A VFT will never get off the ground in Australia for a few very simple reasons.
In the
other VFT thread we had a month ago, I wrote the following:
Originally Posted by KRviator
Notwithstanding Sydney-Melbourne is one of the most highly trafficked air corridors in the world, the NSW Government is broke, the Victorians bought trains that don't stop when you tell them to, and there isn't as big a benefit to Queensland as it first appears to make it worthwhile for them to help fund the project, leaving it to the Federal Government.
Which, in the last Federal budget allocated 7.5 Billion dollars to road projects. And 500 million to rail - and that was a big deal for the industry. Unfortunately, too many in the repsective Government's are very backward in their thinking when it comes to rail, remembering a time when 1/4 of all Government debt was "railway debt".
<Snipped everyone else's posts>
a high speed railway network could complement aviation and get scary overtired drivers off the National Highway.
Which is what we've been arguing for years to get funding for the Inland Rail Corridor, it would mainly be a freight line, used to get thousands of heavy vehicles off the Newell Highway.
But, so long as the head of the Australian Trucking Association is a former National Party politician, any hope of rail actually being able to compete fairly with road - where "cost recovery" is a term found only in the dictionary - is null and void.
The existing corridors don't have the necessary curvature for such a high-speed network, coupled with the Canberra junction branching off at Joppa Junction near Goulburn, means any new high-speed train would need a significantly new alignment, at least north of Albury. The Victorians seem to have plenty of open flat terrain though...
The current infrastructure was designed, for the most part, well over 100 years ago. Airlines, partly due to technology, but also trying to save money have been very innovative and progressive, something rail has been lacking. Rail could be making money hand over fist if they were prepared to spend some money to make money. Some companies (SCT at Parkes is one) think nothing of doing so, and they're successful. Others still operate locomotives and wagons that arrived in the 50's...
It's all well and god to talk up the increase in land value, but there gets a point where just becuase something goes up in value, doesn't mean it'll sell for that value. That's simple economics, people need to be able to afford what you're selling, otherwise what you have is worth no more than what the richest person will pay for it.
You also have Governments that have sold off railways left, right and centre, railways that while costing money to run, also provided Governments with tidy profits at the end of the financial year that made them a worthwhile investment, but they were sold off to make a quick buck, run into the ground, and now require massive expenditure from the various Governments who've brought them back again to return them to their pre-sale state.
It's all well and good to suggest private industry involvement in such an endeavout, but, private industry in rail is a nightmare. Training is limited or non-existent, equipment is barely maintained in an operational state, yet alone a
safe state, and most operators seem to be screwing everyone over in an attempt to make money by saving money, with these same opearators being the same people who'd tender to run such a railway.
At the end of the day, unless the Commonwealth Government comes up with the dollars, it ain't gonna happen. NSW is flat broke, Victoria wouldn't want a bar of it after their RFR fiasco, and Qld would barely benefit, if they would benefit at all.
Concentrate on upgrading the freight and interstate lines to get trucks off the roads instead of some VFT pipedream that won't come to fruition until my
grandkids are of retirement age.