The committee is now examining the funding envelopes for fast rail services across a number of corridors including:

Sydney to Wollongong
Melbourne to Geelong (we know about this pair)
Melbourne to Albury/Wodonga
Brisbane to the Gold Coast

I thought funding had already been assigned for Melbourne to Geelong?

Melbourne to Albury is a new one.

New committee to consider options for financing faster rail

Sir Humphrey Appleby:

"And to that end, I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we'll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions."

I'm sure you are right but John Alexander is no slough. He will push the work through.

Did the LIBS have a date on the Melbourne to Geelong project and yes I am aware Daniel Andrews has canned the idea whilst the council is pro high speed to Melbourne.

The committee is now examining the funding envelopes for fast rail services across a number of corridors including:

Sydney to Wollongong
Melbourne to Geelong (we know about this pair)
Melbourne to Albury/Wodonga
Brisbane to the Gold Coast

I thought funding had already been assigned for Melbourne to Geelong?

Melbourne to Albury is a new one.

New committee to consider options for financing faster rail

Brisbane - GC is half done, just fix the Brisbane to Beenleigh so the GC trains can make a decent run of it. Prior to the extension VL, the GC trains took twice as long to go City - Beenleigh as they did Beenleigh - Robina, yet distance is the same. The GC trains have now been saddled with even more stops on City - Beenleigh section, slowing them further.

Mel to Albury, easy. Hand over the right amount of cash to ARTC to do the job properly and rebuild the NE line to 160 - 200km/h standard. No need for new alignment or trackage over most of the corridor.

Syd - Wollongong, well the actually got it right the first time over 130 years ago and had a reasonably straight run from Waterfall to the Coalcliff.  Later on they put in the horse shoe route we have today. The straight tunnels are even still there.

So
1) rebuild new tunnels/open old ones Waterfall to say Scarborough (13-14km, one mid way station at Helensburg), 140km/h running to Heathcote through the tunnels and most of the job is done and is by far the big ticket item.
2) Next Quad the track from Waterfall to Mortdale with two express lines rated 80-140km/h.
3) From Mortdale tunnel (4km) to Kingsgrove on East Hills line rated to 140km/h running and run the quad express all the way to the city from there.

Mel to Geelong - rebuild to 200km/h running with O/H and fix the bottle necks into the city.


Committee's work is now done, hand over the money.

Committee:- A group of the unfit, appointed by the unwilling, to do the unnecessary.

blah blah blah blah blah.

Seriously RTT. The old tunnels are not going to be re used to Wollongong. A new alignment might be built but the old stuff is staying closed.

You can hand as much cash as you want to the ARTC but they would still find a way to botch the job up

You can hand as much cash as you want to the ARTC but they would still find a way to botch the job up

The Murray Basin Standardisation debacle makes ARTC look good