You seemed to have missed my point, I was actually talking about infrastructure, just because Brisbane-Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne has a reasonable population level, do we just forget about rural Australia and divert all rail funding to these areas.
I was saying that when you compare population vs area, Australia does not have a hope of competing with a lot of the countries that are being used as a comparison when judging infrastructure, especially in outlying rural areas.
In other countries the Alice to Darwin railway would have been built years ago(as opposed to still being in the planning phase). Differences in gauge would also have been overcome. I think these issues should be addressed as well as quality of the track before a VFT is even vaguely considered. And the problem is that we don't raise enough revenue in taxes, fares etc to maintain the tracks we have to a world class standard. We also have a problem of a very influential road lobby in this country, which is the reason why all excise raised from diesel fuel(including that used by rail) has been diverted back to road(look at the Hume Hwy for example).
And while we are on the subject of the VFT(or maybe it should be called the Fast And Reliable Train - as it seems to only be a load of hot air). I think it is a bit pointless at the moment, you have airlines offering bargain basement airfares at the moment(they are actually substantially cheaper than the XPT fare)to Melbourne and Brisbane. And as much as one would hope people would turn back to rail, I don't think this is a reality when flying is about 1/3 to 1/4 the time of even a VFT(and I would imagine, unless heavily susidised, heaps cheaper).
I also think, having travelled frequently on the XPT that you would have to provide more than just a lousy buffet car to entice people back to rail(so as to justify a VFT) ie: decent entertainment, meals etc. on the train. Once you had some favourable figures of rail useage then you may be able to justify a VFT.
These are just some additional thoughts
Regards
Mark
ROBERT SCHROEDER wrote:
You should compare the corridors rather than the country wide
population base,
The population in the Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne corridoe is very
similar to the Paris-Lyon corridor, albeit the distance is greater.
Yhe eastern seaboard of Australia could easily support Very Fast
Trains!On Fri, 16 Mar 2001 12:38:14 -0800, Mark & Roz Creely
<mcreely@pnc.com.au> wrote: