Re: Goodbye Overland

[Michael Kurkowski <mk@netstra.com.au>]

Dion Williams said in message <3891DF2A.5B94@start.com.au>, I therefore
quote: 

>I think inevitably its days are numbered. Perhaps it's for the best to
>preserve the memories for those who rode it when it was still proud,
>much as the wretched Sydney/Melbourne Express mentioned before merely
>prolonged the agony.

There still needs to be a rail alternative for between Melbourne and 
Adelaide. How far fetched would it sound to re-instate broad guage between 
Melbourne and Adelaide, either a) solely broad guage b) dual guage all the 
way. Run the overland via Ballarat once again, stopping at some/all of the 
more major cities once again. Doesn't most or all freight get re-marshalled 
in Melbourne and Adelaide anyway? 

Running the Overland via Brooklyn then Geelong is what I see is killing it. 
You are adding hours for no reason whatsoever. My thoughts originally, were 
to run standard guage from Ararat to Ballarat, then dual-guage Ballarat-
Melbourne (with enough crossing loops between Melbourne and Ballarat on 
both guages, surely you wouldn't affect passenger services too much... 
would you?)

>Seems like an XPT would be ideal for it, times would easily be cut to
>less than 10 hours; even with day and night services it leaves plenty of
>maintenance time. If Countrylink go ahead with purchasing tilt trains in
>the next few years they'd no doubt have the inside running.

An XPT would die in the Adelaide Hills. At least while geared for 160kph 
which is what they are designed to do. Take them back to 130kph and they 
might do fine. I'll let someone else do their sums here, my maths suck(tm).

Regards
Michael

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Michael Kurkowski
Email: mk@netstra.com.au
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