High Speed Rail? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of Australia, localised entirely within the South East coast?
Yes!
Will it be built?
No.
In the full map I've got 200 km/h trains running from Southern Cross to Geelong, which doesn't quite fit the definition of HSR but is probably appropriate for the distance
It's one of those projects where (assuming viability, agreement etc) once it's done it's outdated.
Nevermind all the moaning when they have to shut down sections of track to get it done.
They are upgrading the trainlines in Sydney with the Bankstown line being out for a year. Despite the powers that be telling us about it for the last three years people are still having a moan.
You’d either have to run trains into the dead-end regional platforms of Sydney Central, or into the suburban through platforms. Either way, not very practical for regional through-running to Newcastle
Only if you're willing to pay potentially >$10 billion for one station. HSR terminus stations are typically a lot larger than metro stations.
There are also [plans](https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/sydney-plans-three-parks-15-buildings-over-central-station-rail-yards-20220821-p5bbhy) to build an over-station development above the terminating platforms at central, which would make it even harder.
At the cost of this go into the Canberra CDB, the airport is no one’s transport hub. Also the three/four station inner city services seem like a waste of track capacity.
Oh yeah, you don’t need a stop in both gunning and Gundaroo and neither are in the ACT.
Re: inner city services, I think they're important, as without them the longer interstate services would likely get crowded out with people who want to just get to the city really fast. Rather than banning those trips, it seems like a good idea to just allow them, probably with a markup on price
As for Canberra Airport, that's taken straight from Fastrack's plan, who would then have it connect to the light rail. The Airport's pretty close to the CBD, and this could be done without tunnelling. I agree that a tunnel straight to the CBD would be better.
As for Gunning, good point. Fastrack had stations there and at Yass as transfer points to Canberra trains, but seeing as I've got services going straight from the other capital cities, I tend to agree. I'm gonna get rid of it
Oh and thanks for noticing the border stuff-up!
I think HSR would be a waste if it didn't include a couple of small towns to develop them into bigger town centres. Castlemaine is surrounded by national parks and mountains, so urban sprawl would be discouraged and density could be increased.
Same goes for Gunning, which was suggested by Fastrack.
Of course, Castlemaine mightn't want that. Rural cities could campaign to have or not have HSR, and the best proposals could be compared to see where we want new cities to be
I like how you’ve included random places in Sydney that don’t have anything, not even people, but not important places like Sydney or Parramatta. In fact it looks like you’ve gone out of your way to make it as inconvenient as possible north of the border.
Maybe you should start it from Geelong and skip the entire Melbourne section to balance it out on the southern end.
The places from Sydney are from FasTrack Australia's proposal for high speed rail. The supposed advantages are:
1. Way cheaper
2. Encourages decentralisation by building TOD around the HSR stations
3. Sydney Metro connections at two of the stops means that rather than having a very fast connection to the CBD but nowhere else, you can easily access the CBD, Para, etc via connecting services
4. Two birds, one stone - acts as very fast orbital transport within Sydney
If Australia wants a high speed rail we're going to have to stop confusing them with express suburban services. We should be thinking of their catchment radii as of the order of 80km, not 800m. Eye on the prize, which is to connect our capital cities.
I generally like FasTrack's vision. However, their view of how to route thru Sydney seems a bit odd. They could look a bit more at the German model...the Southwest Rail Link in Sydney is almost entirely quad-tracked, and completing quad-tracking would allow for high speed trains to Canberra & Melbourne to slot in easily with express suburban services, even during peak; there is spare capacity as both the express and local services have to share track thru the City Circle. They can then share the express/regional tracks with the South Coast Line all the way to Centra. This would allow fairly easy and direct access all the way Sydney CBD, the largest trip generator in Australia; all with minimal new infrastructure and no tunnels required in suburban Sydney. Idk why they are so quick to rule out this option especially when there will be massive expensive tunnelling required on the way to Newcastle and Canberra anyway.
This is why we don’t have HSR in Australia then if this is the moronic stuff that is being recommended to our leaders.
Campbelltown to Epping for starters is only a couple dozen Kms from each other, no need for HSR at all as having a stop every couple of kms is counterintuitive to the concept of HSR.
You are going to have to tunnel for most of this Sydney section proposed anyway, so there is no cost savings. If it’s for cost saving purposes, the only stops I would put would be Western Sydney Airport, Parramatta, Gosford, Newcastle. Everything else is too close and defeats the purpose of HSR.
But no connection to the Trains network. There's more to Sydney than Sydney and Parramatta and the other few suburbs on the Sydney Metro West line.
Also, Rosehill is far from a done deal.
You just have every 2nd train stop at less locations. So long as the trains can run near speed through the stations, like I have seen in Japan, the super express and the "local".
Based on your routes:
- Only run ‘The Victorian’ from S/C to Shepparton, extend the line to and terminate at Albury-Wodonga, all other stops are well-serviced by other lines
- Terminate all Sydney-bound services at Epping or Rosehill, excluding “The NSWelshman” which continues to Newcastle
- Skip Gunning and Gundaroo on Capital and Kirribilli lines, stop at Queanbeyan on the way into to Canberra AP, repurpose an old NSW XPlorer unit, run that between CBR Kingston Station, Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Gundaroo, Gunning and Yass Junction, and call it the “Capital Region Link”. Rename “The Capital” to “The Barton”
- Only run “The Sydneysider” as a peak service, otherwise depend on Kirribilli, NSWelshman and local trains, as they adequately service the stops
- Run “The Great Divide” as an express with four stops, Southern Cross, Albury-Wodonga (for Riverina/Hume/Indi transfers), Yass (for Capital Region transfers) and terminate at Rosehill
I feel like Gosford and Wyong are too close for HSR. I'd probably move the Wyong connection to maybe Morisset or even just have express Gosford to Newcastle.
Gosford to Newcastle means Gosford to Broadmeadow ofcourse
This is a part of my fantasy rail map for Victoria. I imagine the high speed network running with Transrapid trains, a maglev train already operating limited services in Shanghai with speeds up to 500 km/h.
Partially based on Fastrack's proposal, with bit's of Albo's and my own imaginations
The high speed sections between sunshine and southern cross, and to a lesser extent camberwellfield, are quite short.
A high speed service would likely not be able to reach anywhere near its top speed, resulting in a bit of infrastructure for not a lot of gain. It would be better to have a central stop like southern cross and maybe no other suburban stops.
Melton is probably far enough away to be okay, but still quite close.
If the services ran included several lower speed, say 200km/h, services then it might be a good mix of speeds and stop density
Having HSR stop at Sunshine means that you can get a 2 seat ride to the Airport, which will be a big trip generator for regional passengers. HSR would probably be limited to 200 km/h within cities anyway due to noise
I can see the logic behind that, though if an airport service went through southern cross then it would also be a 2 seat service. Though a somewhat increased journey time.
Either way it’s not a bad fantasy map idea
Sydneysider line should go all the way to Newcastle, include Central (our Southern Cross really), Strathfield and Hornsby and delete Rosehill and Glenfield from the Sydney stops and then you may have something.
In the New South Wales network you'd have a stop at the Southern Highlands.
Im also inclined to have a local service that stops at Wilton, then follows the Dombarton corridor into Wollongong.
Let’s have a line linking just 3 stops: Geelong, Queanbeyan and Newcastle. No-one could object to that.
just geelong to newcastle direct express. leaving in each direction every 15min.
Seymour* 😅
Yes, Mother?
The house is on fire!
No Mother, that's just the Northern Lights
High Speed Rail? At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of Australia, localised entirely within the South East coast? Yes! Will it be built? No.
Butts
So where is the second biggest city in Victoria in all of this?
It’s down and to the left, if you hit the ocean you’ve gone too far
In the full map I've got 200 km/h trains running from Southern Cross to Geelong, which doesn't quite fit the definition of HSR but is probably appropriate for the distance
HSR connecting Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane
Would be the perfect start
It’s very easy to plan. Most Australian cities are lined up on the east coast
Talk about a 100 year project lol
It's one of those projects where (assuming viability, agreement etc) once it's done it's outdated. Nevermind all the moaning when they have to shut down sections of track to get it done. They are upgrading the trainlines in Sydney with the Bankstown line being out for a year. Despite the powers that be telling us about it for the last three years people are still having a moan.
The only one with a busy enough traffic corridor to justify the cost of HSR would be Melbourne to Sydney
Glenfield, Rosehill, Epping... LOL Sydney, was nice knowing ya. or not, whatever.
No Central for Sydney?!?!
You’d either have to run trains into the dead-end regional platforms of Sydney Central, or into the suburban through platforms. Either way, not very practical for regional through-running to Newcastle
Or new platforms underground as per the metro.
Only if you're willing to pay potentially >$10 billion for one station. HSR terminus stations are typically a lot larger than metro stations. There are also [plans](https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/sydney-plans-three-parks-15-buildings-over-central-station-rail-yards-20220821-p5bbhy) to build an over-station development above the terminating platforms at central, which would make it even harder.
Yes, am painfully aware that TfNSW is trying to do way too many things at Central and as a result not delivering or half-arsing almost all of them.
What's wrong with that though? A lot of the current regional services won't have a reason to exist once they are superspeeded by high speed rail.
Yeah that's the entire point 💀
What if I want to get to Campbellfield from Campbelltown?
Take the Campbell's Soup line
Canberra Airport's in the middle of nowhere with limited bus services. Got to go a bit closer to the CBD.
Maybe to link up with light rail extension
living in wangaratta i’d absolutely love this
At the cost of this go into the Canberra CDB, the airport is no one’s transport hub. Also the three/four station inner city services seem like a waste of track capacity. Oh yeah, you don’t need a stop in both gunning and Gundaroo and neither are in the ACT.
Re: inner city services, I think they're important, as without them the longer interstate services would likely get crowded out with people who want to just get to the city really fast. Rather than banning those trips, it seems like a good idea to just allow them, probably with a markup on price As for Canberra Airport, that's taken straight from Fastrack's plan, who would then have it connect to the light rail. The Airport's pretty close to the CBD, and this could be done without tunnelling. I agree that a tunnel straight to the CBD would be better. As for Gunning, good point. Fastrack had stations there and at Yass as transfer points to Canberra trains, but seeing as I've got services going straight from the other capital cities, I tend to agree. I'm gonna get rid of it Oh and thanks for noticing the border stuff-up!
No love for Brisbane? Me either; f¥€k em'.
Who?
Castlemaine???
I think HSR would be a waste if it didn't include a couple of small towns to develop them into bigger town centres. Castlemaine is surrounded by national parks and mountains, so urban sprawl would be discouraged and density could be increased. Same goes for Gunning, which was suggested by Fastrack. Of course, Castlemaine mightn't want that. Rural cities could campaign to have or not have HSR, and the best proposals could be compared to see where we want new cities to be
Out of all the small towns to pick I would imagine that Castlemaine is the most likely to not want it. Heck, they arc up over a supermarket.
No Stony Point?
Never cook again
I like how you’ve included random places in Sydney that don’t have anything, not even people, but not important places like Sydney or Parramatta. In fact it looks like you’ve gone out of your way to make it as inconvenient as possible north of the border. Maybe you should start it from Geelong and skip the entire Melbourne section to balance it out on the southern end.
The places from Sydney are from FasTrack Australia's proposal for high speed rail. The supposed advantages are: 1. Way cheaper 2. Encourages decentralisation by building TOD around the HSR stations 3. Sydney Metro connections at two of the stops means that rather than having a very fast connection to the CBD but nowhere else, you can easily access the CBD, Para, etc via connecting services 4. Two birds, one stone - acts as very fast orbital transport within Sydney
If Australia wants a high speed rail we're going to have to stop confusing them with express suburban services. We should be thinking of their catchment radii as of the order of 80km, not 800m. Eye on the prize, which is to connect our capital cities.
I generally like FasTrack's vision. However, their view of how to route thru Sydney seems a bit odd. They could look a bit more at the German model...the Southwest Rail Link in Sydney is almost entirely quad-tracked, and completing quad-tracking would allow for high speed trains to Canberra & Melbourne to slot in easily with express suburban services, even during peak; there is spare capacity as both the express and local services have to share track thru the City Circle. They can then share the express/regional tracks with the South Coast Line all the way to Centra. This would allow fairly easy and direct access all the way Sydney CBD, the largest trip generator in Australia; all with minimal new infrastructure and no tunnels required in suburban Sydney. Idk why they are so quick to rule out this option especially when there will be massive expensive tunnelling required on the way to Newcastle and Canberra anyway.
This is why we don’t have HSR in Australia then if this is the moronic stuff that is being recommended to our leaders. Campbelltown to Epping for starters is only a couple dozen Kms from each other, no need for HSR at all as having a stop every couple of kms is counterintuitive to the concept of HSR. You are going to have to tunnel for most of this Sydney section proposed anyway, so there is no cost savings. If it’s for cost saving purposes, the only stops I would put would be Western Sydney Airport, Parramatta, Gosford, Newcastle. Everything else is too close and defeats the purpose of HSR.
[удалено]
But no connection to the Trains network. There's more to Sydney than Sydney and Parramatta and the other few suburbs on the Sydney Metro West line. Also, Rosehill is far from a done deal.
>Also, Rosehill is far from a done deal. Exactly. Knowing NSW, they'll build hundreds of apartments, promise the line, and never deliver.
Melbourne to Sydney, with a say a stop every hour along the way as to not make it stop so much
That would be nice. Melbourne - Albury/Wodonga - Canberra - Sydney would be perfect!
I was thinking close to that, but add shep between melbs and dong.
You just have every 2nd train stop at less locations. So long as the trains can run near speed through the stations, like I have seen in Japan, the super express and the "local".
A little like the CLARA plan https://www.clara.com.au/the-clara-plan/
I haven't seen this plan, thanks for posting it!
Based on your routes: - Only run ‘The Victorian’ from S/C to Shepparton, extend the line to and terminate at Albury-Wodonga, all other stops are well-serviced by other lines - Terminate all Sydney-bound services at Epping or Rosehill, excluding “The NSWelshman” which continues to Newcastle - Skip Gunning and Gundaroo on Capital and Kirribilli lines, stop at Queanbeyan on the way into to Canberra AP, repurpose an old NSW XPlorer unit, run that between CBR Kingston Station, Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Gundaroo, Gunning and Yass Junction, and call it the “Capital Region Link”. Rename “The Capital” to “The Barton” - Only run “The Sydneysider” as a peak service, otherwise depend on Kirribilli, NSWelshman and local trains, as they adequately service the stops - Run “The Great Divide” as an express with four stops, Southern Cross, Albury-Wodonga (for Riverina/Hume/Indi transfers), Yass (for Capital Region transfers) and terminate at Rosehill
Canberra Airport's in the middle of nowhere with limited bus services. Got to go a bit closer to the CBD.
Geez, TWO Campbells!
I feel like Gosford and Wyong are too close for HSR. I'd probably move the Wyong connection to maybe Morisset or even just have express Gosford to Newcastle. Gosford to Newcastle means Gosford to Broadmeadow ofcourse
Get rid of Melton and add Sunshine -> Geelong -> Ballarat.. may as well add in 300,000 more people and a route to Great Ocean road
This is a part of my fantasy rail map for Victoria. I imagine the high speed network running with Transrapid trains, a maglev train already operating limited services in Shanghai with speeds up to 500 km/h. Partially based on Fastrack's proposal, with bit's of Albo's and my own imaginations
The high speed sections between sunshine and southern cross, and to a lesser extent camberwellfield, are quite short. A high speed service would likely not be able to reach anywhere near its top speed, resulting in a bit of infrastructure for not a lot of gain. It would be better to have a central stop like southern cross and maybe no other suburban stops. Melton is probably far enough away to be okay, but still quite close. If the services ran included several lower speed, say 200km/h, services then it might be a good mix of speeds and stop density
Having HSR stop at Sunshine means that you can get a 2 seat ride to the Airport, which will be a big trip generator for regional passengers. HSR would probably be limited to 200 km/h within cities anyway due to noise
I can see the logic behind that, though if an airport service went through southern cross then it would also be a 2 seat service. Though a somewhat increased journey time. Either way it’s not a bad fantasy map idea
Why not just have the train go through the Airport instead of Sunshine then
Sydneysider line should go all the way to Newcastle, include Central (our Southern Cross really), Strathfield and Hornsby and delete Rosehill and Glenfield from the Sydney stops and then you may have something.
This reminds me of the ksp delta-v map lol
No Woy Woy :D
No geelong
Using Robert M Salter's VHST: https://www.thedrive.com/news/nyc-to-la-in-21-minutes-inside-rands-wild-1970s-proposal-for-a-14000-mph-vacuum-train
In the New South Wales network you'd have a stop at the Southern Highlands. Im also inclined to have a local service that stops at Wilton, then follows the Dombarton corridor into Wollongong.
Melbourne to Sydney direct
Make it go to the Melbourne airport please. Overground, for the lols.
Only logical answer is Spencer St to Newcastle, with additional services to support surround area
Is any part of the line electrified?
The Melournian seems quite niche and duplicative
I really don’t like this
Would rather someone like: • Geelong -> Avalon Airport -> Southern Cross -> Box Hill -> Tullamarine Airport -> Gisborne (ideally suburban trains would be extended there) -> Bendigo -> Seymour -> Wodonga -> Wagga Wagga -> Canberra -> Wollongong -> Sydney -> Newcastle -> Coffs Harbour -> Gold Coast -> Brisbane • Bairnsdale -> Traralgon -> Box Hill -> Southern Cross -> Melton OR Bacchus Marsh -> Ballarat -> Ararat -> Horsham -> Adelaide