Re: Melbourne maglev

[cmgord@ecr.mu.oz.au (Christopher_Martin GORDON)]

: > Having been laughed out of Canberra and floundering in Sydney, Transrapid
: > is jumping on the new Victorian government to build a maglev line to the
: > airport and Geelong.
: > 
: > The airport line would cost $1.6 billion.
: > 
: > So, write to editors, write to MPs, write to anybody. Just don't let it
: > happen.

Labor will provide $20 million for a kick start to an airport link, they type
of link is yet to be decided.  

I think it will just be heavy rail from the Broadmeadows line.

: Yes, today's Melbourne Herald-Comic has it as the lead story.  Line from Hoppers
: Crossing - City - Airport believe it or not.  Also are wafty suggestions of
: services to country areas - Geelong and "Beyond Shepparton" whatever that means.

: Notwithstanding the indications of the death of Speedrail pointed out elsewhere
: in this group, 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), changes of government and scant regard for eventual
: linkage of two proposed lines.  Or maybe its a bit worse - having been told by
: the Sydney/Canberra mob to bugger off, maybe Transrapid is now running off to
: Vic to get what they wanted in the first place - a toehold on the monopoly
: provision of technology for the new Sydney- Canberra- Melbourne service.

: Thankfully, in some of the few textual components of the Herald-Comic it seems
: the new Vic transport Minister, Peter Batchelor, is taking a sceptical approach.

--

Chris Gordon
http://www.ecr.mu.oz.au/~cmgord

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