, with residential completely surrounding them. its on a whole other level.
HSR should be considered as more of a decentralisation initiative. Australia's population expected to double in 30 years and most of that will go to the capital cities putting increased pressure on them. Enticing population into the regional interior would help to ease growth whilst also giving people easier access to the capitals for work and such
Apparently, studies and initiative aren't the key to success
Especially if they keep repeating the same mistake. Treating HSR as a premium fared replacement for intercapital air travel. Rather than as the top tier in a high performance public transport network.
When it comes to transportation, Australia is still stuck in the 1970’s.
1977 italy built the "direttissima" phase 1 (138/254km 250km/h) i'd say late 1960's where plans where in place but nothing ever got off the ground
more like the 1870's
Basically our government would rather spend a small amount of money to say why they don't want to spend money
"small amount" lol.
Give the contract to the Chinese and you'll be riding your trains the next day
@KLM: Not the next day but considering how bad the Indonesian Railways were & that the only way Joko Widodo could finance what I proposed to him early in 2014, was to accept Chinese Capital Investment.
By 2023, Indonesia will have a VFT going between Jakarta & Bandung & have started the extention to Surabaya.
They are also now manufacturing their own light rail, metro rail & container rolling stock, which they also export to Australia, Pilipinas, Malaysia & Thailand.
Most of their new diesel locomotives are from the USA, with others from Switzerland & are developing their own, of which some prototypes have been put into service.
Might as well at this point. Australia is already a slave to Chinese special interests groups so we don't exactly have much pride to lose anymore, do we?
@@eddielong8663 If only pride can bring forth a high speed rail line within the next decade...meanwhile Morrison is set to spend an extra $270 billion to "boost national defense". And pride I suppose. Australia is beginning to sound like the Soviet Union.
But Australia and China relationship is very bad at the moment and won't likely improve under the current government in Australia.
Or they could ask Japan to help?
Australia has excellent studies on high speed rail. 😀
The ass lazy Aust federal and state Governments will never get off their collective asses and build a high speed rail system.
@@AwesomeSauce81 no, they're corrupt and self pocketing.
"Commercial viability" and "economic viability" are not the same thing. Practically no highway on Earth would be "commercially viable," but if governments decided not to invest in them that would obviously be economic suicide.
Precisely. In Australia we invested the equivalent of several hundred billion into the national highway network since the 1950s. We didn't treat the highway network the way we now treat high speed rail. Instead we built it. And later we came along and spent many billions on the Sydney to Newcastle freeway (then F3, now M1) and tens of billions cumulatively on the duplication of the Hume and Pacific Highways. Again, this was all based on the understanding that its a worthwhile investment. Nowhere do roads get the kind of scrutiny (and adverse methodology) as does rail or high speed rail. And here we have high speed rail which if built in certain corridors (Newcastle to Wollongong and Brisbane to Gold Coast) could obviate tens of billions of future road costs.
We need a change of culture and a better way to see the wider social and economic benefits. In a country where your postcode is still the biggest single factor in your life outcomes, its time we invested a little more in personal mobility. After all transport technology is why we aren't still living in a village and marrying our cousin. Time to build the highway of the future, no?
You've never been to Sydney have you? It's toll roads everywhere. The NSW goverenment found a way to make highways commercially viable.
@@shanerorko8076 It depends on a case by case basis how and why tolls are implemented. Oftentimes here in the US you see tolls put on highways where out-of-state drivers are disproportionate users. For instance, the citizens of New Jersey don't want to be the only ones paying for what is a major economic benefit to New York and Pennsylvania, so the Jersey Turnpike has tolls. Tolls are often additionally utilized to reduce traffic. All that to say, usage tolls don't necessarily make a roadway "commercially viable," nor is that usually the intended purpose in the first place.
@@shanerorko8076 Does the toll completely make up for the cost of capital investment in the beginning and maintenance right now?
" Practically no highway on Earth would be "commercially viable,""
Well no, they're a lot cheaper than an HSR of the same distance. You're just pouring down asphalt and painting it. Versus laying down wood and rails, and hanging a wire, etc.
Plus with a road, both freight and passenger are on the same channel. With HSR you MUST make enough money to maintain it using passenger traffic alone.
Anyway, it's irrelevant because over the distances we're talking about.......WE FLY.
And again, both freight and passenger aircraft use airports. And they pay a lot of user fees to pay for the airport. Now and then you get a big infrastructure bill and the federal government pays for an expansion but USUALLY the airlines take care of that and pay for it themselves. There is a small subsidy we give federally to airports but you're talking about 5%. MOST of their revenue, THE VAST MAJORITY comes from the private clients who use the airport.
Here in California, our stupid voter initiative -- I am very proud I voted no -- ends up, after planning and work done since it was passed in 2008, to cost $100 billion if we want to complete the whole system as currently designed. It wouldn't cost $100 billion to add an additional airport or add a runway to an existing airport. Of course, they claim their train will carry 100 million people every second so you would have to spend far more than 100 billion to replace but that's stupid (yes I'm exaggerating their numbers, to express my criticism of the stupid project).
All anglophone countries hate high speed rail For some reason. It’s quite easy to see the additional benefits out-weights the cost
Since it took the best part of a century to get the Alice to Darwin railway built i won't hold my breath
Yeah that, and there's a line in the Sydney metro circuit that took 20+ years to get off the ground
despite being desperately needed for just as long. Governments in Aus seem to love buggering
around getting nothing done, or screwing around and buggering something good up.
And it only got built because Howard decided to build it over making the links between Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney better. One of the dumbest things Howard ever did. That and passing away 1.7 Trillion in tax revenue that everyone with a brain was asking him to go after.
I did some playing around on Google Earth and I came up with this route.
Rockhampton - Gladstone - Bundaberg - Maryborough - Sunshine Coast - Brisbane - Gold Coast - Coffs Harbor - Port Macquarie - Newcastle - Sydney - Wollongong - Canberra - Albury - Melbourne - Horsham - Adelaide
Many of these aren't big cities but building train stations will encourage economic growth there.
That reminds me of an article I read yesterday, which stated that the reason why the LGV Sud (between Paris, Lyon and Marseille) is as successful as it is isn't because it connects the major cities, but rather because ontop of serving the major cities, the number of minor cities it serves is astounding. This would also explain why it is fruitless to compare any American High speed rail project because none of those connect so many smaller urban areas (mainly because in America, to be a city you need 1 million pop, whereas in Europe, you maybe need 250,000 pop)
Queensland and NSW have different railway gauges.
@@charlesharper2357 The did until 1930, Its all standardised now.
@@jlp27089
You're wrong:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge_in_Australia
@@jlp27089 the standard gauge only reaches Brisbane. The rest of the Queensland network is narrow gauge.
Happy proposing, planning, studying, debating for another 8 years at least up to next decade!
It's like in many mining co, projects are dying through a process called death by thousand studies.
Your forgetting companies putting their name on the project just to make their share prises increase and then pull out
There are some pretty significant sections of the current Melbourne-Sydney alignment that could be upgraded and curves straightened relatively easily and could be used in future by 200kmh+ trains when there genuinely is the will to do it. For the Brisbane-Newcastle corridor I think the only viable way is to upgrade the current alignment to cut it down byan hour or two, and then connect it at both ends with the Gold Coast and Newcastle fast rail projects then run it as a night train, you'll never be able to cut it down to a high speed service with competitive journey times to air.
Yes. In general in Australia there is a much better case for upgrading intercity lines to somewhat-faster-than-at-present than for true HSR. But that does not get people excited.
We're alway's lagging behind in Australia, when it comes to infrastructure. The government (at all levels) spends millions on small and less essential projects and drags its feet when it comes to any major infrastructural overhaul. By the time they finally do make a move, such as with the NBN, they implement it over a ridiculously slow timeframe and go billions over budget.
With the NBN, the speed of the FTTP rollout was increasing exponentially in 2013, and would've been finished quicker than it was if it was given the chance. The slow speed of the initial rollout was because we needed to relearn how to roll out communications infrastructure.
My take-away from this video is that so many people only look at direct economic benefit of HSR, and not the indirect economic benefit.
Holy crap an estimated 45 years to complete a rail line!?!
Lol
Exactly. Go talk to the Chinese and ask how they do it.
@@martijnspruit Might as well ask the Chinese to do it. They help make the North American transcontinental railroad and they practically print railroads in China. Australia would save more and we all know it. Pride is their only downfall.
They only budgeted to have 10 people working on the project, hence why it would take 45 years! 🤦♂️😂
@@questworldmatrix Dependency on the Chinese Communist Party isn't that great of an idea, don't you think so?
Lets just work on a rail link from Melbourne Airport to Melbourne first. Cannot get ahead of ourselves.
Melbourne Airport. Opened 1970 with plans at the time, for a rail link to Melbourne. It is now planned for after Melbourne Metro project is completed.
@@railtrolley I live in Melbourne so already now this. Pita of an airport to get to.
@@timgooding2448 A very well known subject, that gets brought up every few years. I was commenting more for overseas viewers, who express surprise they have to catch a bus or taxi to the city. I did a few trips to Brisbane using an off-site car park (bugger paying the huge airport car park fees). I wonder if Melb Airport has the world's biggest taxi rank? The one on Airport Drive.
@@railtrolley I know one thing. Taxi drivers are going to loose a load of cash when the rail is completed. They do have a bloody big long term car park that's for sure. And it's not cheap.
@@timgooding2448 And even now, there is the other erosion of taxi income by ride share. The gov't must be thinking about how may future taxi licenses to issue. Or is it a problem for the next gov't to worry about?
As long the government doesn't want to invest, there will be no train.
The Australian public wants a high speed line down the east coast and is generally sick of the repeated studies, proposals and no real action.
I'd be in favour of calling in Japan Rail to build a Tokaido, Tohoku or San'yo style Shinkansen line down the Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney-Brisbane corridor.
The companies behind Japan Rail have the most experience with safe and reliable high speed rail in our region. Something like the E5 Tohoku shinkansen with a top speed of 320 kmh would be ideal to reduce travel time between city centres to about 3 hours. A maglev would be faster, but prohibitively expensive. JR East are also testing a new train at up to 450 kmh. The new line would have to be elevated and exclusive to the high speed train, as with the Shinkansen (especially the line from Kanazawa to Tsuruga, which I've seen under construction). The comparison of travel time to flying has to be city centre to city centre.
@@theharper1 It is only so expensive because they use drill and blast if they used 20 hardrock TBM www.robbinstbm.com/projects/niagara-tunnel-project/ they could do Parrahub/Canberra in two years for $20b.
a 250km/h would be the least expensive working solution, it's not great but it's more likely to be built than anything else out there and if the options are something ok or nothing at all one has to compromise.
The real problem is that they keep concentrating on the very long routes, that are too expensive to build, and ignoring the higher usage shorter corridors.
For example, the time taken to travel from Newcastle to Sydney by electric train today is about the same as it was by steam train in the 1930s, and there is generally only one "express" train per hour. In the meantime, motorways have been built and upgraded, and motor vehicles have improved, reducing the travel time by car to significantly less than by train.
I would love to see a high speed rail train from Sydney to Melbourne.
Yeah, it would be awesome.
No need to go all the way to the airport.
I'd love to see one too. But it needs to be built in stages, starting where the highest volume - in and around Sydney.
So would I, however, I will be long dead before such a rail link is built.
@@andrew_koala2974 Well, the absolute worst thing we could have done is price the entire thing. You'll notice the road builders don't do that. They only price stages.
@@saumyacow4435 Almost everyone uses a highway, very few ride a intercity train beyond 3 hours... Most prefer to fly that distance or more... Trains are great for commuter distances, not so great for intercity distances more than 3 hours...
The east west train is not just transportation. It's a vacation, experience in itself. It's something to enjoy like a fine wine and BBQ.
80% construction cost are still required in subsidies, also need to be economically viable on its own in a short amount of time.
Doing it through privatization is like pushing an elephant through a hole of size of a coin, because the high speed rail itself are not profitable, super high initial investment, but provide overall economic growth (public good). the goals are exactly the opposite of the private capital.
"We will need to study the very fast train."
"How fast?"
"Very."
"OK, give me 40 million first."
🤣🤣
Can you please do railways of Africa. And South America.
Morocco's TGV success story could be an interesting topic, too.
You could also mention the Kenyan SGR as well many other rail initiatives in Africa.
I seconded Morocco TGV. I heard they could make it works as a profitable cheap line and I want to know how it could happen.
There has been some questions about the Moroccan TGV as it essentially a SNCF TGV in Morocco and whether it's a boondoggle.
They actually have one high speed line in Africa.
I never knew we had Quinsland in Australia
Speaking as an Australian with extensive experience in high speed rail, I'd like to point out that the reason why we don't have HSR in Australia is the persistent belief that HSR must be a premium fared alternative to intercapital air travel. It has been pointed out by HSR detractors here in Australia (and this has some merit) that you don't go and spend tens of billions of dollars on simply replacing one mode of travel with another - especially when the end result is roughly the same in terms of time of travel. You don't add much value doing that.
The best use for HSR in Australia is in replacing car travel over relatively short distances. This is where the overwhelming majority of trips actually occur. For example, the total air travel market between Sydney and Melbourne is roughly 10 million (one way) trips per year. This compares to well over 30 million trips by car between north of the Hawkesbury River (Newcastle, Lower Hunter and Central Coast) and south of the Hawkesbury River (Sydney basin). In addition, there are roughly 11 million trips made by conventional rail over the River - nearly all of which would transfer to a properly designed and well interfaced HSR line. In addition, there are over 30 million trips by car between Wollongong and the Sydney basin.
Its a similar story between Brisbane and the Gold Coast where there are tens of millions of trips by passenger vehicle each year and that is due to double before 2060.
In these congested transport corridors is the biggest single (and most easily related) reason for building HSR in Australia. Its the cost of not building HSR. Its the tens of billions of dollars we will almost certainly spend augmenting and duplicating existing motorways. Obviating the future cost of roads (capital and otherwise) is not the only good reason for building HSR in Australia (at least in these corridors) but it renders the issue almost a no-brainer.
HSR is essentially the highway of the future. It moves many times more people, a lot faster than a similar bucket of money poured into road pavement. It will improve the lives of millions of ordinary people, doing everyday things (not just accessing work). We are talking about better access to services such as education and health care and a wider choice of retail, entertainment, leisure and tourism. And most importantly its about being more socially connected. Having a wider circle of friends and associates.
Where HSR matters most economically is where it makes new things possible. Where you're not just replacing a 3 hour trip with another 3 hour trip. Rather your turning a 3 hour trip (Newcastle to Sydney) into a 1 hour trip. And its not just about inter-city travel. A properly designed HSR network could also transform intra-city journeys. For example, 20 minutes from Campbelltown (Sydney's south) to the CBD - instead of the current 1 hour trip. Or 15 minutes from Hornsby instead of 45 minutes. Or 11 minutes from Paramatta to the Sydney CBD, thus transforming the corridor into an extended CBD.
And imagine Gosford being 30 minutes from Parramatta or the Sydney CBD. Imagine the boost to the Central Coast's tourism, retail and entertainment sectors that would come from Sydney residents.
All of this makes sense. Sydney to Melbourne doesn't. At least, not until we have built shorter intercity and regional sectors and then work from there. That's precisely how the conventional rail network came into being. The whole Sydney to Melbourne paradigm has simply resulted in sticker shock and its not where the technology delivers the greatest social and economic benefit. Its also led to the disaster that was the 2013 Phase 2 HSR Study. The one that effectively bypassed cities such as Newcastle and Wollongong - because its authors were obsessed with competing with intercapital aviation.
We can do a lot better. We can have HSR that provides direct access to the city centres of Newcastle, Gosford and Wollongong. That has multiple points of interchange with the conventional rail network (reinforcing that network). And one that is focused on volume of use - which is what amplifies the social and economic benefit. We can also improve the rail network within Sydney, linking the CBD, Parramatta, Hornsby and Campbelltown (with the option to also run faster rail to Penrith)
Burn the paradigm. Think outside the box.
Agree. Well said. If a HSR does not compete with air travel, it is more likely to have support and more likely to be built.
As maglev is the future, and I cannot see Newcastle/Sydney going that way Parrahub/Canberra could be stage one of Sydney/Melbourne Japanese maglev.
It all depends if we want to create a huge Sydney or if we want to decentralise Parrahub, Canberra, Albury to Melbourne.
None of us have a crystal ball on cost of air travel with fuel and green tax where maglev would not increase.
How can the environmental concerns be so significant when compared to 2 of the busiest air routes in the world, one of the most polluting transportation industries?
Also, I wonder how much was spent on studies and if it compares in total to one of the lower cost proposals, that would be depressingly hilarious.
this was a great video mate, very informative.
Excellent research and presentation.
Can I just say thank you for your perfect pronunciation of our Cities, States and Roads. It's very very refreshing to hear someone pronounce these properly. Now I find it interesting that it was as early ad the 1980's that planning and investigating began on high speed rail. During that time there was no interstate motorway between major capitals, only inner cities motorways and freeways to smaller cities less than 100km away from a capital. Its only in the last 10 years that full nonstop motorways/dual carriageways have been completed, which are the aforementioned Hume Highway M31 and the Pacific Highway/Motorway A1/M1. I wonder if high speed rail will come to this country, however it seems unlikely right now.
Thanks for creating this well researched. I remember hearing and seeing a lot of the proposals as a kid. And haven't see some of those renders for decades. I was hoping for the maglev back in the day.
"Quinsland" - that's a new one 😆
Really makes China who built 36.000km of Highspeed rails in about 12 years seems like a miracle.
Chinese running faster that their own fastest train I guess
Nah... cheatcodes.
Not so surprising when one city in China have more people than all of Australia
Not surprising if you consider China has an authoritarian government.
@@Gnefitisisbut it's worked for them, so?
Impeccable topic as always
For me, a high speed rail on the east side of australia would drop 2½ hours off driving to Melbourne and like 6 off driving to sydney.
Slight correction. Take of 30 minutes for each of those. I would still have to drive to Shepparton. And this only applies for plans that include a station at Shepp.
For decades, there have been headlines about "soon to be intrduced" high-speed trains. None has yet been seen in revenue use.
Great video like it very much.loads of detail.Hope there more.
If you know anything about Australian politics, you'll find that these studies exist not to find a resolution, but to justify the existence of some politicians, rich business folks, and public servants.
This is so well researched. Well done 👍🏼
But it isn't. He didn't even spell Queensland correctly... literally a 5 second google search would have given the spelling.
Love the new logo
It would be nice to see Australia develop a high speed rail network to effectively connect all those cities and even encourage the development of new ones further inland. It's hard to believe that so much time and money has been wasted getting this off the ground.
So basically combining the UK paper pushing with USA political lobbying
there isn't much further inland apart from shepparton, albury and wagga wagga
Slo mo government already spent over 200M for this rail,French company was supposed to do rail infrastructure and rail raod build,Hitachi was supposed to provide and build trains and carriages...so far they didn't do anything not a single meter was build...
Great video, well done :)
Cute comment at the end confirming the bias because, well, it is a railway channel.
It's okay to admit that you're bias, hahaha. Although I do agree that high speed land transport should be rail based. Don't get me wrong, I like planes, but they have very high energy cost per seat per kilometers. Hence why should only be used in remote areas or across large bodies of water.
Hey Australia, we have the same difficulty here in Canada for similar reasons. High speed rail is not feasible for such long distances and a relatively small population.
The Siemens Charger was designed for the North America market. It's top speed is 200 km/hr. Not quite "high speed" but significantly faster than what is being used now here in Canada and most of USA.
It doesn't require the same expensive infrastructure needed for high speed rail and it wouldn't take many years for it to be operational.
The first Siemens Chargers are to begin service in the Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City corridor in 2022 with 32 train sets to be delivered in total eventually. VIA Rail expects an 80% reduction in carbon emissions compared to what it's using now.
And you have the similar video... 😁
th-cam.com/video/xkNHqzg4Hg4/w-d-xo.html
Canada has much smaller cities to Sydney and Melbourne so I agree Japanese maglev may not be economically there even with overnight containers.
Maybe you could talk about the Rio - Sao Paulo high speed rail route planned for Brazil. It's yet another sad story of talks and nothing coming of it, but it would be very beneficial for the region.
Thanks for this video. I had no idea there were so many proposals!
The numbers in 1980 would have been worth it. The development along the rail corridors and job creation would have been a amazing. The positive economic impact would have been worth the cost to build it. It's a shame that neoliberalism has an anti-infrastructure and anti-government civil project bias. The world for regular people would be better without it.
I'd be happy with high speed rail from Newcastle to Wollongong via Sydney
Absolutely. That's where it will carry the most passengers and generate the most new economic activity. Connect Campbelltown, Hornsby, Parramatta and the CBD while you're at it and it will see tens of millions of trips that are purely within Sydney itself. Lunch at Thirroul beach, shopping in Gosford, dinner in Newcastle. All without breaking a sweat :)
If you want to add another continent, here in Argentina during the mandate of Cristina Kichnner there was a project for a high-speed train, models were presented and everything. but in the end everything came to nothing.
Great shot of the Harbour bridge traffic back in the late 90s at 11:50
Haha, after seeing all that stock footage of the Brisbane - Cairns tilt train I was wondering if you'd mention that in the video 😁
It's really funny how well areas grow and thrive when high speed rail goes in and the countries spending the money are loving them . Why can't Australia and America clue on to that .
Um... because your premise is a simplistic fantasy about a highly complex and expensive idea the viability of which is specific to the circumstances. In the case of Australia, no study of our context has found it be viable. Does that answer the question?
Tbf Amtrak’s 2030 goal are pretty cool but Australia has like 6 rail lines or something so the public have yet to realise the social and economic benefit
Complacency and lobbying are the reasons.
I think the reason is quiet easy. You have to subsidize high speed rails and in North America and Australia this is often seen as evil (socialism, communism lol). Meahnwhile everyone takes it for granted that state pays for highways and subsidizing air traffic.
It's really ridiculous even more nowadys with the comming costs of climate change...
There was a serious plane proposed in the early 1990’s . It was laughed out of parliament in Canberra.
I think something not properly understood is that Australians are highly centralised living in the state capitals. Even our biggest state with the highest regional population, New South Wales, has 5 of 8 million living in Sydney, and another 1 million living in towns and cities up to 100km away. A similar story in Queensland & Victoria.
So we all basically live near big airports, with good enough public transport to get around our cities and if people need a car to visit regional places in other states they’ll drive intercity (which from Sydney to Brisbane or Sydney to Melbourne is a long but tolerable day’s drive) or rent when they arrive.
The east coast rail corridor isn’t viable when the main roads are quicker and safer than ever, and flying is more affordable as well.
Have you been to China?more people take high speed trains from Bejing to Shanghai although flight tickets are cheaper,high speed trains are much more reliable and comfortable than plane,most important new trains in China all have free wifi,which is freaking expensive on a plane,just come to China and try once
As an Australian, I think the line should go something like this: Melbourne (Southern Cross) to Brisbane (Roma Street) via Sydney (Central). The line would go under ground at each of the stations to minimise interruptions above ground. The line would stop at Canberra, Newcastle and potentially Gold Coast on the way.
Underground is more expensive because you have to dig.
@@KRYMauL It kinda depends on what land values are like. In very dense city centres, it can make financial sense to dig rail tunnels instead of expropriating a ton of expensive real estate to build above ground, and this even for non high-speed rail.
Of course, you could always decide to put the station outside the city (possibly temporarily), but then you lose one of the main advantages of rain over air travel, which is that you tend to arrive in the city centre rather than tens of kilometers from it. If there is space to add tracks along the existing rail route into an existing station this could be an alternative, even if it would be somewhat slower. You can also do this in stages. First you build the high speed track that connects the towns using existing tracks to run the trains in and out of the cities, then later on you make a separate connection.
See, for example London, where the Eurostar used to go into Waterloo station using existing tracks, but now it runs straight into St Pancras on dedicated tracks, and that includes a tunnel between Westfield Stafford City and St Pancras.
Another example is Antwerp, where the HST line literally goes underneath the city, and the pre-existing terminal station, which allows it to stop right in the city centre.
The build cost of HS lines is massive. But build them in the right place and they will be profitable for many decades. Many European high speed lines are now proving entirely profitable to the point where they've made back the initial investment. As for digging, the Eurostar which connects Paris and Brussels to London through a massive undersea tunnel has made back it's construction cost, and continues to be profitable. It's a long term investment.
@@mariusdufour9186 What about in the middle of the country where there’s a lot of farmland. I mean it’s not cheap to just buy the land without letting the preexisting rail companies sign off, but it’s also not cheap to just build underground.
@@KRYMauL Building high speed rail in the countryside can be done more efficiently. In France they had a system of land-swaps. The government not only expropriated the land that was needed to build the line, but also organised land swaps on a large scale so that the land-owners ended up with all of their land on one side or the other of the railway. This allowed the government to basically only pay for the strict minimum amount of land necessary, and allowed the land-owners to retain only slightly diminished estates in the same area, without having half their land on the other side of the tracks. For the construction of high speed rail relatively flat open country with few built structures is ideal. Of course, the hst will not directly benefit the rural communities it flies through, though that might be offset with additional local development. (this additional local development is one of the reasons HST 2 is so expensive.)
I'm also not sure what the deal is with pre-existing railway compagnies in Australia. Here in Europe it's the pre-existing railway compagnies who run the high speed railways, and if they don't run all of them, they damn well built them so I don't know to what kind of conflict that would lead.
@@mariusdufour9186 If only the US knew this was a thing instead of trying to strictly use imminent domain and fail.
Buy the time Australia starts, certain countries would have already connected their whole country with high speed rails at slightly higher than the cost of Australian studies.
China would have already completed their maglev network.
@@AndrewManook I think with only 1cm clearance they will be limited to the expensive German technology.
We should just do Sydney Melbourne, the highest value route through the major cities along the route and it would be so amazing that everyone else would soon their own HSR. Politics solved.
Unfortunatly HSR costs too much to maintain and is too slow however if they are connected with Japanese maglev in an 11psi single tunnel with passing stations at Canberra and Albury that can take overnight containers for $2,000 each it would lower the daytime fare.
sydney to melbourne via shepparton, albury, canberra would be a good starting point. Maybe after everyone realises how wonderful it is and quantus goes away we can extend it to brisbane and possibly Adelaide
Another interesting video. Thanks a lot
Remember, they are building a small HSR from Melbourne to Geelong
To enable people to escape from Melbourne quicker.
Who are THEY exactly?
@@andrew_koala2974 the Victorian Government
@@HazptMedia Or is it the Chinese government?
It's actually a rail & signalling upgrade that will cut down travel time from 55-60 mins to 45 mins
The more Australia waits to build it the more expensive it will get as the areas and cities develop further (making property acquisition more expensive)....
The fact that the Sydney Melbourne corridor is one of the most busy air routes in the world proves that it IS/WAS a viable project....
Interesting reasoning. London to New York is a very busy route also. Do you think a rail link IS/WAS a viable project there?
@@alexanderSydneyOz is this sarcasm? There is a whole ocean between the two. And extremely long distances such as NY to London make no sense for high speed rail, even if they were connected by land.
If done now with a Japanese maglev in a single 11psi tunnel it avoids buying land or any other surface problems while taking overnight containers keeping the daytime fares low.
@@AlohaBiatch Well, as you ask, of course it was sarcasm. You said this: "The fact that the Sydney Melbourne corridor is one of the most busy air routes in the world proves that it IS/WAS a viable project". Do you not even review what you yourself said?? Your conclusion is based SOLELY on the fact that it's a busy air route. So I just referred to a different busy air route to highlight that.
Now it turns out there is at least one other factor of which you are aware: distance.
As has been well covered in many posts in this video alone, Mel-Syd is too long for rail to compete with air. Which is why, despite a number of investigations, noone has ever come close to going ahead with an HSR link. Nor will,.
@@edwardbarnett6571 I am thinking the twin 800km tunnels might cost a bit. In fact, I am thinking that would cost way more than the land above.
Its like Just In US, the flight lobby is too strong
You mentioned the Sydney Olympic Games. I caught the train from Canberra to Sydney and stayed with friends when the Games were on.
I got an ad 1 minute in of you explaining that you're going to do a video on Australia. Good form.
Would love to see one about the non-existent high speed rails in Brazil haha
Does Brazil have the economy to support HSR? They are never cheap, and require separate rail network free from cargo and other slower moving trains.
@@arkilos2253 Indonesia has lower economy than Brazil but currently built High Speed Rail line between Jakarta and Bandung.
With China's money help but
@@lemagnifique1573
ya thats right, but that HRS is business to business project so it should be a successful project to make a profit for either the chinese or indonesian company. java island with more than 150M people I believe in that..
Can't wait to have high speed rail in Australia when I'm 50!
I'm over 50 and they were talking about this when I was at school! At least there's a slim chance you might see something; I have no hope.
I'm 76 and in my lifetime I will never see a High Speed train in Australia unless we start to call our existing trains that travel at 100 km High-Speed Trains.
Am I glad that I have subscribed to your channel. That was a dynamite documentary on Australia's woes.
Hi Railway Explained. Another railway worth doing research about might be the Singapore-KualaLumpur-Penang Project was initially started but the Malaysian government pulled out paying hundreds of millions of dollars.
It seems Singapore benefits the most for such a cross country railway. No wonder Malaysia pullout of it.
@@eggheadegghead hmm. I have no idea honestly if it's a one-sided deal. I would think it would be pretty good as a lot of Malaysians work In Singapore but not as much the other way around. To my friends who work in Singapore, they just live across the Straits which is in Johor. If there were a high speed railway, they can live in KL, but work in Singapore. Whereas now you'd need to take a plane. AirAsia is cheap, but the logistics of going in and out of the airport can be taxing. Singapore would benefit from the larger workforce while Malaysia will benefit from the tourism and repatriation of funds to Malaysia.
@@magicalmanfromwonder I think the political sensitivities between the two countries were the major issue. Both countries have a strong self image and are anxious about their relationship. It would be a very good route otherwise.
Australia should have had a high speed rail 40 years ago.
fr
Make a video about how Brazil never got its high-speed railway too
The main problem is so few people for a very large country, it’s the size of Europe and only 25 million live here.
Not much rain fall , mostly desert.
As an Australian, I currently fully support the East Coast High Speed Rail Corridor as a sorely needed high speed rail project in Australia to start construction in the 2020's in order to kickstart and fast track the Australian Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery Plan.
Sydney needs a new larger airport for a tenth of the price of any HSR train to Melbourne...
It's ironic that its neighbor Indonesia which Australia often considered as "poor" will get a HSR first compared to them 🤔🤔🤔.
And? Indonesia's air transport infrastructure is still backwards. It's almost routine to have an airliner crash in Indonesia each year while Australia hasn't had a fatal crash in decades.
They can't ask China to build it, so chose Japan; otherwise nothing is going to happen.
What do you mean “considered as poor” Yes they have a high gdp but low gdp per capita
We are still giving them Aid $ as well.
Western part of Java alone has almost 70 million people in it. Plenty of potential people to be served. You can't compare it with Australia.
This time we decided to add 4th contintent
**proceeds to talk about antactica**
It's worth noting that the degree to which the Australian government is gun-shy when committing finances to high-cost rail infrastructure projects, aside from those touched on in this video also includes a list of failed and long-delayed rail infrastructure projects like the failed monorail in Sydney and the late and over cost delivery of the Millenium trains. When you take this into account as well as the frequency in which Australia changes leadership, it would take a very committed, popular and brave government to commit funds to a high-speed rail project, especially considering they are likely to lose public support very quickly if the project was delivered late and or over budget
Just fyi in Australia, a toll to travel between states is illegal by the Section 92 of the Australian Constitution.
I would love to see HSR in Australia, having worked in China & seen it grow there over the last decade. However whether Australian ticket prices would be affordable is an issue. I've done Nanjing to Shanghai, about 300km, mostly at 350km/hr apart from the approach to the final station, in 1hr8min but the ticket price was about Au$35. While Australia's population is around the same as Shanghai's, (& they run 90 trains a DAY between Beijing & Shanghai), it's probably not gunna happen. Also if they're thinking of building the line at ground level, not the elevated lines as in China, I dread to think of issues when the rail line crosses a highway. That's not an issue with the Chinese system.
The Chinese one was built by workers getting payed much less than would be allowed here in Australia.
All new rail construction in Australia does not have level crossings with roads. Grade separation has been policy for some time now. Melbourne is intending to remove most of the many level crossings that city has on its electrified suburban network.
@@jlp27089 No it was built by automation.
@@AndrewManook The workers still had to operate the machinery and didn't get payed much for it.
The Australian, NSW, VIC, QLD and SA State Governments should simply straighten and strengthen the track between Brisbane and Sydney; Sydney and Melbourne and; Melbourne and Adelaide. It's recently been estimated that the 12 hour journey from Sydney to Melbourne could be reduced to 6, just by doing this and adding Tilt trains. This would be so much cheaper than Japanese, Chinese or European style High Speed Rail, and would indeed support and add value to High Speed Rail when it is inevitably built at a later date.
If you’re going to subsidize planes you will need to do the same thing for HSR
In this area as in many others, Australia is either complacent or held back by lobbies (airlines). Same for USA. Meanwhile there is no such complacency in places like Singapore or China, they just want to power ahead with infrastructure.
yes but china doing everything so fast has brought them massive debt and nobody wants to pay it
Singapore is tiny country with no need of #HSR. #India is going ahead to with It's plan to have 8000 km + #HSR network with trains operating at 320 - 350 km / hr. First 508 km corridor is under construction & will open in 2026. Our #HSR network is based on #Japanese Shinkansen which has zero fatalities record since 1964.
@@RSK14362 Source: Godi media.
How tf you compare Singapore literally a city state to China, US, or Australia
Yes! Another 25 years...because 3 years study, 3 years planing, 4 years back to study, 3 more years, planning, 5 years financial, 5 years back planning at the end No money!!!
What do you expect when these studies keep repeating the same mistake? The question is not "can we compete with air travel?" The question should be "How do we use HSR to generate the most social and economic benefit, the most new economic activity?" Ask the right question and you start to get somewhere.
@@saumyacow4435 And then price eventually comes up. Airports link you to the world, a HSR train links you to Melbourne from Sydney and costs ten times more...
@@ronclark9724 Actually, HSR doesn't have to link Sydney with Melbourne. It is far more productive on shorter routes.
china has built over 20,000km hsr in the past 15 years.
The Hume Highway used to go all the way to Kempsey, near Portmaquri .
Yeah you forgot one!
You forgot the Perth-Adelaide rail link proposed a few years ago to link Perth with the east