Government Tender For High Speed Rail Study

Government Tender has been released for a strategic study of a high speed rail network on the east coast.

In August 2010 the labour government committed to undertake a detailed feasibility and corridor study to determine the economic viability of, and identify potential routes for, a high speed rail network on the east coast of Australia. The study will cost up to $20 million will be expected to take about 18 months to be completed.

High speed rail has the potential to cut travel times for people commuting between capital cities like Sydney and growing regional cities like Newcastle and Gosford.

Nearly 10 million people live along the east coast between Brisbane and Melbourne, which requires ongoing investment in modern transport infrastructure.

Average speeds between stations of around 250km/h are now in established operations in Europe. More recently even higher average speeds have been reported in China. Applying such speeds to Australia could reduce Sydney - Melbourne transit time to between 3 and 4 hours and lead to a very significant rail mode share.

From European experience it could reasonably be expected that some 50% of the travellers between Sydney and Melbourne would use a high speed rail link if the journey was less than four hours. For shorter routes such as Sydney - Canberra and Sydney - Newcastle the share of travellers would be much higher.

The feasibility study will build on previous preliminary work on this issue by identifying potential rail corridors, undertaking geotechnical and engineering investigations and doing the financial and economic modelling to determine the projects viability.

It will examine the network between Brisbane and Melbourne, with a specific focus on the geotechnical analysis and preservation of the corridor between Sydney and Newcastle.

High speed rail is already well-advanced in Europe and Japan, with China now building new state of the art high speed rail networks to service their major cities.

From very modest developments 30 years ago, the pace of expansion of high-speed railways in recent years has been very rapid. High-speed trains include those operating on conventional track (at speeds of up to 225 km/h) and those operating on dedicated high-speed track (at speeds of 250-350 km/h).

International experience shows that high speed rail requires special trains, dedicated tracks and networks and modern signalling systems capable of serving the network.

The initial phase of the strategic study will, by July 2011:

- Identify the requirements for implementation of a viable High Speed Rail network on the east coast, and

- Identify strategic route and station options, including high level costing.

The study will focus on identifying a set of possible route, corridor preservation and station options, including city-centre, city-periphery and airport stations. This will provide a basis for route development, indicative transit times and high-level construction costs, as well as estimates of net benefit. The Government Tender for the study closes on the 8th December 2010.

by: Corwin Smith

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