Build it UP the Range, with future Inland Rail CAPACITY built in!
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It’s not going up the range any time soon, and I wouldn’t want to try and build anything that tries to allow for a project that may or may not ever go ahead.
An extension to Withcott is a much more feasible project, and achieveable in the short to medium term.
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they should just do it and stop being such flat-earth Queenslanders!
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Spending excessive amounts of money on a project that MAY connect to a future Inland Rail line (or which may end up being in completely in the wrong spot for a future IR project, or which may become an stranded asset if the IR project is cancelled for good) is not a good idea.
You could end up throwing away good money, which is something in short supply.
I still remain yet-to-be convinced the extension from Helidon to Withcott is the right move.
I take the points that it could be a waste of time and money to design a project around the ‘what if’ scenario of a potential future Inland Rail revival.
But perhaps that’s not a fulsome assessment of the range of scenarios. In terms of enabling projects, a new segment from Grandchester to Laidley (with tunnel through the Little Liverpool Range) and either curve mitigation elsewhere and/or a new alignment that skips Grantham have little bearing on a future range crossing - they’re all enabling projects you would probably do as part of any extension to Withcott anyway and therefore don’t necessarily represent excessive costs on a what-if scenario.
But where does Helidon to Withcott fit into to bigger picture? Does it close if a new range crossing gets built because it’s too close to the bottom of the range to form part of a new range crossing? Does that represent value for money if there’s a change of government and all of a sudden all bets are off? It’s probably 7-10km of new railway (branching from the existing line at a point North of Helidon Spa) that might find itself without a purpose in 20 years.
Is that a financial commitment worth making?
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People forget that a big part of the reason Inland Rail was halted at Parkes is because the Government changed the value for money and business case assessment process to more greatly scrutinise major infrastructure projects. This same logic would apply to any Toowoomba electrification and route too and I would dare say it would be worse than inland rail given less freight and more complex / costly track.
It’s been a recurring theme the entirety of the Inland Rail’s life. We just hit the wall post Ukraine / Russia invasion and Gulf Oil crisis now in cost drivers.
Incremental upgrades are definitely the play here, with 2 big projects:
- Grandchester to Laidley realignment, including new Little Liverpool range tunnel and new North Laidley station
- Grantham bypass, including new Grantham station and a new Helidon station
Whether you build a spur line from Helidon to Withcott really comes down to where you think the interchange location should be. I don’t think there is any local demand drivers at Withcott that couldn’t be captured by driving the extra 8km to Helidon. The money saved on not building a Withcott spur could fund a Helidon Spa interchange (which is planned to happen at some point) and then a quality road into Helidon from the west to a new station north of town.
You’re also east of the Toowoomba bypass at this point, so that makes road access to places west of Toowoomba immediately easier than backtracking into Withcott.
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I’ve proposed two project areas - The Laidley realignment/Little Liverpool Range tunnel, and the Range one (a lot more expensive). The information for this map comes from Inland Rail maps and the QLD Government Toowoomba to Brisbane Passenger Rail Summary Report.
I really don’t see a future where the QLD Government (sadly) is motivated to build a new rail crossing of the Range, but the other works in Group 2 are far more achievable. One day the rest may be built, and in building the line to support interfacing with this at some point in time is prudent (looking at you lack of CRR stubs at Roma St).
In regards to a Withcott spur (it will never be more than a spur because the highway that runs past it goes up 350m in elevation to Toowoomba) is shortsighted and the proposal of such an option puts a half baked solution in the hands of the QLD Government. Helidon (or Helidon North) should be designed as a commuter station with frequent bus service to Toowoomba City and a large park’n’ride.
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Southeast Queensland councils have launched a major push for a “generation-defining” rail link that could help accommodate 500,000 new residents over the next 20 years. Details: https://bit.ly/3R19caH
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I believe the most important part of this project is not the connection to Toowoomba but the connection between Brisbane and the Lockyer Valley, as that is becoming effectively part of Brisbane’s commuter belt. Given that, the most important thing is the Liverpool Range crossing so that trains can get as far as Gatton on a good alignment. This would enable substantial housing development in and around Laidley and Gatton that would be well connected to Brisbane.
I would not do anything at all beyond Gatton unless it was a part of a larger project.
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With regards to the spur to Withcott, I think the question needs to be asked is how hard is it to achieve and how expensive would it be? If it is a relatively simple, relatively inexpensive proposition to build the Withcott extension, I’m not against the idea.
While there’s not much at Withcott, it does have a reasonable local population (twice that of Helidon) and IMO future development potential if it is made the end of the electrified network. The biggest benefit is that it is geographically very close to Toowoomba’s city centre - it’s a 10 minute drive from Withcott to the Toowoomba Bus Station directly up the range - from Helidon it is 20 minutes directly up the range, and 30 minutes via the bypass, so I can definitely see a benefit in connectivity.
If it’s going to be something stupid like a $billions project, obviously that’s a non-starter, but if it can be done for a more reasonable cost, it might be worth considering.
My next question would be regarding the Little Liverpool Range - if we are trying to do this on the cheap, would it be possible to work with the existing, slow range alignment, or does the tunnel absolutely need to be there to make electrification possible?
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Should Toowoomba passenger train line be all underground?
I would strongly advocate for a new alignment through the Little Liverpool Range. The existing alignment has an average speed of around 30-35kph (comprising some curves below that with a radius of around 120m), and the tunnels are at present unsuitable for electrification and given their 1800s construction, you’d have to dig down rather than raise the ceilings to fit overheads.
The current travel time between Grandchester and Laidley is in the order of 20-25 minutes. A new alignment would probably do it in about 10. If built to a 160kph standard, potentially even less.
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If that’s the case, then this is probably the main point supporting building a new tunnel. Similar to what I said regarding the spur to Withcott, we need to consider the value of a 10-15 minute saving compared to the cost of what is required to achieve it, but if there would be extensive works and costs just involved in electrifying the existing line, that evens the playing field.
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I’d like to once again remember that full overhead power is not necessary to electrify the service any more as modern bi-mode trains are capable of operating for shorter distances on battery power. We could procure bi-mode trains tomorrow and operate a service on the existing alignment, running on the overhead as far as Rosewood and switching to battery power beyond that.
I definitely wouldn’t be spending money putting overhead on the existing winding alignment over the Liverpool Range.
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They would need to realign the track to make it 160kph compliant where they can. Electrification with realignment is a no brainer as they can use all avaible existing rail stock.
Similar with Cross River rail they will need to upgrade the track between Darra and Ipswich preferable quad or triple track to Redbank or Riverview. They would also need to upgrade the track from Ipswich to Rosewood.
Maybe rebuilding Redbank as a premium interchange station would be good too.
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Those things would be great, but you don’t need to do any of them. You could literally just extend the existing Rosewood terminators without doing anything else. Obviously that will not be a fast service, but you don’t want to get into the trap of thinking that massive infrastructure has to be put in place before you can do anything.
An express service that went Gatton - Laidley - Rosewood - Ipswich - Dinmore - Goodna - Darra - Indooroopilly - Milton - Roma St → that ran hourly through the day could probably fit on the current infrastructure and on top of the current service pattern without too much difficulty.
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That is sort of my thinking as well - get a service on the rails as far and as fast as possible with minimal infrastructure spend, and then go from there.
Call me pessimistic, but I’m not liking our chances of getting any substantial investment towards this anytime soon. For that reason, this should be a shoestring plan that spends as little to get it get it working, and then looks at incremental improvements as money becomes available.
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Also a lot politically easier to justify spending a smaller amount to provide the service and then spending the big bucks later as a major upgrade to an already existing service, rather than trying to get together all of the cash in one go
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