![]() ![]() By the time the contract was signed in March 1980, the order was only for 10 power cars and 20 carriages, enough to form four five-carriage trains with two spare power cars. In August 1979, Comeng was announced as the successful bidder for an order of 100 vehicles. Comeng submitted a tender for a train based on the British Rail designed InterCity 125 which had entered service with British Rail in October 1976. ![]() The tender allowed bidders to suggest alternative types of high-speed train. In January 1978 the Public Transport Commission invited tenders for 25 high-speed railcars similar to the Prospector railcars delivered by Comeng to the Western Australian Government Railways in 1971. 1980s New South Wales XPT NSW TrainLink XPT at Sydney Central station It would offer only mild improvements on the existing travel times: Sydney to Canberra in three hours, and Sydney to Melbourne in nine it cannot therefore be considered a true high-speed rail proposal. However, it proposed only the strengthening and partial electrification of the existing tracks, new deviations to bypass the worst sections, additional passing loops, and the purchase of new diesel-electric trains. In 1981, the Institution of Engineers proposed the Bicentennial High-Speed Railway Project, which proposed to link the five capitals of south-eastern Australia (Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane) in time for the Australian Bicentenary. The 1979 Premiers' Meeting proposed the electrification of the Sydney–Melbourne line to improve transit time from over 12 hours to under 10, but a senate committee found this was not justified on economic grounds. The rail network has long been a target of proposals for improvement. The following is a non-exhaustive overview of semi-high-speed/higher-speed and high-speed rail projects in Australia. In 2012, over 12 million people lived along the Sydney–Melbourne rail corridor. However, a mature high-speed rail system would be more economically competitive than air and locomotive travel, provide mass transit and have a duration of travel that would compare with air travel or be quicker, and would reduce national carbon dioxide emissions. Although such studies have generated much interest from the private sector and captured the imagination of the general public upon their release, to date no private-sector proposal has been able to demonstrate financial viability without the need for significant government assistance. Various studies and recommendations have asserted that a high-speed rail service between the major eastern capital cities could be viable as an alternative to air. However, travel times between the capitals by high-speed rail could be as fast as or faster than air travel, as the 2013 High Speed Rail Study Phase 2 Report estimated that conventional high-speed rail express journeys from Sydney to Melbourne would take 2 hours and 44 minutes, while those from Sydney to Brisbane would take 2 hours and 37 minutes. Rail has a significant presence in the rural / city fringe commuter market, but inter-capital rail currently has very low market share due to low speeds and infrequent service. Air travel dominates the inter-capital travel market, and intra-rural travel is almost exclusively car-based. The construction of a high-speed rail link along the east coast has been the target of several investigations since the early 1980s. Main article: History of rail transport in Australia France's TGV rail service provides a high-speed link between cities both inside and outside France. The Transwa WDA/WDB/WDC class, V/Line VLocity, XPT and the diesel and electric Tilt Trains operate at a maximum speed of 160 km/h in passenger service, which qualifies as higher-speed rail. ![]() This speed is just above the internationally accepted definition of high-speed rail of 200 km/h (124 mph). The Australian rail speed record of 210 km/h was set by Queensland Rail's Electric Tilt Train during a trial run in 1998. The distance between them is around 800 km (500 miles), which requires very high speeds to make trains competitive with air travel. Various corridors have been proposed for a potential high-speed line. The most commonly suggested route is between Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, which, as of 2023, is the world's fifth busiest air corridor. Every Federal Government since this time has investigated the feasibility of constructing high-speed rail with speeds above 200 km/h, but to date nothing has ever gone beyond the detailed planning stage. High-speed rail in Australia has been under investigation since the early 1980s. Current top service speed on Australian railways is 160 km/h (100 mph) ![]()
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