350km/h trains on the way for Australia? – Part One

By Chris Faulks

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope describes high speed rail as “inevitable”. The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) chief executive Bryan Nye, believes that it is time that Australia “got the message” about the advantages of high speed rail.
Much has happened since Australia’s last attempt at high speed rail, Speedrail, was blocked by the Howard Government in 2000. More countries around the world have adopted high speed rail and its energy efficiency and climate change benefits are being increasingly recognised. Operating speeds of up to 350km/h are becoming standard.
Last year the ACT Government nominated a high speed rail project for consideration by Infrastructure Australia (IA), the Federal Government’s infrastructure advisory body. The proposal made the preliminary list of projects identified in December 2008 as deserving further analysis, but did not feature in the final list funded in the May budget.
No doubt part of the problem was that there is not a defined project at present, awaiting funds from either the public or private sector. A spokesman for the Minister for Infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, has indicated that IA could revisit the proposal in the future.
The likely next step will be a study to investigate how high speed rail could be implemented and funded, or at the very least, how corridors should be identified and reserved for future construction. Funding, and in particular the roles of the public and private sectors, will be a key issue.
The ACT Chief Minister is working with the business community in Canberra to promote high speed rail and is seeking to engage the Premiers of adjacent states.
A network from Melbourne to Brisbane will be a very large project, which will inevitably be built in sections, and a study would be needed to decide the optimum sequence for construction.
One possibility for an initial system could be Newcastle-Sydney-Canberra, providing the central backbone for future extensions. A high speed service on this corridor would help to relieve urban pressure on Sydney.
Meanwhile, an initial new study for high speed rail in Australia is already underway. The CRC for Rail Innovation is currently undertaking research to establish and review the technical, contextual and institutional requirements for the introduction of high speed trains. An initial report is scheduled for release by the end of 2009.
Among the factors leading to the fresh consideration of high speed rail is the fact that Sydney-Melbourne is, according to Tiger Airways, the third busiest air route in the world. There are more than 60 flights each way every day between the two cities, about one third of them operated by wide-bodied 767 aircraft. Sydney-Brisbane is also a busy air route by world standards, especially if flights to the Gold Coast are counted in a combined Sydney-South-East Queensland corridor.

To read Part Two of this story, click here.

Chris Faulks is chief executive of Canberra Business Council (CBC).
CBC is a member organisation whose objective is to represent views and concerns of business in the ACT and Capital Region to government and key decision-makers, and to support private sector development in the ACT.