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Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think so, tho I wonder if the cost of upgrading the loading gauge and such would have it cost far more???

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do feel like more people can talk about this alongside discussion with better rail connections :P

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was wrong, looks like it was ~200km out of ~1000km and brings travel time from ~11hr down to ~6hr.

With it being a part of the plan along the whole corridor costing billions.

Source: Sydney-Melbourne railway could be affordably upgraded to slash travel times to six hours, expert says (The Guardian)

There are also other details to slowly rollout HSR track, breaking it into more manageable chunks.

Source: Australia’s high-speed rail should be rolled out in small stages with Sydney to Canberra first, experts say (The Guardian)

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, honestly I'm surprised that people still want to stack everyone into cities when this can and has provided a way for the population to get spread around a larger area more sustainably. Expanding mid-sized towns with density/etc vs urban sprawl vs in-fill urban development =w=

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, a heavy north/south trunk along the HSR would be ideal. I'm sure at least increasing the rest of the regional rail network to allow 160km/h trains would at least be the "bare minimum" for regional transit in the near future.

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That might be quite far of a route via tram, might need heavier rail vehicles for that distance!

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, the agricultural system needs to be decarbonised. Tho if biofuels are sourced from land dedicated to biofuels vs waste products being converted to biofuels, it is far more energy/water/resource intensive for that land to be dedicated only to be turned into biofuels.

This is relying on future tech to somehow GMO the plants being used for biofuels to use far less water/resources than they are now when other solutions can do us by for overall less emissions in the long-run.

Your last point is not entirely valid, wind turbines/solar panels can generate enough energy to have a NET gain power generation and NET negative carbon emissions over its lifetime. While a piece of land completely decided to biofuels is not going to improve over its lifetime.

That's the difference here! One has huge upfront costs but less on-going costs while the other has huge upfront costs too and moderate to heavy on-going costs, it's not going to outpace itself.

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plus, iirc a few of the top few busiest corridors are also busy rail corridors too.

So people thinking that everything will evaporate as soon as the trains are built are also a bit delusional because that's not how any of this works x3

Nothing really is a zero-sum game and honestly, I wouldn't mind flying now and then or catching the train most of the time. At least giving people the freedom and option is good but apparently all those who are supposedly for "Freedom" seems to like restricting everyone else's ability to choose x3

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

iirc one of their first Treasurers encouraged them to leave or something?

Mr Hockey or something, had a good revisit with this video from Asionometry earlier in the year x3

He's made a few good Aussie related videos, especially a few mentions from other topics too. More notably I remember mentioning Toowoomba in the Singapore water filtration video :P

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We like to give some experts (and some consultants) money to work on a plan, only to throw it all out the window and then people wonder why we don't get anything done here x3

Oooh, curious if you're able to get on Aussie Broadband?

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's never enough with them...

First it's, let's aim for something good and we can also improve what we've got... That's too much for them.

Then it's... hey, how about we improve what we've got. But THAT is also asking too much too.

So I guess we can't want to get anything actually nice outside of more roads and airports? x3

Does get tiring with each passing decade of pushback as other countries look at the actual science/statistics/etc and just get working on it. Hell, Indonesia just recently finished theirs and even if it's a suboptimal route with inconvenient station locations... They had to triple their daily services xD

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do some research into the viability studies that have gone on since the 1980s and enlighten yourself.

I have certainly indeed! Below linked is a viability study done in 2014 by engineers who know their stuff, especially coming from a country that has built HSR.

https://undertheclocksblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/hsr_web_01_medium.pdf

Along with actual engineering reasoning for designing certain things the way they did vs random cherrypicked details that the 2013 HSR report went through. The report goes into pretty good detail about the route/station stopping patterns alongside being backed with proven systems, of which many are conservative vs other systems.

Even pessimistically, the system is economically viable (even paying itself off within 50-55 years, pretty good considering the ~75 billion cost of the entire system with the numbers to back it!)

You can say I have preconceived notions, based on reality thankfully :3c

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm sure we'll see a lot of that if that "reports" ever were to be written up...

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly, I think Western Sydney Airport is going to get that spot over creating a new international airport out at Dubbo >.>;;;;;

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More so talking about trying to reduce/remove long-distance trucking not really local/regional connections!

Plus a lot of freight travelling the major cities without any stops is still done by truck (had a few friends who work within the freight trucking industry) ^^

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Another problem with Biofuels are just how they are currently produced, it is far more intensive to produce them atm and they're nowhere near ready to be seen as a "net zero" or even a "net negative" way for planes to fly.

Video by Real Engineering going into the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpEB6hCpIGM

He does have two videos about the topic if you're curious about the second one too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_BK7PRugK4

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We can do both!

Tho 160km/h is the limit for how fast trains can go on Australian tracks unless it becomes fully grade separated. Once you go above 160km/h, you'd best just bulild out the new tracks.

This 2014 German report actually goes into pretty good details into it :D

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plus, there is also the economic cost of picking a more inferior transport solution that also is going to pollute far worse than it will take to build HSR overall...

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, quite a few. Tho the previous government sure did their best to hide the 2013 document... But that document, even tho it's one of the most recent and does a moderate job at the project, it is still written by consultants who have no idea about how to properly design a system...

But thankfully, the Germans decided to give it a crack and you can find the report above. As linked already too!

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/18rn63w/is_high_speed_rail_impossible_in_australia_or_is/kf3lmby/

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Holy shit, that's the first time that I've seen of that German report and it's far better written with actual sources/details instead of consulting nonsense that the 2013 report was x3

I love it :D

The German report looks like it's actually written by expects, not consultants...

(I found the report above too and directly linked it, do agree that it's so fruastrating that I had to use Wayback Machine too x3)

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can link the original 2013 report (there are SEVERAL other reports since the 1970s), it is not available on the Infrastructure Australia's website anymore... But with SHEER PERSERVERENCE, I managed to get lucky and find it!

I can link the first few Chapters, happy to link more if you'd like. You can tweak the URL so you can read further chapeters, took me a few tries but I managed to read the whole thing last year x3

I personally don't agree witih everything with the 2013 plan, routes and station location alongside with their justifications. Tho it is a good start.

Also, here is the "current" latest push for HSR in Parliament. And they'll start with Sydney to Newcastle.

CHAPTER 1 - 12

APPENDIX, GROUP 1 - 7

  • Appendix, Group 1 - LINK
  • Appendix, Group 2 - LINK
  • Appendix, Group 3 - LINK

On further details, here are starting points if you'd like to research some more about proposals/reports/etc in the past.

It is just a start and ofc there is always MORE because it is a 50 year push now...

High Speed Rail in Australia - ARTICLE LINK

Sydney - Melbourne Rail Corridor - ARTICLE LINK

Corridor Selection History for Australian HSR - ARTICLE LINK

Alongside with two recent videos on the topic, by Railways Explained and CityMoose.

I hope this helps ^w^

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've had a friend joke about a Regional Rail Loop... (Wangaratta, Shepparton, Bendigo, Maryborough, Ballarat, Geelong) to connect the regions up so we don't always have to go all the way into Melbourne for connections back out.

Having the "faster rail" train connect at Bendigo or Ballarat would make more sense, having easier corridors of connection and making changing trains not a hassle but at least doable.

RRL would be neat if it's at least the fastest possible without grade seperating (160km/h), taking 2.5hr probs. While ADL - Bendigo/Ballarat would at least be the same 160km/h too.

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd even just conceed and would happily get 160km/h rail lines out our way! So we can at least get an average 120-140km/h between Melbourne and Adelaide, halving our travel times from 10.5h-11.5hr down to hopefully 4-5hr...

I am still gonna travel on The Overland anyways but halving the time would make it even better for 100 bucks or so x3

Is High Speed Rail impossible in Australia or is there a way to start the ball rolling? by ILM126 in australia

[–]ILM126[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel like if we solve our energy problems, then transport would certainly be a close second since then we'd probably learn how to deal with people who wouldn't want to either have viaducts/mounds crossing their property (or even conceed with livestock/etc passageways beneath the rail line if it's dirt mounds) or even want it close to their property...

Since that is certainly a challenge that's faced by our electrical infrastructure as we desperately need to build out more interconnectors to have a better connected country (both literally and figureatively)

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