Re: Melbourne maglev

[dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

Chris Brownbill (cbrnbill@enternet.com.au) wrote:
> Notwithstanding the indications of the death of Speedrail pointed out elsewhere
> in this group,

John Ralph himself conceded that projects such as Speedrail would need
"extra help" as a result of his recommendations. Federal Transport
Minister John Anderson is pushing to have the VHST declared a project of
national importance so it can receive soem tax breaks within the "no net
cost fo government" ruling.

> I hope we're not seeing a tragic repeat of History here.  This
> has many parallels with the legendary story of how NSW and Vic ended up with
> different rail gauges all those years ago.  Competing promoters of different
> technologies (gauges),

The Hun also commented on American and Japanese maglev projects. While the
American projects are also floundering (with one being cancelled
altogether), maglev projects in the three countries are all entirely
different and totally incompatable. it's the gauge problem all over again.
Or more correctly it could be VHS and Beta all over again - Beta was by
far the better format but the inferior VHS won out.

Cheers
David