Australian Politics Forum - High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register

Forum rules, Recent posts (with text), RSS, Search options, Browse all uploaded images
Home, Articles, Green Tax Shift, Evolution,

Australian Politics Forum › Member Run Boards › Travel › High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.

(Moderator: Sophia)

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›

Pages: 1 2

High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast. (Read 7735 times)

Old Codger

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 547
Melbourne.
Gender: male

Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.
Reply #15 - Oct 8^th, 2013 at 7:05am

This proposal will fail for many basic reasons.

The first is 'Capex' - 'Capital Expenditure'.

The second is projected sales - BUMS ON SEATS!

The third is competition. The airlines will undercut it and send it broke.

Etc.

'Expert costings' on major projects, particularly government financed projects, are notoriously unreliable and underestimated.

If they say $114 billion, you can bet your socks it will be $140 billion, but let us accept the $114 billion for now.

That money has to come from available funds or borrowed at interest.

Say 5%, which is a lot less that commercial finance today, which is nearer 8%. That means an interest bill of $5.6 Billion, give or take a dollar.

Let us put aside the very idea of a profit return in that investment, and say that we have to generate an after-tax profit of $4 to $5 billion.

The Jetstar trip from Brisbane to Melbourne can be done for about $80 a seat, and from Sydney to Melbourne for maybe $65 a seat. Most of those seats are sold, and the SYD to MEL is the 6th busiest in the world.

Our 4 airlines will NEVER allow that business to be taken off them, they will start a price war that will cripple the HSR in short order. All the other routes will cross subsidize the east coast routes.

To generate that $5 billion, the rail line will have to sell MILLIONS of tickets at a PROFIT of say $10 each to pay the interest. That is FIVE HUNDRED MILLION rail tickets a year!!!!

With a city of say 5 million at each end, they are doomed to failure.

OC

IP Logged

UnSubRocky Gold Member Offline Crocodile Hunter: Origins Posts: 25088 Rockhampton Gender:	Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast. Reply #16 - Oct 10^th, 2013 at 12:12am I would love the idea of a high speed rail up and down the east coast of Australia. Would love to get to Sydney in 3 hours by train. Catching the sites whizzing by. Noticing how less and less Caucasian people seem the further south you travel.
Back to top	At this stage... IP Logged

Old Codger

Gold Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 547
Melbourne.
Gender: male

Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.
Reply #17 - Oct 11^th, 2013 at 6:09am

I know!

We could always make it a government project like the NBN, a bottomless pit to throw OZ$114 Billion PLUS, over lord knows how many years.

Taxpayer funded of course, and we can always take the money out of the defence , hospitals and infrastructure budgets.

Or borrow it, at 4% forever.

And if it loses money, which it most certainly will - BUCKETS of it - then we can borrow that too.

OC

IP Logged

fractalign

Senior Member

Offline

Australian Politics

Posts: 254
Gender: male

Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.
Reply #18 - May 4^th, 2014 at 5:10pm

Call me a dreamer but i believe it is possible to build an east coast high speed rail link by 2020. It would involve getting rid of incompetent state governments, or at least making it the responsibility of the Commonwealth. This was the nation after all that built the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity scheme at a time when our population was only two thirds of what it is now.

Something as important as this can't be left in the hands of the states because they would only stuff it up. With commonwealth control there would be far more impetus to get the job done.

I also believe that with such high unemployment, there would also be tens of thousands of Australians who would be more than happy to to sign up for the task. It would be far better to keep the wealth in the country. This is the kind of public works project that would get the nation back on its feet.

When I travelled through Europe, i used high speed rail almost all the time and nothing compared to it. Its high time Australia had its own version. Our relatively flat terrain makes it a prefect option to our current rail system. The flow on effect would be the thousands of permanent jobs created to maintain the rolling stock and rail infrastructure.

« Last Edit: May 4^th, 2014 at 5:16pm by fractalign »

IP Logged

Frances Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 3577 In a Castle in the Hills Gender:	Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast. Reply #19 - May 19^th, 2014 at 8:53am fractalign wrote on May 4^th, 2014 at 5:10pm: Call me a dreamer OK then. You're a dreamer.....
Back to top	Sure God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece. IP Logged

BatteriesNotIncluded

Gold Member

Offline

MediocrityNET: because
people died for this!

Posts: 26966

Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.
Reply #20 - May 23^rd, 2014 at 4:48pm

St George of the Garden wrote on May 8^th, 2013 at 6:11pm:

Rather than high speed rail, what about fixing up existing rail links?

Also, with the NBN—who needs to travel when telepresence is cheaper and quicker? I mean the real NBN, no Fraudband that the Libs have no intention of building, they want to clamp down austerity and so precipitate a recession and INcrease debt & deficits!

I asked at JB Hi-Fi the other day about 4ktv and the bloke was saying copper internet won't cut the mustard.

He was a kiwi but enjoying the moment.... Wink

.. so not entirely sure he was giving me his best answer!

Roll Eyes

*Sure....they're anti competitive as any subsidised job is. It wouldn't be there without the tax payer. Very damned difficult for a brainwashed collectivist to understand that I know.... (swaggy) *

IP Logged

BatteriesNotIncluded

Gold Member

Offline

MediocrityNET: because
people died for this!

Posts: 26966

Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast.
Reply #21 - May 23^rd, 2014 at 4:52pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 11^th, 2013 at 11:43am:

Quote:

A high-speed rail link along Australia's east coast would not be completed until at least 2053 and would cost $114 billion to build, according to a report to be released today.

This is the sort of criminal nonsense that Australia's political elite keep foisting upon the much-abused public.

The above estimates are an absurd nonsense.

If the job of building this railway was tendered out to China or Japan it would be built before 2020 and cost only a fraction of $114 billion.

I've seen tall buildings in Hong Kong go up in only a few weeks.

Australia's greatest talent is procrastination with everything until some disaster finally pushes bums off seats to do what should have been done in the first place. It's why Australia is 35 years behind Europe with most of its technology.

"She'll be 'right, mate ~ no worries!"

The problem with Australia is that we have amateurs and people of little vision running the joint.

Those dang unions keeping people alive.. Roll Eyes

*Sure....they're anti competitive as any subsidised job is. It wouldn't be there without the tax payer. Very damned difficult for a brainwashed collectivist to understand that I know.... (swaggy) *

IP Logged

Katut New Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 23 Gender:	Re: High-speed rail link along Australia's east coast. Reply #22 - Jun 8^th, 2014 at 3:21am
Back to top	IP Logged

Pages: 1 2

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›

« Forum

‹ Board

Top of this page