This thread is for Canberra-Sydney Rail corridor improvements (non-HSR).
Improving train travel times between Sydney and Canberra would be welcome, but the station needs to move closer to the Canberra CBD.
ACT and NSW governments commit to improving Canberra-Sydney train line, but high speed rail won’t be the focus.
ACT Labor has announced plans to work with the New South Wales government to reduce the travel time on the rail line between Canberra and Sydney.
Labor today flagged it would establish a cross-border working group to investigate priority areas to upgrade the line, if the party is elected to a seventh term of government on October 19.
The trip between the national capital and the harbour city currently takes more than four hours, making it considerably slower than travelling by car, bus, or plane.
Notes
I think the geography and urbanisation of Canberra makes moving the station closer to the city an extremely costly exercise, and the money may be better spent on line upgrades to reduce running times. Extension south of the lake towards Majura or the Parliamentary Triangle would go through medium/high density development or through expensive ‘elite Canberra’ to still be on the wrong side of the lake to the CBD - i.e. not happening.
If you branch off west of Queanbeyan but east of the developed area of Fyshwick, you could head towards the airport and up towards Mt Ainslie, but you either have to go over floodplain if you stick close to the lake or tunnel through the hills to proceed - then you hit the Defence complex and/or urban Canberra on the run into the CBD - also probably not happening (at least, not without extraordinary cost).
Having used the service many times, the slow bits seem to me to be the descent from Queanbeyan down to Bungendore, the section between Mittagong and Campbelltown, and constantly getting stuck behind all-stopper trains in the Sydney urban areas. Those are three areas I’d focus on to get the journey times down.
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There are a few options:
- Do nothing
- City-CBR Airport-Queanbeyan (can be LRT, Busway or Regional Rail)
- LRT via Barton, conversion of the existing corridor to LRT through Fyshwick and then terminate at Queanbeyan.
The main question would be whether it was desirable to have the regional rail station in (a) the city centre (near the National Convention and Exhibition Centre) or (b) outside of the city centre (at Queanbeyan).
The city centre is more convenient for regional train passengers, however the Queanbeyan option and LRT/BRT conversion provides a viable option for the majority of passengers and residents making local work trips. It is the option that would likely give higher patronage overall. In this scenario, regional trains would terminate at Queanbeyan, and then change to a frequent local LRT or BRT service.
There is a median for parts of Morsehead drive and Parkes Way that can be leveraged for median LRT or BRT running.
I am a little dubious that having the terminus in what is technically NSW would gain much political traction 
, but if memory serves the older HSR ideas suggested the HSR station could be near the airport if ever built in the future. I wonder if the Airport might be a similarly suitable terminus for regular heavy rail in the long term interim with easy interchange with LRT/BRT and the airport. The R3 bus already approximately services the route you’ve outlined as far as the bottom of the airport precinct.
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