Railroads: Australia Versus America
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- Australia and the United States both share vast distances and big cities. what they also share? Trains! Many thousands of miles of railway tracks stretching across their respective continents.
Join me as we compare these railways for better and worse.
Credit for thumbnail images:
Coasterfan2105
Jack Martin
Credit for Videos used:
Alan Fisher
Fan Railer
MetroManMelbourne
Peter Hochgraf
Kartwheelkarl
West Cascade Rail
Trex1094
Jacob's trains
All other video own work.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:48 Urban Rail
7:40 Intercity Rail
15:25 Freight Rail
22:13 Conclusion and summary - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
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just an FYI, the transcontinental trains in Australia are Tourist excursion trains
19:50 - technically, Amtrak trains do have legal priority over freight trains. The problem is, Amtrak doesn’t have the legal teeth to enforce maintaining that priority, and no one in congress typically says anything about it because naturally they’re being lobbied by the freight railroads, meaning Amtrak can be delayed and sat behind a freight train, and basically no one cares except the poor saps riding it.
To add to that, over the last few decades the freight companies in the US have made their trains longer and longer while doing (nearly-) zero upkeep of their lines. So if an amtrak service needs to pass a freight service, then guess which one fits into the siding? Amtrak, as the freight train is too long for it and as such amtrak has to sit there for hours for the section to clear.
Yeah and government corruption is a gigantic issue in the US
@@IndustrialParrot2816no its the freight company's fault
At least Perth is growing with Metronet.
I just wish there was more than one line linking the East Coast to Perth given how many times it got washed out or a derailment occurred last years so they should duplicate it at least!
When it comes to intercity trains, let's not ignore population density. The US has an average population density of 36 person per km2, vs Australia's 3.3. We could have better intercity rail between the 3 'big' east coast cities, and Canberra, than what we do have, especially a high speed service, there is a lot of empty space across the middle. There are a lot more people along the route of the California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, etc, than along the Indian Pacific route or The Ghan route. Certainly not enough to justify a more affordable Amtrak style service along those routes, as much as I'd personally love to see that happen.
Driver of 30 years with NSWGR and 10 with Rio Tinto here. I've also visited the US and Canada three times and ridden extensively on their trains. Lessons they could learn from us about freight. Build all tunnels and overhead bridges just a few inches higher than the trains so that when double stacking comes into being, you can't do it. Along with having a smaller loading gauge, it's a good idea to have lighter rail so the locos you buy have to be heavily modified and lightened to run on your track. This means they cost more and can pull less tonneage. That's just smart business. The biggest lesson though, is don't standardise all the different gauges that were in use in the early days. The US (and UK) doing that back in the late 1800s was just plain stupid. Australia is way too smart to make that mistake.
One thing I've noticed in the US is that a lot of our train tunnels did actually have to be modified for double-stack. It's quite common to see tunnels with a nice traditional arched roof, with a big square notch cut into it for the double-stacks to barely squeak through. I think most of our tunnels and bridges were built to allow Big Chungus steam locos to pass through, and that was close enough that double-stack clearance could be added without everything collapsing on itself. It took a ton of money to modify the lines for those monsters in the first place, but it was the Rail Baron era, so they had the Scrooge McDuck vaults necessary to get it done. Once the government started building free highways and airports for their competitors, things cooled down quite a bit and they were lucky to have the legacy of the old days to fill into. Kind of like inheriting Roman viaducts, built by Gods of a forgotten age.
Double stacking is not a deal breaker for profitable freight. All other issues can be dealt with in an upgrade cycle.
And here we can see it the Gawler- Adelaide line, we are at Salisbury station as you can see the next rail service will be in several months
“Can’t think of situation like that happening in Australia”
Clearly never met Jeff Kennett.
Also, an NZ vs AUS video would be awesome! Great video, subjective or not, I think you made some solid points for both countries in each category, and I know I’m looking forward to seeing how Australia and the US can learn from places like Europe and Asia in the development of their rail systems.
I would say NZ's [Auckland and Wellington] networks follow a similar model as Aussie suburban rail as well. Just not as big nor as well funded.
But the core concepts are very similar with fairly long service [only usually closing for about 5 hours each day], reasonable levels of frequency [Auckland could stand to have more all-day frequency but Britomart station is basically a bottleneck. It can only take 20 trains in and out an hour and given the peak timetable is 20 trains in and out... anything goes wrong there is zero slack], electrified service, similar station layouts, etc etc.
@@VhenRaTheRaptor you guys have also had a big rebuild since the quakes though. Plenty of work going on your nation's railway
@@Falkirion Not at all.
Christchurch doesn't have a suburban rail system. Wellington hasn't had a big quake recently [a few middling ones but those aren't significant] and Auckland doesn't really get quakes [where most of the construction going on is at]
@@VhenRaTheRaptor that's fair. I've only ever seen the Kiwi Rail stuff from the design side and not operations. I do recall the mob I work for now had a big hand in Wellington's signalling rebuild post quake.
@@Falkirion Yeah. pretty minor quake.
As far as Auckland goes (the network I am most familiar with):
4 lines.
3 (Southern, Eastern, Western) run (when things are working properly) every 20 minutes offpeak, every 10m peak and every 30m until end of service late at night.
Onehunga line runs every 30m the whole day.
Western line doesn't interline except for two stations with the Southern and Onehunga lines until reaching Auckland's second CBD area and diverging off.
Southern and Eastern lines interline with each other for a four station segment near the end of the Eastern line (until it splits into a branch for it's terminus) and about halfway down the Southern line. Southern and Onehunga line interline for all of the Onehunga line until it splits off it's branch to Onehunga (going single-track). Though it runs express most of the day on some stations. Southern line also has a segment at the end served by diesel multiple units which run every 30m (20 at peak) for the one station beyond the electrification. (This is changing with electrification of that segment coming).
The City Rail Link is the big project, running an underground tunnel connecting the terminus station with a station about a quarter of the way down the western line turning it into a through station with two new underground stations in the core of the city. This will allow for trains to through run as other services. IE: Trains running as western line services from the western line terminus, through the city tunnels and then exiting as a southern line service as a southern line train arrives in the city center and becomes a western train.
Lots to think about here. I wish we had regional trains in South Australia but I can’t see that happening given many lines have been removed. Our interstate rail system is really designed around freight and unless the state governments get together and cooperate, unfortunately I don’t see interstate passenger trains becoming a priority. They prefer to leave it to “the market”, meaning people will continue to fly or drive. 🤔
In North America passenger trains are given priority, but it is a chess game. There are a limited number of siding racks and not much triple track so they get stuck behind freights with no physical way to get around them. It is just railroad/railway gridlock.
From the States🇺🇸, new subscriber & love this vid! Aussie🇦🇺🚂🤘🏻and right honest!
How the hell do you only have 3.2k subs?? You deserve way more!!
Nice work, very interesting
Great video!
I appreciate the effort gone into this video. As someone who spent 15 years in Australia and has returned to my home here in the US I can say that there is more context that should have gone into this video in the form of historical precedent. It is very hard to compare such vastly different rail systems due to the difference in size, history, industry. A valiant effort. I would think though that instead of comparing systems against each other maybe looking at the individually would be something more worth while.
It’s a bit sad that Tasmania rail wasn’t included in this, TasRail would be very iconic to be in this video, only thing I’d change
A major problem for railway freight is competition from road transport. I have a dozen pallets i wish to ship from Adelaide to Darwin. If I put them on a train I will need to load them onto a truck, take them to station to be loaded onto the train. Once they reach Darwin they need to be unload from the train, place onto another truck and ship to their final destination to be unloaded there. Alternatively if I use a truck I will load my pallets onto the trailer from my factory in Adelaide and the truck will ship them directly to the destination in Darwin. That means we only need load and unload the truck once. That why road transport in Australia is preferred over fright trains. It is usually quicker and cheaper for most fright.
Yes but in north america that same trucking company would bring out their own container and then ship the container on the rail for the long haul
I'm a Canadian and I just found your channel. I'd love a comparison between Canada and Australia.
The way you pronounced Illinois made me smile because you got it spot on my friend
With the Ghan and Indian Pacific, they are not really used for frequent passenger service it’s more of a tourist and experience journey meant for seeing the country in a different view.
That is only because the government privatised and sold of our Federal Rail Corp ensuring that a foreign corporation would control national rail travel at outrageous prices. What a disgrace.
Prediction before getting to the end:
Aussies win urban (just saw that)
Americans win intercity, but only just (because both suck), and only because of the NE Corridor and California.
Freight likely goes to the US, as last I heard the US is the largest and most efficient railfreight carrier, though again, Australia isn’t too far behind.
Edit: well, wasn’t too far off. I had considered allotting a tie in the middle round, but my logic was that it was because both systems were almost equally terrible; I hadn’t considered the intrastate train systems.
the us frieght rail system is extremely inefficiant though due to the rail monopoly's.
Population
Australia:- 26 million
USA :- 333.33 million
Freight carried (Billion tons per km)
Australia :- 413
USA :- 2105
There are a bunch, at least on the north coast NSW, of those train stations shut down where the XPT used to go... which made me sad.
The main issue with Amtrak is that it was created as a compromise and we didn’t even get the consultant approved, profit driven plan that McKinsey wanted. Amtrak was created to take over the existing services in 1970. Part of that legislation essentially kicked off services that were under a day in travel time were the states’ problem and we have a weird political tradition of not subsidizing railroads due to fading memories of the Gilded Age when they were the biggest companies.
ConnectUS has a dark side that people refuse to talk about. Which is that most of the money is going into the NEC for a relatively small boost in ridership. Where as priorities for the states are taking a back seat. We’ll be left to fight for scraps where the NEC is going to get an Interstate Highway Project level of funding. And this beyond them ignoring many easy connections between cities they want to link up. Like Memphis and Nashville or Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile. But that’s just my 2 cents as someone that doesn’t live anywhere near the NEC who likes trains.
Amtrak is trash
Waiting for the sequel with British trains now! 😂
Jokes aside, great video! I'm quite fascinated by the different train networks around the world and you sum up Australia's with a lot of detail. Good job!
on god its vexSG
wow
I'd love to see a video on the Mount Barker Talgo plan, do you think it will work or will it just be another Murraylander?
I live in the US and one thing I like about Australian Trains is the good integration between regional and local/urban trains. Flexibility and easy transfers.
You mention New York and Chicago as being (the only?) American cities with comprehensive networks comparable to the top 5 Australian cities. You need to add Boston, Philadelphia, Washington , Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to these (also Montreal and Toronto if you wish to and should include Canada). The mix of urban and commuter rail in legacy cities such as Boston and Philly are as extensive as those of the larger NY and Chi systems. Newer systems such SF, LA, Miami, and Dallas are nearly there. You mentioned that the Aus suburban rail systems have shorter headways (time between trains) than their American counterparts. I think that the context is missed. The Aus systems (apart from the two big cities) are typically all the rail transit that those cities have. Some though far from all American commuter rail lines have longer headways but they are generally augmented by either heavy or light rail within the core. Some US commuter lines (e.g., Long Island in NY, some of the New Jersey Transit lines, Metra Electric in Chicago) are really hybrid commuter / urban lines and have frequent headways. To some extent BART in S.F. has elements of several different urban vs suburban lines along its length.
As to issues of dillapidation, certainly all of the central and NE US cities are far rougher than anything in Australia (or for that matter in the western US) but it isn't just the lack or mismanagement of funds. The usage of these systems is massive and the climatic challenges are unlike anything that you would find anywhere in Australia. You dismissed LA and Portland as merely light rail or streetcars but that is incomplete. LA has light, heavy and commuter while Portland has streetcars, light rail and commuter. Indeed, on a per capita basis I'm sure that Portland's system is as extensive as any Australian city. I have ridden the systems of Sydney and Melbourne and found them quite good but my personal comparison of them with most American systems is that it's pretty much apples and oranges--both countries have their strengths and weaknesses but in both rail is a distant competitor to automobiles. By contrast the highly developed systems found in much of Asia and Europe is way ahead of our two English speaking lands.
Australia doesn't have the population density to support frequent 'affordable' national interstate passenger train services like Amtrak. In Australia, State governments look after their on state's urban and regional passenger train services, with the exception of the XPT services between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Trying to get WA, SA, Vic, NSW and QLD governments agreeing to put money on the kitty for frequent national interstate passenger train services? Look at the The Overland train between Melbourne and Adelaide or the dramas about getting high speed train services between Melbourne and Sydney.
In the USA, most state governments are not involved in operating their own rail networks as they leave it up tho thee 5 major national rail freight companies to operate rail networks, their state.
Exactly. Its a numbers game.
The class 1s do not operate passenger in the US. Only freight.
Most states do operate there own city metro systems or have it done by a third party. Some use freight lines and other dedicated tracks.
I live in Victoria and have no complaints regarding passenger rail in victoria, although in would certainly encourage the reopening of country rail to more regions such as Mildura, with regards to freight rail much more needs to be done, rail in Australia is drastically underutilized, far more freight, in particular containerized freight needs to be on rail rather than road , there is massive scope to do this
Only other thing I'll add, is the freight side of things. Our trucks dominate. My father spent 54 years SAR/AN/GW and SCT. He used to haul grain from all over SA. And did the Penrice stoney too. Now a days, B doubles, AB trains and A doubles carry all that into pt Adl direct.
No other country has such large capacity road transport. Its terrible but its the way we have gone.
Just think, for every 3 American Semi trailers. We have 1 AB/B triple .
I would like to add that is probably more abandoned/disused rail lines in the US than working rail lines in Australia
Also I am an Amtrak cross country rider and many times we have been stuck going into Chicago because there is SO MUCH freight going through there
Passenger trains in the US are always late because the class one railroads run massive 2 mile long trains that can fit in sidings
Was an exhibition that went around the Australia in 1988, they had to go via road as the rail network did not go to every state on the mainland at the time.
I am sorry your analysis only included a passing reference to the massive tonnage moved by the iron ore and coal railways and not even an accolade to the Rio driverless network.
they is Brightline in fla soon in Cailfornia
18:34 ARTC is supposed to make a profit, and it does on the interstate track, but not at all on the Portland and Oaklands lines in vic which is why they are glorified goat tracks.
A suggestion for a squeal to this video is an Ireland versus New Zealand video
the US has great Urban rail, but AU has Suburban rail that reaches very far and enables very long trips on fast electric rail, tying the whole greater region together. the US just knits its city cores tighter and tighter with far too many lines in the same space.
You seemed to mainly feature SA's and Victoria's intercity network when discussing the intercity category. Sydney and NSW have a fairly decent intercity and intracity network. NSW has quite a few regional centres (Eg Tamworth, Dubbo, Griffith, Wagga Wagga etc) and most are served by train with either the XPT or Xplorer as far as I'm aware. And due to Sydney being surrounded by high amounts of suburban area, such as the Blue Mountains, Newcastle (incl. Central Coast and Lake Macquarie) and Wollongong and the South Coast, there is quite a good intercity rail network.
I wonder what the effect that early subnational ownership of rail infrastructure had on Australia compared to North America.
I think the main reasons transit in America is so unpopular is because of the crime element. People prefer to be in their secluded pods which are ironically more dangerous statistically. That being said, I do think it's a fair concern that will need to be met if America wants to expand it's transit systems.
Blame the mentally insane that we’re released
4:19 only comparison I can give is LIRR, Metro North, and Septa regional rail. Otherwise we don’t have much to compare
A UK Vs Australia railway network would be good.
I think Australia vs Canada will be nice. You can talk about Canada's luxury sightseeing train called the Rocky Mountaineer.
Can u do a video on queensland rail
200th like :)
For a person who lives in Australia Queensland the trains that go past me are good ones
I'm a big fan of both Australian and American railways
The U.S. is too built up and industrialized with quite an extensive network of railways to be fairly compared with Australia which is still an agrarian and mineral dependent nation with virtually all its population located on its coasts. A better comparison would be with Canada or even Russia!
sorry to be a pain but what does pt mean. im a coachbuilding apprentice here in nz and we have built currently 3 city urban busses for aus and they have had the pt signwriting on them but i got no clue what that is.
The most impressive thing about Amtrak is that it was never expected to succeed-it was designed to fail, and was basically set up as a euthanasia program. The fact that it has now survived 50 years of political hostility is incredible. With the newest plans, Amtrak is setting up for a system with better economies of scale and connectivity, as well as linking more destinations and thereby achieving more widespread political support. One of the main reasons that politicians are able to oppose it is because it does not directly benefit their constituents. With a more widespread network, more people will be affected by funding cuts, which in turn will hopefully set up a virtuous cycle of investment.
Also-I can't seem to identify the location at 19:42-19:48. Could somebody please help me with this?
I think Australia is better relative to population. We have a country roughly the same size of the USA yet a tiny fraction of the population. The USA is pretty terrible given over 300 million live there.
The United States has an advantage immediately because of no break of gauge.
🎉
Hey I am in Queensland and just to let you know:
*Queensland is the only state where the population outside of the capital city is almost equal to the capital city so it is an exception to your claim that Australian states are 'city states'
*perhaps because of this, Queensland actually has some decent regional rail-yes there are some old ones that you showed-but also the Tilt Train and Spirit of Queensalnd which are some of the most modern and fast intercity rail services in the country... Spirit of Queensland also covers significant distance
*as someone else mentioned, your video seemed SA and VIC based, NSW has a very extensive regional network which, while not as modern as some of the trains in QLD, is very extensive (and I believe they are currently building new trains)
*price is an important factor-the QLD intercity is affordable but not cheap-NSW is incerdibly affordable especially with concessions, sales fares and $1 kid fares (worth mentioning particularly in your discussion of rail being expected to turn a 'profit' in US and how this affects fares)
Cheers :)
Do you think that the death of the Australian car industry, thereby the death or at least severe throttling of the car industry lobby, has benefitted the progress of rail investment?
As a Victorian I think the screw ups and privatisation of of railway by Kennet is why it's taken till now to finally have them step in to fix it. We have a long way to go but there has been a huge amount of improvement in the last few years. It's been in need for an upgrade for at least a decade.
Australia had American Locomotives too!
"Frequent all-day service" Most of Melbourne's network would like to have a chat (maybe not in 5 years time)
But overall a very good video
I think you should visit the USA and also ride extensively on Amtrak before commenting.
Yes! I was surprised at the amount of rail freight in the USA, but the short lines you talk of are disappearing. How rail will fare when coal traffic is reduced is any ones guess.
My wife and I have travelled most Amtrak routes, we love it, but you need rose coloured glasses to say it achieves any real usefulness as a transport system in the USA. Amtrak, like the Overland is a legacy service funded mainly by sentiment.
That's my sad commentary.
Bro I just want high speed rail lemme take a train to melbourne without taking 9 hours and paying more than a flight
The original agreement signed when Amtrak was conceived with the American freight railroads stated Amtrak trains would have priority. However of course never was this honored by the freight railroads
Do Australia v Iceland
Biased but MURICA!! (Great video though)
Was it a mistake to transfer the South Australian railways to the federal government?
The american shortline railroads have been under threat from PSR- Precision Scheduled Railroading which is neither precise nor scheduled. This practice has resulted in doubling the lengths of trains in order to economise on crews, dropping shortline railroads in favour of high volume loads like coal.
well my video made the cut i see LOL 18:30 xD
They have a better system for sure want to see what the US used to have you have to go back before world war II, prior to that we had a very good system everywhere in the country including cross country trains
Come back please!😭
Australia has way better passenger service than Canada. $99AUD from Melbourne to Sydney, and return, by train.
~$1,000CAD from Vancouver to Calgary with Via Rail, one way.
Yeah but it's A$5k from Sydney to Perth via train
@@adambrock3932 you should check your prices again. I've seen as low as $805. Which is still cheaper than a 1d 8h train ride in Canada. And you still have to take a coach bus from Calgary to Edmonton (3.5h), before Taking train to Vancouver.
Driving to Vancouver is cheaper and only 10-14h. Depends on how fast you drive.
Edit: oh look at that. Last time I checked it was horrible expensive. Now it's $223 from Edmonton to Vancouver. But it still takes over one day by train, when you can still drive in less than 13 hours.
@@DarkChaos87 actually that's the Indian pacific which is 5k
@@adambrock3932 The indian Pacfic has different classes of cabins, and the $805 price is the lowest classes.
I think that you have missed a much larger issue... United States fell in love with air travel 60 years ago. Their air travel options are massive massive and fairly inexpensive. In addition their highway network is vastly superior to that in Australia. The interstate system in the United States is the best in the world.
Is this man dead? No uploads for 2 months
Wait wait. 10:24 Amtrak long distance trains a roommate or a room is thousands of dollars. If you want the affordable price you are paying coach. A seat use of the bathroom. That’s about it. Just like Australia those long distance sleepers are luxuries. I love trains too but if you want to pay a few dollars to go coast to coast across the US as comfortable as possible you fly. If you want the romance of the views from the train you pay.
I very much disagree about regional rail.
There are so many miles of unused track and unserviced towns in regional NSW. In one rail loop you could service Orange, Molong, Parkes, Dubbo and Wellington. That service well over 100,00 permeant residents in the area and precipitate an increase in the hundreds of thousands of tourist trips taken to these locations, while also servicing a University campus, Regional Hospitals, National Freight Distribution Centre, Showgrounds and Sports Centres. It is an insane waste of existing infrastructure.
And the rail line leading out of Brisbane into the entire state is a single rail line. I live on that line and watch freight trains sit and wait for passenger trains to pass every day. It baffles me to think that a state full of mining and food production would continue to put up with a bottle neck like this for en entire state.
It is a national disgrace that our Federal government take no responsibility for the massive benefits that a working regional rail network would create. The Victorian government is increasing services and accessibility in regional areas, but they seem to be the only ones.
We need a Federal Rail Organisation. We need to take back our trains and our train networks as it is insane that Australians must pay a foreign corporation $5000+ to take a train across their own country.
Love all your videos. Keep up the great work.
It's taken several governments worth of inaction and privatisation screw ups for Victora to get where it is with it's rail. I think the current governments opinion that it needs fixing and a full overhaul after seeing it degrade for years is a sign they're worth keeping in power a tad longer just incase the next mob decide to undo it all and leave us in the mess Kennet made. It's taken so many changes of government to unpick every stupid bloody thing that idiot did and we're still shifting through the damage to our public serivce sectors.
I wish he just used the modern train maps
I ride freight in the States. One day gonna ride freight in Aussieland....and get eaten by a train eating snake...
Japan and Australia
9:52 quit whinging. Get a flight for a tenth of the price of the train, the Ghan and IP are all inclusive tourist cruise trains… the train IS the holiday. Regular people do not want to take a three day train journey to see their friends in Perth or Darwin
Or about Indonesian
Adelaide's rail network doesn't have very good coverage.
I bit late to the party, Queensland have an narrower gauged tracks then all of Australia for some reason, you forget cane trains in QLD, NSW and maybe WA. th-cam.com/video/5-M8Grh8gYA/w-d-xo.html
comment
As I am an impartial Canadian I suspect the US may not match Australia’sor Europe’s passenger rail systems is because (the present and previous democrat governments excepted )Americans aren’t happy when their government over taxes them and builds elaborate rail infrastructure that they’ll never use ,because they prefer to drive their (now politically incorrect)cars.
Not a lot of viewers here, for a topic that has been lot of neglect by Australian governments. Particularly the Federal government in Canberra. They (the national government) go for extremely expensive nuclear powered submarine warships, but can't fix national transport issues properly. Do you know how much new national railway could built for 370 billion (cost of 8 nuclear subs)? I can't speak for the viability of US rail services. Finally, I like to say that politically and e,economically the Western world in general, is again going down quite useless cul-de-sacs in land transport. EVs for example, despite the promise of but yet undelivered self-driving capabilities (lot of difference between driver assist and self driving), the corporations (Tesla) and governments go for the expensive option once again; only the wealthy can drive in the end (I.e cars), when they are mandated to be computerised self driving vehicles, while rail vehicles are simply guided by permanent way rail (also easier to make trains self-driving than cars).
Sydney to Melbourne high Speed Rail Project make lot of business sense given that they are two most populous cities in Australia which will be touching 8 million mark by 2030. Build the entire track underground to avoid acquiring land, Road crossings etc Hire Japan instead of China to invest and build this high speed train project like Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to complete the commute in less than 3 hours. Getting to the Airport and getting out anyway takes up that much time if you add it to the actual flying time. Anyone listening?
Australia has the best railway’s more then USA
Prove it.
American railroads look alright until you realize that they are all horribly mismanaged and the infrastructure is rotting away and the trains and hauled by 13 locomotives and half are dead because they are all from 40 or 50 years ago
Australia- short sighted and narrow minded. No long-term vision for the railway ! Too busy bituminising unsealed roads and upgrading existing sealed road.
Any bonehead can obtain a truck license and live on KFC, McDonalds, Energy drinks and takeaway coffee, whilst routinely falsify their work diary, and create large amounts of pollution and road congestion.
Australia can’t see beyond short-term profits and personal convenience. Sad !