Re: Rough Tracks

[Mark & Roz Creely <mcreely@pnc.com.au>]

Fellow Ausrailers,

I think the points and comparisons  being made are completely unreasonable!

Lets face it, the countries with which you have decided to compare Australia with
have populations far exceeding ours :

France for example has a population of around 50 million and Great Britain 60
million all in an area less than 1 million square kilometres.

Australia has a population of around 17 million in an area of 7.6 million square
kilometres.

It is much easier to build and maintain 1st class track when you have taxes and
revenue for nearly 7 times as many people being spent in 1/7th the area.

I know our tracks should be better, but without massive rationalisation of
infrastructure(closing branch lines etc - which noone wants to see happen)you can't
expect 1st class track.

But may I add, hopefully now the 2 week sports carnival is long past more money may
be diverted back to rail infrastructure to improve the track etc.

Just some thoughts

regards

Mark

Neil O'Connor wrote:

> In UK, I have only done London to Peterborough and that seemed OK. Have done TGV
> twice (Montpellier-Paris) and that seems to be to be the ultimate (even the low
> speed lines are fine!). Wish VFT/Speedrail succeeded - TGV to Canberra would be
> a superb way to travel.
>
> Have also been on various other lines in France, Germany and Switzerland and
> they were all good smooth rides.
>
> David Bennetts wrote:
>
> > Can back you up on that, remember riding the line from London Victoria to
> > Dover some years back - one of the roughest train trips I've ever
> > experienced.  There was so much lateral movement you really had to hang on.
> > Looked inside the drivers compartment (electric multiple unit), indicated
> > speed 80 mph, so not over fast .
> >
> > The tube (deep tube with small profile cars) at 80km/h also can throw you
> > around somewhat, don't think there's much room for springing under the cars.
> >
> > By contrast I've ridden the TGV at 270 km/h, you'd hardly know you're
> > moving, there's hardly a ripple on your glass of vin ordinaire.   Quelle
> > lignes extraordinaire, les chemins de fer grand vitesse de la republique!
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > David Bennetts