Bringing HSR a step closer: Building a Railway for the 21st Century

Conference On Railway Excellence
Adelaide, 5 – 7 May 2014
BUILDING A RAILWAY FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY:
BRINGING HIGH SPEED RAIL A STEP CLOSER
Max Michell
BBus (Transport Economics) (RMIT), FCILT, SAMROM Pty Ltd NSW, Australia
Scott Martin Philip Laird
BA (USyd) MUP (Melb), CMILT, MSc (VUW) MSc (ANU) PhD (Calgary),
University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia FCILT, Comp IE Aust, University of
Wollongong, NSW, Australia
SUMMARY
High Speed Rail (HSR) operating at maximum speeds of above 250km/h with electric passenger
trains are now operational in at least 11 countries. As the feasibility of building an Australian East
Coast HSR network between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane is once again being examined,
governments at Federal, State and Local levels need to develop complementary transport
infrastructure and services to ensure the long-term financial and operational success of HSR.
The lengthy time frame currently envisaged for completing the first stage of an Australian East
Coast HSR network by 2035 provides a 20-year window for improving and upgrading urban and
regional rail systems to make them ‘HSR ready’. This paper explores an incremental approach to
providing a HSR network that will allow progressive enhancements rather than the currently
recommended ‘big bang’ approach and identify changes required to produce a healthy intercity rail
network to complement a successful HSR network.
INTRODUCTION
The International Union of Railways (UIC) (1)
notes that High Speed Rail (HSR) involves electric
passenger trains using steel wheels on steel rails.
Based on the HSR prototype pioneered by Japan’s
Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964, HSR generally
requires dedicated rights of way, purpose-built
rolling stock and in-cab signalling.
While UIC notes (1, 2) there is no single definition
of HSR, if it is defined as offering train journeys at
top speeds of more than 250 km/h, at least 11
countries currently operate HSR, including Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, China, France, Italy, Spain,
Germany, Britain, Turkey and Belgium. If HSR is
defined as including trains operating at maximum
speeds of between 200km/h and 250km/h (1),
then a number of other countries join the high
speed rail league, including United States,
Netherlands and Switzerland.
Of course there are many countries where
maximum speeds of 160 km/h or higher are
operated – Medium Speed Rail (MSR) – but the
key issue is the consistency of operation at higher
speeds rather than the nominal train capability.
Many countries operate trains at MSR standard
including countries without HSR systems, such as
Australia, that operate some medium and long-
distance passenger services in the MSR range of
maximum speeds.
In the definition of HSR and MSR the maximum
speeds quoted need to be achievable over the
majority if not all the line length to qualify – unlike
most of Australia’s existing fastest trains which are
largely limited to quite sedate speeds over much of
their journeys from excessively tight radius curves.
SETTING THE SCENE
The benefits of HSR for new and existing rail users
including faster transit times (city centre to city
centre), higher service frequencies and span of
hours, comfort, reliability, price and safety are well
documented. Environmental benefits such as
higher energy efficiency than air or road transport
(with lower greenhouse gas emissions) and
reduced social and environmental externalities
from transport such as road accidents, pollution,
climate change and noise (1).
A key issue for HSR is the impact it can have on
demography and the spatial relationships between
home, work and leisure. In France, SNCF has
noted that 95% of users of the TGV network are
‘regular’ travellers. Over recent decades, the TGV
has become part of everyday life for many French.
Japanese and European experience indicates
HSR operates most effectively between city pairs
100-600km apart (3). On routes of up to 500km
HSR is claimed to capture between 80-90 per cent
of traffic and on routes up to 800km, 50 per cent of
traffic (4). Research from France, UK and Sweden
indicates that travel time rather than distance
between city pairs is the key factor to success of
HSR/MSR, with 2-3 hour journey times over longer
distances identified as critical to facilitating rail as

Max Michell Building a railway for the 21
st
Century
Samrom Pty Ltd Bringing High Speed Rail a step closer
a time-competitive travel mode over larger areas,
encouraging greater economic development,
particularly in regional cities (5, 6).
The history of Australian settlement and the
primacy of its capital cities means population is
concentrated in the east coast capital cities of
Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne (7),
an issue largely determined by the proximity to sea
transport and legacies of the Colonial era and
Federation. Regional cities are by and large
relatively small which is largely a function of the
inadequacy of inland transport and its lack of
connectivity in the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries.
Recent evidence in Victoria, following on from the
Regional Fast Rail program of a decade or so ago,
is that frequent and relatively fast rail services will
encourage significant regional population growth in
the area covered by one to two hours’ travelling
time. Extrapolating this experience, along with
evidence from elsewhere, suggests that HSR has
the ability to shift the population and economy of
Australia’s East Coast from highly centralised to
be more evenly distributed along new linear
growth corridors between the major cities.
Even if HSR promotes shorter commuting times to
and from capital cities, thus supporting their
primacy in the economy, the collateral gains in
freight handling and transport is likely to engender
a greater role in manufacturing and processing in
regional locations. To this extent the creation of an
Australian HSR network needs to be aware of the
non-passenger rail issues that are of relevance to
the regions through which the HSR passes.
Since the first railways in the 19
th
Century, it was
recognised railways function as a ‘machine
ensemble’, with infrastructure, rolling stock and
service levels as indivisible elements of the
machine ensemble that, when the elements are
manipulated separately or collectively can
increase its overall efficiency (8).
The machine ensemble of the railway can be
adapted in a range of ways that support HSR. A
number of models based on Asian and European
experience of HSR are available for adaptation
into an Australian HSR system, spanning a range
of options and combinations of Rights-of-Way
(ROWs) and rolling stock technologies (3, 4, 9):
1. Dedicated HSR
High-speed corridors utilising dedicated
tracks on rights-of-way fully segregated
from road and other rail traffic, capable of
speeds of up to 350km/h. Japan’s
Shinkansen network is an example of
dedicated HSR infrastructure. This is most
appropriate where major population
centres and intermediate cities are
distances (≤4 hours travel time),
supportive of frequent HSR services.
2. Mixed HSR
This model includes the French TGV
system that uses a network of dedicated
HSR lines; with trains also using suitable
‘classic’ lines that extend the reach of HSR
into larger catchment areas. French TGV
trains are dual voltage as a matter of
course with four voltage variants able to
run across international borders, giving
these trains far wider reach than just the
French HSR network. This model requires
extensive electrification, which is unlikely
in an Australian context.
3. Fully Mixed Rail
This model is exemplified by Germany’s
rail network covered by ICE trains, with
most tracks on the rail network compatible
with all HSR and conventional passenger
and freight trains. The more evenly
distributed population of Germany means
there are fewer large population centres
but more significant intermediate centres.
The Germans have hybridised so that high
speed trains (ICE in Germany) are able to
achieve considerably better than normal
train times between a very wide range of
city pairs while at the same time providing
some speed advantage to conventional
passenger and freight trains.
4. Tilting HSR
A variation of HSR rolling stock involves
trains using tilt technology to run at higher
speeds around curves, reducing the
capital cost of high speed track alignment
or allowing higher train speeds (or both).
Swedish (X2000) and Italian (Pendolino)
high-speed trains, along with Amtrak’s
Acela trains running at top speeds of 200-
250km/h on conventional ROWs. Diesel
and Electric tilt trains also run in Australia
at speeds of up to 160km/h on upgraded
narrow gauge corridors in Queensland (4,
9), but their overall average speeds are
unspectacular by international standards.
Most HSR rolling stock is based on conventional
trains, albeit with distributed power over a number
of axles and significantly higher installed power
than for ‘normal’ trains. All pure HSR trains are
electrically powered with high-voltage overhead
transmission systems and are designed to run at
speeds as high as 380 km/h (although 350 km/h is
the highest speed used in commercial service).
Early HSR trains such as Japan’s Shinkansen,
France’s TGV and Germany’s early ICE’s utilise
dedicated power units at each end, but with
component miniaturisation and improved power
technology the trend is now to passenger trains
utilising distributed power, such as the later series

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German ICE and the French designed AVE trains.
Some diesel-electric trains achieve low-end HSR
‘threshold’ speeds of around 200km/h, most
notably the British Intercity 125 train (4).
Maglev trains are a peculiar variant on the high-
speed theme. However, they are unlikely to
challenge conventional wheel-rail technology in
the time line involved in the local East Coast HSR
proposal.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HSR IN AUSTRALIA
The history of Australian HSR is one of many
proposals and concepts period between 1981 and
2013. While the ‘early’ period of Australian HSR
proposals from 1981 to 1997 has been covered
elsewhere (10, 11), a short chronology of later
proposals is provided below.
1998: The Speedrail consortium was invited to
prepare and submit a “proved up bid” for a
Sydney-Canberra HSR route, conditional on it
being at “no net cost to the tax payer.” While
publicly available information on the bid is limited,
the 270km link was costed at $4.8 billion with the
public sector’s required contribution being
reportedly over of $1 billion (12). Lack of political
support by the Howard Government saw the
Speedrail proposal lapse.
2000: The Australian Government instead
commissioned a two-stage East Coast Very High
Speed Train (ECVHST) Scoping Study, with Stage
One released in December 2001 (13). That study
found that overall, total benefits exceeded total
costs. Despite this, in March 2002 it was
announced Stage Two would not proceed (11).
2010: A report on HSR released by the CRC for
Rail Innovation concluded the time was right to
carry out an in-depth study of HSR in Australia
(14). The report identified extensive economic,
social and environmental benefits, recommending
corridor reservation to preserve future options
alongside incremental approaches to HSR. In
August 2010, the Australian Government
announced a two-stage HSR study.
2011: The Australian Government released the
Stage One HSR report, with quoted construction
costs of between $61 and $108 billion to build over
1600 km of track between Melbourne and
Brisbane via Canberra and Sydney (15).
2013: The Australian Government released the
Stage Two HSR report, examining financial
feasibility, identifying alignments, refining
patronage and cost estimates and investigating
financing options. The report determined a
1748km route between Melbourne, Sydney and
Brisbane and a spur line to Canberra. Upper range
cost estimates were $50 billion for a Sydney-
Canberra-Melbourne route and $64 billion for a
Sydney-Brisbane route. Construction would not
start until 2027 (16), indicating a low priority on the
part of the consultants. Serious questions about
the firmness of the route and its costings have
been raised, but political indifference to HSR
seems to consign this proposal to the archives.
The change of government at the 2013 Federal
election has left a question mark over the future of
HSR in Australia. Facing such uncertainty, it is
timely and appropriate for all levels of government
and the rail industry to consider alternative options
for upgrading existing lines for higher average
operating speeds and provide capacity to run MSR
passenger trains and faster freight trains.
AUSTRALIA’S FASTEST TRAINS
It has been 15 years since Queensland Rail’s (QR)
electric tilt train set a new Australian railway speed
record, reaching a notionally HSR-level top speed
of 210km/h near Bundaberg on 23 May 1999 (17).
While that speed record remains unbroken,
significant investment in new and upgraded track
and rolling stock since 1999 has increased
average train speeds, particularly on interurban
and regional rail routes, particularly in Victoria.
During the 1990s, the Queensland government
invested significantly in its Main Line Upgrade
(MLU) project, an extensive program of curve
straightening, track deviations and reconstructions
along the North Coast Line from Brisbane to
Cairns. This project enabled the introduction in
1998 of the electric Tilt Train between Brisbane
and Rockhampton, one of Australia’s fastest,
covering the 639.8km route in seven hours
(average speed 91.4km/h). Since then, travel
times have been extended and average speeds
decreased, but the 11.00 northbound Electric Tilt
Train still remains one of Australia’s faster
passenger rail services with an average speed of
86.3km/h.
For interurban rail, Western Australia’s Perth-
Mandurah line set new standards upon its
completion in 2007. The route’s direct alignment,
lack of level crossings and lengthy distances
between stations allows full advantage to be taken
of the rolling stock’s 130km/h top speed in
reducing journey times. Limited stop AM and PM
peak services between Perth and Mandurah run to
10-minute headways, covering the 72km route in
49 minutes at average speeds of 88.2km/h. The
line is highly successful, carrying 70,000
passengers a day (more than five times the
patronage of the bus service it replaced), reaching
2021 patronage levels a decade ahead of
schedule (18).
The Victorian government’s significant investment
in the Regional Fast Rail (RFR) project on four
Victorian regional rail lines (Ballarat, Bendigo,
Geelong and the Latrobe Valley) between 2002
and 2006 increased average train speeds,

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Century
reduced travel times and improved service
frequencies between Melbourne and regional
Victorian cities. The travelling public responded to
this improvement in rail services with a 45%
increase in V/Line patronage over pre-RFR levels
in the first three years of operation (19).
With new DMU rolling stock travelling at top
speeds of 160km/h, average speeds have
increased dramatically on all lines to around
85km/h, particularly on the Ballarat and Bendigo
lines. Certain limited stop AM and PM peak
‘Flagship’ services have faster schedules, with PM
peak Flagships on the Ballarat and Bendigo lines
are among Australia’s fastest, reaching average
speeds of 101.9 km/h and 102km/h respectively.
It is notable that none of the trains described in the
foregoing are located along the Melbourne–
Canberra-Sydney–Brisbane lines. If anything, the
schedules and speeds of existing trains on these
lines are such that a no change policy in regard to
these trains will inevitably result in their demise
before any HSR replacement is likely to be built.
Average speeds for Australia’s fastest passenger
trains are significantly below the 145km/h
minimum threshold for MSR services and are
more akin to what the US Federal Railroad
Administration calls ‘Emerging/Feeder Routes’
(20). These routes and lines provide a foundation
for faster passenger rail services in Australia. They
also serve as reminders of what can be achieved
on corridors where average speeds are lower still,
such as the Sydney-Wollongong (54 km/h) and
Sydney-Newcastle (65 km/h) corridors in NSW.
OVERSEAS PERSPECTIVES ON MSR
International experience of upgrading existing lines
to a standard capable of supporting either high-
speed and medium-speed passenger services or a
mixture of HSR, MSR and freight services is
particularly relevant to the Australian context. A
brief synopsis of developments in key countries is
provided below.
EUROPE
Germany: Germany has a widely dispersed but
quite dense population such that the normal radial
rail network concept is replaced by a dispersed
‘spider web’ network. Germany’s high-speed rail
program has included construction of extensive
new HSR alignments with top speeds of 250-
300km/h, alongside upgrading many existing
mainline tracks to speeds of up to 200 km/h as a
continuation of earlier rail improvement efforts.
(21). Average speeds on upgraded parts of the
network are at the lower end of the HSR spectrum
(240-255km/h), while construction costs for
Germany’s ‘Fully Mixed’ network are higher than
‘Dedicated’ or ‘Mixed’ HSR lines. However, it is
concluded Germany’s HSR model spreads the
benefits of increased average train speeds across
both passenger and freight trains, generating
wider economic growth and development (22).
United Kingdom: During the late-1960s and early
1970s, the then British Railways developed two
new MSR rolling stock designs to increase speeds
on existing routes without building new high-speed
lines. BR’s two designs were the diesel-powered
InterCity 125 (IC125) and the electric-powered
Advanced Passenger Train (APT), capable of top
speeds at the boundaries between MSR and HSR:
the IC125 reaching 200km/h and the APT capable
of 250km/h (5). Both trains were designed to
operate on long-distance regional corridors
between 300km and 650km between London and
Swansea, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Although the
APT never reached revenue service, its
successors the IC225 and Pendolino tilting trains
regularly run at 225km/h in normal service on
Britain’s East and West Coast Main Lines.
Switzerland: The Swiss Federal Railways’ (SBB)
Bahn2000 strategy is guided by its motto of “not as
fast as possible but as fast as necessary”. Speed
is seen not as an end in itself, but a means to
reduce time-critical distances for customers (5).
SBB chooses to invest in customer-focused
infrastructure upgrades providing regular
frequencies, consistent travel times and multi-
modal connections from international and national
HSR and MSR services to regional and local trains
and other public transport modes (23). SBB’s
investment in new rolling stock, deviations and
resignalling between Switzerland's largest city
(Zurich) and its capital (Berne) provides an
attractive customer offering of frequent services,
and reduced journey times (from 69 minutes to 56
minutes) at speeds of up to 200 km/h (5, 21).
Sweden: The Swedish State Railways introduced
the locally designed and built X2000 tilt train in the
late 1980s to increase passenger train speeds on
Sweden’s mainline network. The X2000 offered
top speeds of 200km/h, increasing average
operating speeds by up to 30% with only minimal
upgrades to track infrastructure (6). Initially
introduced on the Stockholm-Gothenburg corridor
in 1990, the X2000 reduced journey times by one
hour (to 2 hours 45 minutes) and raised average
speeds from 85km/h to 120km/h. As part of a long-
term investment by the Sweden’s government in
the rail network, average speeds of 160km/h were
attained on suitably upgraded track from the late
1990s (6, 24). As a result, the X2000 increased
rail’s market share on the Stockholm-Gothenburg
corridor from 42% to 57%, competing with airlines
on journeys up to 400km (6).
The X2000 train was demonstrated in Australia
(and also the US) between Sydney and Canberra
(25) in the mid-1990s to assess its potential for
speeding up services on existing routes.

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NORTH AMERICA
United States: Despite its role as a 19
th
and 20
th
Century railway innovator, the United States’
interest in HSR has largely occurred in reaction to
foreign success. The main US HSR investment
has taking place on the ‘Fully Mixed’ Northeast
Corridor (NEC) between Boston, New York and
Washington DC. In the late 1960s, trains reached
HSR threshold speeds of 175km/h in regular
service on tracks shared between long-distance
passenger, commuter and freight trains. In 2000
Amtrak introduced tilting Acela trains operating at
top speeds of 240km/h on the NEC, but are
constrained to average speeds of around 140km/h
(21). Bringing the NEC to full HSR standard with
maximum speeds of 350 km/h has been priced in
Amtrak’s latest capital investment plan at around
US$151 billion between 2012 and 2040 (26).
As a response to the Global Financial Crisis and
the rapid growth of China’s HSR network, the US
Government allocated over US$8 billion for
planning and investment in HSR and MSR projects
(22). Of this, almost US$7 billion was allocated in
2010 for HSR (240km/h) construction in California
and Florida and projects raising passenger rail
services up to MSR (175km/h) speeds in Illinois,
Ohio and Wisconsin (27). Over $3 billion in funding
was later rejected by newly elected Governors in
Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio, leaving the central
California HSR project and upgrading Chicago to
St Louis to MSR standards (27, 28).
In Illinois, $1.5 billion of State and Federal
government investment will raise maximum
speeds on most of the 455km Chicago-St Louis
corridor from 126km/h to 175km/h by 2017. When
completed, travel times will reduce by one hour (to
4½ hours), while investment in new rolling stock
will allow faster, more frequent services to run on a
corridor already featuring strong patronage growth
(29). A typically American characteristic of this
corridor is that it remains largely owned by a
freight railway and is shared with freight trains.
Canada: In Canada as in Australia, HSR has also
been the subject of a number of government
supported studies, particularly in the 1200-km
Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which comprises
about two thirds of Canada’s population and
between 85% and 90% of VIA Rail’s passenger
traffic volume (30). The most recent study in 2011
examined two cases for HSR in the Quebec City-
Windsor corridor: with DMU trains operating at
200km/h and EMU trains operating at 300km/h.
The cost range for HSR on the complete corridor
ranged from C$18.9 billion for the DMU option to
C$21.3 billion for the EMU option take 14 years to
implement after gaining approval (31).
In the absence of a decision to proceed with HSR
on this corridor, the Canadian Government has
invested C$923 million in upgrading track, rolling
stock and stations between Windsor and Montreal.
These improvements, progressively delivered
between 2008 and 2014 have augmented capacity
on the corridor, increased speeds, reduced transit
times and increased frequencies for VIA Rail
passenger services, with additional benefits for rail
freight operations (32).
FASTER TRAINS FOR AUSTRALIA
To date, Australian HSR studies have only
examined ‘Exclusive HSR’ options with dedicated
track and trains. Incremental options such as
‘mixed HSR’ or MSR have not been considered. A
culture of rail-based travel for all but short-haul
regional and metropolitan trips is in danger of
extinction on Australia’s East Coast in the
foreseeable future. If this eventuates, it will make
the ‘big bang’ development of a long distance HSR
virtually impossible to implement, for political and
other reasons.
It is the authors’ opinion that major incremental
improvements to existing Australian mainline rail
corridors could provide infrastructure of a
sufficiently high standard at an earlier date and for
a price significantly lower than full HSR. Such a
process would increase average operating speeds
and reduce travel times for both passenger and
freight trains. These improvements would be
designed with longer-term requirements for full
HSR in mind. Achieving a bankable HSR project,
growing from existing MSR routes or corridors is
far more likely to go ahead than a high cost
‘greenfields’ HSR proposal.
CANDIDATE CITIES FOR MSR UPGRADING
Australia’s geography and population distribution,
particularly the concentration of over 60% of the
population in its five biggest cities (Sydney,
Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) means
there are few existing mid-sized regional cities
available as parts of a city pair for upgraded
passenger rail services, particularly in or near the
one to two hour intercity travel time band deemed
critical for successful MSR services (5, 33).
Candidate cities with a population above 50,000,
existing rail connections to a state capital and rail
travel times that could be successfully lowered to
less than 3 hours for all services by upgrading its
rail connection to MSR standards are listed in
Table 1 below.
The cities in Table 1 comprise 2.94 million people
(over 12% of Australia’s population) and represent
many of the major non-capital cities comprising
Australia’s urban mega-regions of Greater
Melbourne, Greater Sydney and Southeast
Queensland. Populations of these regional cities
are expected to grow further as Australia’s
population increases to 27.2 million people in
2026, some 30% above 2007 levels (34).

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NSW
Newcastle-Maitland 420,850
Canberra-Queanbeyan 412,049
Central Coast 317,517
Wollongong 282,843
VIC
Geelong 179,689
Ballarat 95,240
Bendigo 88,827
Albury-Wodonga 84,983
Moe-Morwell-Traralgon 57,574
QLD
Gold Coast-Tweed Heads 592,839
Sunshine Coast 286,497
Toowoomba 110,085
WA
Bunbury 70,132
Table 1: 2012 Population data for
MSR candidate regional cities (35)
From a demographic perspective, there is scope to
enhance the speed, frequency and reliability of
passenger rail services on a number of these
regional routes, which, in the medium to long term
would enable them to feed into an Eastern
Australian HSR spine between Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane.
Victoria
Victoria's RFR project has already provided a
range of benefits for regional passenger rail
services. Significant investment by the Australian
and Victorian governments in Regional Rail Link
(RRL) will provide further benefits, particularly for
the Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong lines. Once
RRL is complete, these three lines will be largely
separated from the suburban railway system,
which should allow some of the padding in V/Line
timetables to be removed.
The Victorian Government’s new planning strategy
also supports increased population growth in
Victoria’s regional cities as part of managing the
state’s long-term population growth (36).
While potential for further MSR upgrading remains
in Victoria, many of the easier wins have been
taken and future gains in speeds and reduced
travel times will be limited and increasingly costly.
In planning future upgrades to the V/Line
interurban network, the initial travel time targets for
‘Flagship’ services in the original RFR feasibility
study should become travel time targets for
express services, with faster travel times than now
for stopping services (37).
Ballarat (117 km): Achieving 60-minute travel
times for express trains and 70-minute times for
stopping trains on the Ballarat line would require
improved rolling stock (either conventional or
tilting), duplication from Deer Park West to the
growing peri-urban communities at Melton (and
possibly Bacchus Marsh), increased level crossing
protection or grade separations and increased
sections of double track or duplication between
Bacchus Marsh and Ballarat to increase capacity
in both directions and to raise average trains
speeds to 114km/h for expresses and 97.5 km/h
for stopping trains, faster than nearly all services
currently operating on the line.
Bendigo (162 km): Achieving regular 80-minute
travel times for expresses and 90-minute times for
stopping services requires additional work to
separate V/Line trains from suburban trains
between Sunshine and Sunbury, full or partial
restoration of double track north of Kyneton and
increased level crossing protection or grade
separations enroute along with new conventional
or tilting rolling stock to ensure express trains
operate at average speeds of at least 121km/h
and 108km/h for all-stops services (38).
New South Wales
Newcastle (168 km): It has long been recognised
the track between Hornsby and Newcastle is due
for realignment. This section is now one of the
busier sections of double track railway in Australia,
albeit from frequent passenger trains rather than
freight trains. A mixture of stopping and semi fast
trains, with peak hour enhancement, currently
delivers the fastest rail travel time on the 168km
route from Sydney to Newcastle at a little over 2½
hours with an average speed of 65km/h.
The NSW Government’s Long-Term Strategic Plan
for Rail (the 2001 Christie Report) envisaged
construction of a high-speed route between
Hornsby and Woy Woy and realignments north to
Newcastle being completed between 2015 and
2021 (39). In practical fact, a more limited scope of
work to build out isolated restrictive curves, some
limited realignment and provision of more
functional passing and overtaking capacity at a
relatively modest ‘best practice’ cost would reduce
semi-fast trains to 2 hours or better between
Sydney and Broadmeadow (162 km). Complex
engineering, high construction costs and
unrealistic expectations seem to have consigned
the earlier 2001 plans to the archives, along with
any interest in looking at simpler and lower cost
alternative ways of achieving faster transit times.
Wollongong (82 km): The Christie Report
identified the importance of bypassing the current,
geologically unstable rail alignment along the

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Illawarra escarpment with a new, tunnelled
alignment between Waterfall and Thirroul of
around 14km in length. If constructed, this tunnel
shortens the Sydney-Wollongong railway line by
approximately 18km, enabling travel times and
faster average speeds than the existing fastest
trains currently on the corridor. To maximise the
value of such investment, a range of projects were
identified as necessary to create capacity for
faster, more frequent interurban services in the
Sydney suburban area (39). None of these
progressed beyond the Christie Report’s
recommendations: if anything, interurban capacity
on suburban tracks has been reduced since 2001.
Queensland
Gold Coast (89 km): Trains capable of 130km/h
top speeds already operate on the Gold Coast line
between Brisbane Airport and Varsity Lakes at 30
minute intervals off peak and as little as 8 minutes
in the peak. The SEQ 2031 planning strategy
envisages extension of the Gold Coast line to the
Gold Coast Airport at Coolangatta, with an
objective that "for most passengers, rail transport
will be quicker and more reliable than driving a
car." (40) Provision for an extension is already
made in a shared road/rail corridor along a section
of the Pacific Highway.
Sunshine Coast (109 km): Planning provision
(with corridor protection) has been made for a
branch line from Beerwah to Maroochydore, along
with extension of duplication and realignment from
Beerburrum, to Landsborough and Nambour
similar to the Caboolture-Beerburrum duplication.
Toowoomba (127 km): After almost a decade of
studies on the Brisbane-Toowoomba corridor, a
high-quality rail route (with a minimum 2200m
curvature) between Grandchester and Gowrie was
protected by Queensland Transport in 2004. This
route would service Inland Railway inter-modal,
Surat Basin coal, grain and regional freight that is
currently severely constrained by gauge and the
existing 1865 railway’s constrained alignment.
Passenger trains would gain collateral benefits of
achieving a roughly 90-minute journey time
between Toowoomba and Brisbane via Ipswich.
Freight developments will determine if and when
an MSR quality rail service could be provided but
at this stage the stars are looking more likely to
align than at any time in the recent past.
Western Australia
For many years, Western Australia was home of
Australia’s fastest train, the Prospector, a train that
still maintains high average speeds. During the
late 1980s, Friday night’s eastbound Prospector
was Australia’s fastest train, covering the 655km
route from East Perth to Kalgoorlie in six hours, at
a still-unequalled average speed of 109.2km/h.
Bunbury (181 km): WA’s other regional rail
service, the Perth-Bunbury Australind train is
relatively sedate, with an average speed of
76km/h, albeit on narrow gauge. In 2010, the WA
Government commissioned GHD to define a
preferred route for an MSR corridor between Perth
and Bunbury suitable for trains operating at
speeds of up to 200km/h while minimising, social
and environmental impacts. The corridor would
partially utilise the Mandurah line’s alignment, then
use a new alignment in the Kwinana Freeway and
Forrest Highway corridors. Using 160km/h trains,
transit times between Perth and Bunbury were
modelled at 91 minutes: a 54 minute (or 37%)
reduction in travel time from the current 145
minutes, with further savings possible using
200km/h rolling stock (41).
CASE STUDY: SYDNEY – CANBERRA
The Sydney–Canberra route provides an ideal
Australian demonstration project for a true intercity
MSR corridor providing both improved passenger
and freight services. In terms of length (around
270km) and potential transit times (two to three
hours), it hits a ‘sweet spot’ that maximises rail’s
ability to successfully compete with road and air
transport between Australia’s largest city and its
national capital. Unlike the commuter rail networks
radiating out of Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane,
the Sydney-Canberra route is a true intercity route.
For approximately $3.5 billion, around one-fifth the
cost of a HSR route (estimated at $18 billion
dollars), the railway from Sydney to Canberra
would be rebuilt shorter (from 330km to 260km)
and faster to accommodate passenger trains
operating at top speeds of 200km/h while allowing
freight trains to achieve shorter transit times within
existing train speed limitations.
An important goal of such an MSR demonstration
project would be cutting almost two hours off the
current Sydney-Canberra rail journey time to
achieve an initial 2½-hour journey time with an
ultimate goal of 2 hours city-to-city. This would be
a vast improvement on the current average
journey time of 4 hours and 10 minutes, which is
uncompetitive in absolute terms with the frequent
3½-hour bus service, and significantly better than
the 3 hour 25 minute journey time achieved during
the 1995 demonstration runs of the X2000.
Incidental benefits could also include travel time
savings of up to 75 minutes for Sydney-Melbourne
interstate freight and passenger trains, while
leaving bypassed sections of the existing route
available for local passenger and regional bulk
freight trains.
Sydney-Canberra MSR could be developed on an
incremental basis, working from the ‘outside in’ to
increase speeds and reduce travel times outside
the Sydney metropolitan area first before tackling

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Century
the more complicated and costly metropolitan
infrastructure improvements that would support
suburban and regional passenger and freight
trains. An MSR demonstration project could be
delivered in three main stages with progressive
speeding up of passenger (and freight) services as
each new section of infrastructure comes on line.
The three segments of the demonstration project
are as follows:
1. Canberra to Moss Vale – a section requiring
some curve straightening and a modest
amount of new track into a new North
Canberra rail terminal,
2. Moss Vale to Campbelltown – involving an
ascent of 600 metres from the Cumberland
Plain to the Southern Highlands through
reasonably difficult terrain, and;
3. Campbelltown to Central – which is made
more difficult by traversing a largely built up
area with heavy suburban rail traffic.
All new works would as far as possible be built to
HSR standards for horizontal and vertical
curvature, track spacings and running line
infrastructure such as turnouts. Wherever new
alignments are to be built, level crossings would
be avoided, while on retained sections of existing
track, level crossings would either be grade
separated or given higher levels of protection,
based on the nature of the road, traffic volumes
and terrain at each location.
A key aspect of the new route between (North)
Canberra and Goulburn would be to provide a new
branch off a realigned Main Southern line
alignment, shortening the route and creating
synergies with the main Sydney-Melbourne and
Sydney-Broken Hill (via Cootamundra) lines. The
new Canberra branch would be less than half the
length of the existing branch (from Joppa Junction)
and would also reduce the Melbourne–Canberra
rail distance by over 100 km.
Early delivery of the Canberra–Moss Vale section
would provide a quick demonstration of the worth
of MSR, by increasing speeds and reducing travel
times between Sydney and Canberra, while
supporting and encouraging extension of the MSR
route toward Sydney. An incremental approach is
appropriate and similar to the staged HSR delivery
methodology recommended by the former
Australian Government’s HSR Advisory Group in
August 2013.
The route for Stage 1 of the MSR demonstration
project linking Canberra on a new alignment to
Goulburn would basically entail a new, improved
alignment between Goulburn and Yass with a spur
line from Yass to North Canberra. There are
several alignment options but all would achieve
the same basic result. It would also be highly
desirable to connect the Canberra spur from North
Canberra to the Airport allowing air–rail
interchange to become part of the MSR business
plan. The ACT Government’s Canberra Spatial
Plan already contains planning protection for a
HSR alignment to Canberra Airport using the
Majura Parkway corridor (16). Using this corridor
for MSR (engineered to HSR standards) should
help reduce land acquisition costs considerably.
Conservative costings of the line from Yass to
Civic via the Airport (including two new stations)
would be in the vicinity of $1.2B based on a cost of
around $10M per km with added contingency for
putting the section from Canberra Airport to Civic
into a tunnelled alignment.
Stage 2 would tackle the construction of a new
MSR alignment between Campbelltown and Moss
Vale. The new alignment would provide both a
significant reduction in route length and travel time
savings for Sydney-Canberra passenger trains
and interstate freight and passenger trains. One
such proposed alignment, the ‘Wentworth Route’,
was identified by ARUP/TMG in a 1995 report to
State Rail on Sydney–Canberra high-speed rail
options was outlined ARTC’s 2001 track audit (42).
The Wentworth Route would reduce the length of
this section by 26km and save up to 53 minutes in
freight train travel time. Time savings for an
appropriately powered diesel multiple unit MSR
passenger train with a 200km/h top speed would
be higher, in the vicinity of 70 minutes for a non-
stop journey. Based on the quoted price of $478M
(2000 dollars), this section would now cost
approximately $814M to build in 2013 dollars (43).
Ideally a station would be located close to the
current Campbelltown station (for interchange
purposes) while a ‘parkway’ type station in the
Mittagong–Moss Vale area would provide for the
nearer Southern Highlands. The existing railway
would still serve local passenger and freight traffic.
Stage 3 would provide the most formidable barrier
in developing a route through the Sydney
suburban network from near Campbelltown to
Central Station. There are two realistic options that
present themselves: a surface route from the
Sydney ‘Steam’ station (platforms 1 – 15) to the
East Hills line; or, an ‘underground’ route via the
Airport to the East Hills line. Both would require
improved flat junctions and at least one grade
separated junction, along with an interchange
platform at Wolli Creek or Turrella on the surface
route for traffic to and from Sydney Airport.
The Airport option would activate the unused
Platforms 26 and 27 at Central Station as a
dedicated MSR station with a short, tunnelled
section (about 1.5km in length) to join up with the
Airport line once underground. This would give
direct access to Domestic and International Airport
stations and the existing link through Wolli Creek
to the East Hills line. As is the case with Canberra,

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Century
access to Sydney Airport would be a critical factor
in ensuring the financial attractiveness and viability
of a Sydney-Canberra MSR route.
With either option, the MSR corridor would use the
existing quadruplicated track from Wolli Creek
Junction to Revesby and require approximately
27km of new track from Revesby to Macarthur.
Based on a cost of $28M per km (2010 dollars) for
new heavy rail lines inclusive of any land
acquisition, services relocation and a small length
of new tunnel it would require around $840M
(2013 dollars) to create a fast MSR exit from
Sydney via the Airport and East Hills lines (43).
It is noted that a suitable combination of Stages 1
and 2 have the potential to achieve transit times of
around 2½ hours. A program of metropolitan
works could deliver a transit time not too far off the
Speedrail HSR target transit time of 84 minutes
between Sydney's Central Station and Canberra.
MSR TRAINS
In the initial stage trains running on the upgraded
railway would be some form of diesel technology -
possibly an upgraded XPT-type train or Diesel Tilt
Train. A maximum speed of at least 200 km/h
would be required along with the ability to sustain
full power at reasonable speeds during the ascent
of the Southern Highlands. Modern diesel
technology can provide significantly higher power
than that in the XPT power units without any
weight increase and with lower exhaust emissions.
In the longer term the line would need to be
electrified (at high voltage AC rather than the
traditional low voltage DC) as a precursor to HSR
trains and at that stage higher speeds and faster
travel times would become the order of the day.
These trains would have a capability of 300 km/h
or thereabouts even if they were initially limited to
lower speeds. Both the electric trains and electric
infrastructure would need to be compatible with
the future HSR and may well become a secondary
service offering on such a line when it is built.
CONCLUSION
High Speed Rail is approaching its 50
th
birthday.
From a start in 1964 in Japan, it spread to France
and progressively most of Western Europe and is
now appearing in countries that were until recently
classified as third world. Since 1984, Australia has
undertaken a number of studies, but has never
had the political will to carry HSR forward into
reality. In the meantime, a long overdue upgrading
of the alignment and capacity of existing main
lines, most notably in NSW, has languished.
This paper has proposed a middle ground
approach to achieving faster passenger rail transit
times. Collateral benefits for freight trains would be
an advantage. Routes such as Sydney –
Newcastle and Sydney – Canberra have barely
improved over a long period of time. The former at
least now has high frequency but is no faster than
the better trains in steam days. Canberra has had
around an hour cut from its rail transit time over a
period of 60 years, but with very poor frequency.
Since then, bus travel times on the now fully-
upgraded highway have been halved and they are
now both noticeably faster than trains and
operating at much higher frequencies.
The authors are proposing a concept of medium
speed (by world standards) mixed traffic upgrades
on suitable candidate sections of railway that
might in time become part of the proposed East
Coast HSR line. The objective of the incremental
approach would be to achieve near term door to
door transit times better than other forms of land
transport, to not only benefit passenger travel but
to enable improvement to freight operations in
terms of transit times and operating costs. Such
projects would capture the imagination of the
public, who have to a large extent lost sight of rail
as an alternative, and could provide a leader to
eventual upgrading to full HSR standards.
As the French, in their admirable way, have shown
HSR can be built in stages with classic lines used
to access locations beyond the main HSR route.
Even if this involves bi-mode technology during the
transition period it would be an affordable and
achievable way of implementing HSR without
having to wait for $114 billion to be in the till.
Furthermore, if we are to continue the debate on
HSR, as seems likely, an early start to carefully
planned medium speed upgrades in key areas
would seem to be an expedient alternative.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank the Railway Technical Society
of Australasia and the conference organisers for
the opportunity to present the paper along with
their respective organizations and an unknown
referee for comments. However, the views
expressed in this paper remain those of the
authors and are not necessarily shared by any of
the above organisations.
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