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Re: Wonderful, Customer-Responsive GSR




Alex Borodin wrote in message <34BEB3F6.3D52CA6D@qrail.com.au>...

>Rail travel has so much more potential than just about any other
>form of transport. It's capable of being MUCH more fuel efficient,
>incredibly fast (400kph is normal in Europe), and in terms of
>in-train food/entertainment/comfort, it's not terribly limited by
>space or weight constraints, meaning that it's less expensive to
>develop things like kitchens/food preparation areas for trains,
>video/entertainment systems (heck, you can even put a piano on
>board and have some live entertainment like they do on the
>Queenslander.) because you can use standard equipment in a lot
>of cases.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>--
> o Alex Borodin B.Eng(Hons)

It would be great if high speed passenger rail was feasible in Aust but I
think that big distances and small population make it a no go. 400km/hr is
not particularly fast by airline standards and the constraints on size are
only an issue with smaller aircraft such as the BAe 146 used on Qld regional
flights. Once you get to 747 and 767 size space is really not an issue. The
reality is that the airline system costs the government nothing and in fact
makes them money. It makes the shareholders money and provides a service
that is by and large satisfactory to the public. I don't think any high
speed rail service could do that in this country. I admit that rail is more
fuel efficient than other modes but if you include sleeping cars, dining
cars and club cars (what a waste of energy they are to drag around) the
advantage gets whittled away. In any case do people really worry about that
when you consider the amount of fuel used by private cars. Hi speed trains
and long distance trains in general take resources away from the real game
of freight haulage.

Barry Campbell