>peter berrett wrote in message <3542D0CA.1111@tbsa.com.au>...
><HUGE SNIP>
>What's going on here? Has Peter Berrett embarked on a personal campaign to
>resurrect the Overland as the preferred method of travel for the majority of
>passengers between Melbourne and Adelaide?
>Whilst we would all like to see it happen, most of are realistic enough to
>know that it won't. Let it go, Peter.
>Regards
>David "The Doctor" Proctor
>daproc@spamsux.bigfoot.com
>(remove the "spamsux" to reply)
Lets not belittle Peters efforts to improve the Overland, but being realistic
, if large sums of money are to be spent on Rail , lets spend the money where
it will do the most good.
Rail suffers most in respect of competition from the Trucking Industry on the
eastern seaboard , ie Melb - Sydney - Brisbane , where we have the most
interstate freight,(not surprisingly as they are the 3 largest cities in
Australia) and also we happen to have the worst rail alignments in the country.
Rails competitiveness against the road lobby will become even worse when the
Pacific Highway from Sydney to Brisbane is duplicated and when the duplication
of the Hume Highway and the Albury bypass is completed.
Then you will see an invasion of overnight B doubles , and very likely B
triples once each state agrees to their introduction.
To upgrade either Melb - Sydney or Sydney - Brisbane Rail lines to high speed
standards is simply not going to happen in the foreseeable future simply due
to the costs involved,so the best we can hope for is too improve the
competitivness of the two routes based on existing running times , but with
much longer and heavier trains (cost less per train to run.)
The costs of doing this are not unrealistic and are quite achieveable over the
next 5 years or so.
Ideally something to aim for would be
1/ Reduce the maximum ruling grades between Albury and Sydney to 1:66 in both
directions , (allows for an increase of 60% in loads per loco)
2/ Increase the crossing loop lengths between Junee - Melb and Maitland -
Greenbank to 1500 M, (this is partly happening now.)
3/ Adopt uniform rules for the whole of the Interstate Network, (this could
happen tomorrow if there was the will).
4/ Get rid of the anti competetive rules which make competition on the Rail
Network between Rail Operators so difficult, (could also happen tomorrow,if
there was the will.)
These modest proposals would cost nothing like what would be needed to allow
200 km/h running between Melb - Adelaide, and would achieve a far greater
national benefit.
cheers
MD