X2000 TT to Canberra.

[Riain]

In 1995 CountryLink trialed Sweedish X2000 tilt trains for 2 months. The line was Sydney to Canberra, so the top federal and state pollies were in on it or knew about it. The trial schedule on this very curvy route was 3h25m for the 300km from Syd-Can, compared to the usual 4h25m. Since this was a trial with lash-up equipment presumably in-service trains would do better than this.

So WI the the politically self-serving NSW/Federal Govts purchased X2000 and got them into service in the late 90s for Canberra line? Would the Vic pollies want in on the tilt train act and get a Mel-Syd service so not to be left behind NSW and Qld? Would this be the seed to get trains going faster than 160km/h in Australia?

On a technical note, because of the 60km/h curves Aussie trains are geared-down to get good acceleration out of these slow bends, but this limits their cruising speed to 160km/h. I imagine that if tilt trains allow speeds of 75km/h in 60km/h bends the gearing can be changed to allow 180km/h out in the open. So we get a double whammy, much more speed through the slow bits and a bit more speed on fast bits.

 

[Lord Brisbane]

Would require significant realignment and other infrastructure work to make things better.

With competition from road and air, its not really worth it, economically. As much as I would like to see it.

A far better option would have been for the government not to abandon the country lines, particulary used for grain services, which have suffered greatly. Many lines which are still useful and now literally falling apart and severly run down which means speed restrictions and load limits, which means less money overall, now that grain is making a big comeback.

 

[CeJay]

the current service is a joke, having just been on the xpt, it took 4hrs and 25 mins to get to sydney. Comfortable enough but just to slow. Took the bus back and saved an hour.

 

[Lord Brisbane]

Same reason why QR doesn't bother running passenger trains to Toowoomba. The alignment is just shit including small tunnels which would mean electrification would be prohibitatly expensive and would also get in the way of the coalies coming in from the Darling Downs and the west.

Quicker and cheaper to get the bus.

 

[Riain]

Tilt trains overcome dodgy alignments, that's their main virtue.

 

[Mako_Leader]

I can do that drive, CBD to CBD, in three hours in my car, and have the convienience of having my car available, and pay the same for the return trip with four in the car as it would cost two to get to Sydney from CBR, so why waste money and time on the train?

To make it worth while you would need a high speed train line running from Brisbane - Newcastle - Sydney - Canberra - Melbourne, and it would still be hours quicker and hundreds of dollars cheaper to fly. We don't have the population to support the cost of that kind of rail infastructure, we can't even maintain what we have now. Nor do we have a road network connecting to the rail hubs suitable for dispersing large ammounts of freight.

Maybe the best thing to do is nuke Sydney and start over propperly.

 

[Riain]

The X2000 trial had a 3 1/2 hour shedule using a slightly modded XPT engine. I'd assume that a service version would do better than that, making it comparable with car journey times, despite the twisty lines. When the price of fuel went to $1.50/l a while ago I don't think the old train would look so bad if it was doing similar times.

I think that when trains start to beat cars they'll gather momentum as an alternative to planes and cars in their medium distance niche, which Melbourne-Sydney just fits into.

 

[Riain]

I've come across a chronology of HSR in Australia up to 1998, with considerable reference to the 1995 tilt train trial.

It turns out that the trial was aimed at reducing the Syd-Can travel time for over 4 hours to about 2 hours. The trial was considered less than fully sucessful due to deficiences with the line. The Syd-Can HSR became a Federal election issue in early 96, and the King Jeff supported the scheme because of the future growth to include Victoria. In the event, like all of this sort of thing the pollies eyes got bigger their their balls and started agitating for top of the line HSR like France or Japan, at which point cost/benefit kills it. (I assume the companies who would build the top of the line HSR piss in their pockets in the hope of getting multi-billion dollar contracts, which is why pollies always go over the top and shit never gets done)

How do we get some of the talk and promises to stick? It would cost the Federal, NSW and ACT govts much to buy a few X2000s and tart up the existing line.