I was just in Japan and HSR between Tokyo and Kyoto run every 15 mins throughout the day. It’s a distance of 450 km and takes just over 2 hours with 2 stops. Cost is 140.00 AUD each way plus a reservation fee
So considering this, I reckon a trip from Sydney to Brisbane in the mid 2040s if operational could likely cost 250.00 AUD each way. The time to take the trip would be a minimum of 4.5 hours, at a speed of 250 - 300 kph
This thread is for HSR and like discussions.
Rail Back On Track Advocate Jeff Addison told Shane Doherty on 4BC Summer Drive, “Without knowing details, if we were to extrapolate out that distance [Sydney to the Central Coast] for that cost for, Brisbane to Cairns, you’d be looking at a cost of $324 billion, which I can’t see happening.”
Sydney to Central Coast HSR faces numerous high cost challenges including tunnelling through the Sydney urban area and challenging terrain out towards Gosford, so the per km cost is likely to be high compared to, say, HSR through more open and flatter terrain. That being said, I don’t think the economic imperative is there to build HSR north through Queensland.
In my view, the more realistic and achievable goal in the mid-term could be to, say, bring the NCL average operation speed up through a combination of track upgrades, curve mitigations and level crossing removals and upgrades etc. The line between Townsville and Cairns is particularly slow and littered with cane tram crossings.
Although Townsville to Cairns is particularly slow, is also sees very little traffic, so any expenditure there will produce minimal returns.
I would prefer to see curve/grade easing and level crossing removals focused on the area south of Townsville, and particularly between Beerburrum and Rockhampton. This would make the ETT more competitive with road travel, and improve the efficiency of freight rail delivery to the vast majority of the State’s population.
HSR would require a whole new alignment (probably standard gauge) anyway, which would be cost-prohibitive for that stretch. A new generation of proper sleeper trains would be lower-hanging fruit.
HSR would definitely have to be standard gauge.
I would be surprised if many here would argue for HSR to Cairns, but an alignment that allows for the tilts to run at 160 km/h (along with investigating increasing this to 180 or 200 km/h) would be valuable for increasing the attractiveness of medium and long-distance rail travel. Imagine Brisbane to Rockhampton being 5 hours, rather than the current 7:45.
I also agree that looking at bringing back sleeper cars for trains would be a good move!
If national HSR ever makes it to Brisbane I think it will make sense to extend that north to the Sunshine Coast. Especially if there’s no regional fast rail project before then. (Remember the Tilt takes 45 minutes to Caboolture!)
This isn’t just about making the SC-Brisbane connection fast, it’s also the network effect of marginal but many connections between SC and everywhere else already on HSR by then.
High Speed Rail - ABC Utopia
Season 1 Episode 3: Very Fast Turnover
A Current Affair
^^High speed rail business case complete
What is HSRA up to now that the business case is in the government’s hands?
Are we ever going to see it?
Weren’t the likely construction timelines for the Newcastle HSR early 2030s to early 2040s?
Latest high-speed rail booster talk
Imagine if just a fraction of these $ for HSR were spent on upgrades to existing heavy rail networks, light rail and BRT expansion, and bus networks.
I’d argue that they could try their hand first with the interstate line between Melbourne and Adelaide as a proof of concept.
The Stage 3 Evaluation for the Sydney-Newcastle HSR was released by Infrastructure Australia today.
Costs have low confidence because the evaluation only looked at a high-level proposal.
The preferred option in the business case is for HSR services between Newcastle and Western Sydney Airport, via Sydney Central.
Not possible to make a confident assessment of the proposal’s benefit-cost ratio (BCR)
The BCR is terrible, and will likely get worse (as costs generally only go up as you better resolve them)
Concerns over whether the labour force is there to do the project (a factor to push $$$ up)
Analysis completed by HSRA demonstrates that only under low cost and high benefit scenarios, and including land use benefits and wider economic benefits, would the benefits of Stage 1 (A, B and C) be expected to outweigh its costs. HSRA recommends adopting a 4% discount rate and found the BCR is between 0.8 to 1.0, with a net present value (NPV) of -$10.5 billion to $2.6 billion. However, using the upper bound capital costs estimates and lower bound estimates for housing supply, the BCR is 0.2 at a 4% discount rate or 0.1 at a 7% discount rate, demonstrating the need to improve certainty on costs and benefits.
NPVs are all negative and BCRs well below 1 (breakeven)
Negative NPV - the solution costs more than the problem being solved
BCR below 1 - the costs outweigh the value of the benefits
Notes
IA Stage 3 Evaluation Report_HSR Sydney-Newcastle.pdf (427.5 KB)
Infrastructure Australia Stage 3 Evaluation Report
https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-11/IA%20Stage%203%20Evaluation%20Report_HSR%20Sydney-Newcastle.pdf
Apparently from what I have seen and read it will have the longest tunnels in the world. It will be interesting if they get it up and running by the late 2030s.
So what I’m seeing is it has a better BCR than the gympie road tunnel which is almost guaranteed to be built. I could see this getting built, even if it’s purely political.
I do wonder though, why bother sending it to central? Would we get better land use dividends from putting one of those stations out in a field somewhere and building up around it? Kind of similar to how the Chinese do theirs.
Agree, Central is a very expensive option.
A correspondent describes it as “Such an incredible amount of money required to deviate into the city in addition to the extended travel time”.
