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From the editor: July–September 20-3

1/7/2016

 
THE Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has again raised hopes of Australia eventually building a high-speed rail (HSR) link between the country’s two largest cities.

However, one has to remember that he floated this idea in the lead-up to a federal election. Historically, the HSR issue has been raised before in the lead-up to previous elections only to be quietly shelved and forgotten afterwards.

This time the new spin is Mr Turnbull’s proposal to use “value capture” to revive the old dream of building a high-speed rail line along the east coast linking the major cities – in other words, use the increased value of property near the line to finance the project.

Labor’s transport spokesman Anthony Albanese backed the concept while pointing out that Labor had released the definitive, $20 million study into a Melbourne-to-Brisbane link exactly three years earlier.

The rail link’s cost was estimated in the 2013 feasibility study at $114 billion – more than twice the cost of building Australia’s National Broadband Network.

Advocates for HSR say building a network would revitalise regional and country centres and boost their economies.

France, with a population of about 66 million and physically about 14 times smaller than Australia, has experienced a revitalisation of many of its regional centres as a result of building its TGV network.

Proponents of HSR rail say a network would have a similar effect here. However, Australia has neither the population nor the density of population to do the same. Although there would be benefits for centres such as Shepparton and Goulburn, would these benefits justify the cost? That is the question for HSR rail advocates to consider.
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Realistically Australia will only get high-speed rail if the federal government backs it with hard cash; otherwise, it will remain a pipe dream. Therefore, if Mr Turnbull is serious he needs to put some money on the table – either that or stop raising hopes that we will join with rest of the world and embrace high-speed rail.

– TONY DUBOUDIN, editor

From the editor: April–June 20-2

1/4/2016

 
LIGHT rail or trams – call them what you will – are shaping up to be the success story of the rail industry, with patronage soaring and new lines being constructed as fast as they can be here and overseas.

It is a far cry from the 1950s when cities around the world were ripping up tram lines with abandon in the name of progress.

Today, instead of being seen as old technology, light rail is at the forefront of innovation with manufacturers striving to make their products even more appealing.

We now have light-rail vehicles with on-board power storage which allows them to run considerable distances without the need for overhead infrastructure for power-pick-up using supercapacitors, we have a mix of overhead power supply and on-board power storage, and we have ground-level power supply, to name a few of the innovations that have been helping drive the light-rail resurgence.

Here in Australia light rail has taken off and proved to be a big hit with users and transport authorities. The Gold Coast Light Rail is a case in point, with patronage soaring. In its first 12 months 6.5 million passengers used the system and in the first quarter of 2015-16 it carried 1.88 million passengers – a 52 per cent rise on the corresponding period the previous year. A second Gold Coast line is already planned.

In Melbourne, on the world’s largest tram system patronage has gone up 24pc in 10 years, while Sydney recorded a rise of 57pc in 2014-15 over 2013-14, and there has been a similar healthy rise in Adelaide.

These figures show that people are happy to embrace light rail provided it is efficient and reliable.

At the recent light-rail conference in Melbourne (reported on in this issue) attendees heard of the success of light rail in several cities such as Manchester in the United Kingdom and Jerusalem in Israel, both of which have spent up big on their light rail networks.

​– TONY DUBOUDIN, editor

From the editor: January–March 20-1

1/1/2016

 
AS THEY say, a week is a long time in politics … a month must be an eternity.

Our new public-transport-loving Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, wasted no time in making it clear that public transport was going to be front and centre in his government’s approach.

Less than a month after taking over the helm from Tony Abbott he announced federal funding for the proposed Gold Coast Light Rail extension, which meant the project would be up and running in time for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

As PM, Mr Abbott had refused to fund the project unless Queensland sold off public assets. Mr Turnbull’s money will have no such caveats.

Reinforcing his commitment to public transport Mr Turnbull said public transport infrastructure was critical to the development of Australia’s cities.

“Our cities are the crucibles of innovation, of enterprise – it’s where so much of GDP is created and it’s vital that they have the right infrastructure, whether it is telecommunications infrastructure or transport infrastructure like this,” he said.

“In the future we want to look at more innovative approaches. We want to look at arrangements where we can partner.”

Mr Turnbull quickly followed up by agreeing to release the $1.5 billion earmarked for Melbourne’s east-west road tunnel by Mr Abbott for use on the Melbourne Metro rail project – a move applauded by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and the Australasian Railway Association (ARA).

While this move is welcome, there needs to be a lot more money made available for infrastructure projects – particularly rail.

In this issue Track + Signal reports on the ARA’s five-point platform for the next election with a list of projects the ARA says are vital to the nation’s future prosperity. One of the authors of the plan points out that unless money starts to be invested in new projects soon, the rail industry will start to run out of steam by 2019-20.

Let us hope that whoever wins the next election takes that warning seriously.

​– TONY DUBOUDIN, editor
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Published

Four issues a year:
FEBRUARY-APRIL (number 1)
MAY-JULY (number 2)
AUGUST-OCTOBER (number 3)
NOVEMBER-JANUARY (number 4)

Publisher

​Wabonga Press
PO Box 3404
Caroline Springs
Victoria 3023
​Australia

Track+Signal team

EDITOR Tony Duboudin
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Leon Oberg
SALES
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advertise (at) trackandsignal (dot) com
PRODUCTION Rosalea Ryan
ACCOUNTS Annette Nilsson​

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