Originally Posted by
Icarus2001
Foxxster, by fast I mean say 140-160 kms. Not bullet speed, or maglev. Just a respectable speed. Most train speeds in Australia are limited by track quality. Fix the tracks and you get a “fast” train.
The line is already there and in use. Four and a half hours to do 320km FFS.
For Sydney - Canberra it's not quite as simple as "fix the tracks" unless you mean "re-route the tracks". The section of the rail line that places the critical limit on Sydney - Canberra speeds (and therefore travel time) is between Macarthur and Mittagong. As you can see by the routing below, the best maintained tracks in the world aren't going to make much of a difference to the speed at which a train can negotiate that. Those pesky train-specific issues of maximum negotiable gradients and turn radii rain on that parade.
