Plenty of Shinkansen stations are built away from the original central station, even in cities as large as Osaka. But for the big cities I’d say they are rarely more than 10 minutes’ ride from said central station. Shin-Osaka is about 5 minutes from Osaka/Umeda. The Chuo Shinkansen (Maglev) will start at Shinagawa, 10-ish minutes from Tokyo central (noting however that Tokyo is not the busiest station there). There’s a rationale to put a main HSR station for a big city somewhat further afield than the regular central station, but I would surmise there’s a practical limit before people will be turned off for this specific line to Newcastle and will be mostly for commuters rather than leisure or long distance business travellers, so they won’t be pleased with a huge transfer penalty. For a broader Mel-Syd-Bne network, there’s probably a greater willingness to accept a transfer off HSR some distance further away.
For China, the majority of HS rail city stations are on City boundaries rather than the down town area (e.g. Central). The average distance from an HSR station to the city centre is over 9 kilometres. As long as the chosen site is well connected by rapid transit eg. Metro line, considerable savings can be made. Might help to improve the poor BCRs.
The WSI extension makes no real sense to me. This adds considerable dollars and route km to the project that really should be part of an extension of Metro West from Westmead.
I think (along frankly with a lot of what IA puts out) their opinion is not overly valuable - it tends to be far too dismissive of the benefits of certain kinds of transport projects over others (and of certain kinds of benefits over others), applies inappropriate discount amounts to the calculation of the value of money and benefits over time etc.
My opinion always has been, and remains, that economics is almost entirely equivalent to haruspicy. It is a pseudoscience whose only value is to tell us why things cost what they cost - not what is best to do - but economists are looked on as a kind of polymath. No offence to anybody on this forum who is in that discipline, but respectfully economists can get in the bin.
dedicated HSR alignment of 194 km in length, including 115 km of tunnelling, 41 km of surface track, and 38 km of bridges and viaducts
A lot of tunnels. Tunnels limited to 200 km/h. Fair slice of it will be fast rail rather than high speed rail.
Haruspicy withstanding, reminds me of an old joke.
A physicist, a chemist, and an economist were stranded on a desert island.
They had some canned food and wanted to open the can.
The physicist said lets put the cans in the fire, heat will expand the contents and the can will open.
The chemist suggested scratching the rim of the can with a stone. This will expose the iron and water will react to form ferric oxide (rust), then we can open the cans.
The economist said: "Lets imagine we have a can opener … "
Parramatta is the centre of Sydney geographically. An alternative that could be explored, however it seems unlikely to change the general outcome regarding overall value of the project.
This project also has an extreme opportunity cost - the billions it would require could be better spent extending rail and busways to in states and territories.
Having just emerged from 2.5 days of meetings of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee about 2 hours ago, your post fills me with equal parts despair and amusement 
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At least the models we see are underpinned by robust randomised trial evidence… some of the time 
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I don’t think there’s really too much surprising in this high level case for HSR. Political will is more likely to make this happen than any amount of economic modelling I suspect, be it witchcraft, prophecy, or anything else.
But this afternoon, I am mentally drained after a busy week. I need a gin this afternoon after I’ve logged off work I think 
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It’s all green lights and going ahead apparently!
High Speed Rail Authority chief executive Tim Parker said while a final green light for the project is up to the government, he does not expect any major hurdles.
“I think the government has already shown their commitment,” he said.
“They’ve set us up, they’ve given us funding … I don’t think we’ll see anything other than support by government for us to develop the project.”
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In a statement, Transport Minister Catherine King welcomed Infrastructure Australia’s assessment.
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“The Government is committed to progressing High Speed Rail, which has proven its ability overseas to bring people and places closer together, making it faster and easier to connect our regions, cities and communities.”
Significant typo in the ABC Article:
Infrastructure Australia’s assessment report reveals that stage 1 of the rail project will span 194 kilometres, including 155 kilometres through tunnels.
Should read 115 kilometres through tunnels.
What a joke to include Harbour city cbd while Parramatta is good enough for its central location for all get to most of Sydney within 30 or so mins
9 mins ABC Radio
It doesn’t look good, and neither does the BCR:
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If
155115 km are in tunnels / 194 km tunnel length between Sydney <> Newcastle then 80% of it is in a tunnel. -
The tunnel limits the speed of the train to a top speed of 200 km/hr. So average speed is going to be lower than this value because top speed > average speed.
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Maybe average speed would eventually be say 150 km/hr or 180 km/hr?
So does it even meet the definition of high speed at this speed point then? Probably not.
So the Sydney <> Newcastle section will therefore likely have all of the costs of HSR (as it will be built to HSR standards) but not the speed of HSR.
And the cost (both direct and indirect/opportunity cost) will be astronomical. Even at a grossly underestimated low ‘desktop’ cost of $200 million/km, we are looking upwards of $40b before blowouts and complications.
That money would be better spent on buses, heavy rail, extensions or conversions to metro services and possibly speeding up existing long distance heavy rail lines.
Notes - Desktop Estimation
0.2 million/km x 194 km = $38.8 billion ballpark.
The ABC made a typo in the tunnel length a while back. Looks like still propagated.
Tunnel length is 115km. From [IA Stage 3 Evaluation] page 4 (https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-11/IA%20Stage%203%20Evaluation%20Report_HSR%20Sydney-Newcastle.pdf)
dedicated HSR alignment of 194 km in length, including 115 km of tunnelling, 41 km of surface track, and 38 km of bridges and viaducts
So 59% in tunnels = fast rail rather than high speed rail.
It’s true that you would not be building true high speed rail between Sydney and Newcastle, but it enables high speed rail to continue further north. If you see it as phase 1 and not just an end in itself it makes a little more sense.
Anything between Sydney and Newcastle is going to involve considerable amounts of tunnelling, and in the regions where that is concentrated it is probably much more economic to not build so many transitions between tunnel and other approaches. Further north there might be room to get more of it on an alignment that results in higher speed. However, people are kidding themselves if it is going to (a) be cheaper or (b) result in a quicker trip by just throwing money at what is substantially the current alignment(s).
Interesting extract from the IA Stage 3 Evaluation
https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-11/IA%20Stage%203%20Evaluation%20Report_HSR%20Sydney-Newcastle.pdf page 3
Approximately 60% of Stage 1 would be in tunnels that are mostly located between the Central Coast, Central Sydney and Western Sydney International, which results in train speeds of up to 200km/hr, that are almost 40% slower than the theoretical maximum. HSRA advised that higher travel speeds would require a significantly larger tunnel diameter and have minimal impact on end to end journey times over the Sydney to Newcastle distance and would not justify the additional infrastructure costs. Shorter tunnels located along the corridor between the Central Coast and Newcastle are designed for maximum line speed (320 km/h).
So the shorter tunnels will be high speed.
I don’t know as much about this as others, but I would think that the speed between Newcastle and Sydney being limited by tunnels is somewhat trivial when you consider the long (very long) term goal of having HSR from Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane.
The further HSR gets extended, the smaller percent of the route is tunnelled.
I realise this is very long term thinking, even bordering on wishful, but surely this is the actual purpose of the project. A Sydney to Newcastle HSR rail will never recoup its costs, ever. It’s BCR will never be good, ever.
To me, the purpose of a Sydney to Newcastle line is threefold:
- Demonstrate feasibility of a larger project
- Develop local Australian expertise
- Ultimately provide the construction industry with confidence that they can invest in equipment and training because government(s) is(are) committed to building out this project over the next 20-30-40+ years.
This is the approach that Canada is taking with its Quebec City to Toronto (and eventually Windsor) HSR project. They are starting with the short segment between Ottawa and Montreal. Even this segment by itself you likely never be justifiable economically.
That said, Canada has been studying HSR since the 80s and this project, while significantly much more advanced than anything before it (a consortium has been chosen, a route will be announced next year) it’s still won’t a shovel put into the ground until 2029!
As a side note, if Australian HSR enthusiasts want a good laugh, know that you are not alone: Canada’s incessant HSR studies leading to nowhere have been the subject of ridicule for decades. Check out this hilarious skit from the legendary Rick Mercer, noting that it was made 13(!) years go:
Albanese signals announcement on Australia’s first high-speed rail
By Shane Wright
Anthony Albanese has signalled the government is about to sink serious money into the nation’s first high-speed rail line, but admits he won’t be prime minister when it’s finally built.
Speaking on ABC radio, Albanese said an announcement on the rail line would be made “in a couple of weeks” while making clear his support for the concept.
The government created the High Speed Rail Authority in 2023 with the first line expected to be a 194-kilometre link between Sydney and Newcastle.
The NSW government has estimated it could cost as much as $32 billion.
Albanese said he supported high-speed rail, not just between Sydney and Newcastle but across the east coast.
“I think that it absolutely makes sense. We’re the only inhabited continent on Earth that doesn’t have high-speed rail,” he said.
“And certainly Newcastle to Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne, makes absolute sense. It’s where most our population is along that corridor. And what makes it financially viable is the economic development along the route.”
If these HSR projects, or indeed most other large transport projects, tend to come out at 2x original cost, shouldn’t the minimum BCR for viability then be set to 2.0? Or some other risk adjustment applied?
My core argument against HSR is simple: the opportunity cost is enormous.
For the same money, we could transform public and active transport in every major Australian city: new Bus Rapid Transit corridors, light rail networks, and comprehensive cycling infrastructure.
Projects that would benefit a far larger share of the population, with benefit-cost ratios that actually clear the bar (HSR’s struggles to exceed 1.0).