To recap what I’ve said before – it’s a huge capital investment that would operate at a loss for decades. Even if we will feel better if if have one (perhaps) it doesn’t mean enough people will use it to reduce greenhouse emissions enough (or even dent air travel enough) to cover the emissions generated in its construction (1,000km of landclearing, loss of habitat, earthworks and all the rest – and it still needs energy to make the trains move fast!).

We’d probably have to treble our population to make it work. And that alone causes more environmental problems. OK, we could build it into a regional decentralisation plan but again that takes decades to make happen and hasn’t worked particularly well in previous attempts. I’m all for trying it but I do question whether we could better spend our money on smaller, less iconic but more “needed” transport or other infrastructure projects.

Of course if we could just put a price on carbon we’d be a step forward in many ways, but even that looks like an impossible dream. One day I suppose.

Why Bullet trains:
Low Carbon Emissions
Increased Productivity
Reduced strain on infrastructure
Reduced need for business to be located within the CBD
and more….

Less Tunnels More Bullet Trains!

http://trillions.topcities.com/dualmodemaglev.html

check these also
http://trillions.topcities.com/
http://trillions.topcities.com/electriCar.html
http://trillions.topcities.com/00glblslrnrgsys.html

lets have all nations perticipate and contribute.
attitudes need to change if we “the world” want to go places
all the best — jack marchand

A technology called ‘personal rapid transit’ may provide an answer. Although ridiculed by most and poorly understood by most, it could theoretically solve many of the problems of transit in australia.

It is a rail based system. carriages or ‘pods’ are independent of each other [not physically connected].
Pods can hold 2 or 4 people [similar to most car travelers].
travel is direct to your destination with no intermediate stops. Pods could go at speeds of 100km+, all the way to your destination, perhaps faster in wide open country areas.
pod stations are ‘off track’ meaning they are on a short track off the main track, which means when a pod stops at a station, traffic on the main line keeps going.
The track is elevated, and would more resemble a rollercoaster track than a train track. This allows the system to be unimpeded by structures or topography. Stations could be built into shopping centres, universities etc.

AND PERHAPS THE BEST PART: ITS AN ON DEMAND SYSTEM
the pod waits for you, and is ready to go when you are. you dont have to run to catch your train any more. set your own schedule.

Is this a dream of science fiction. HELL NO. its doable with todays technology. and when people are not using it [off peak times and late at night] it could be used to ship small items/amounts of cargo/freight/post around the country in specially designed cargo pods that would go from cargo station to cargo station.

Infinitely expandable across the entire country/continent, cheaper than catching a train or bus, safer than a train, plane or automobile, faster in most instances, stations in every suburb, university, shopping centre, stadium etc, traveling price would be offset by cargo use and maybe ‘in pod’ advertising.

You could do so much with this system.

And you could sell it to the world. But i would start from Wollongong [public transport is a slow joke] and make a link to sydney, then Canberra and everywhere else.

powerlines would have to be put underground. but they are ugly and should be underground anyway.

Tell me what you think!

Or getting the 3:pm Sydney – Brisbane service and arriving in Brisbane in time to watch the 7:pm kick off Waratahs v Reds match;

I would love to live in Coffs Harbour if I knew that I could get to work in Brisbane in 1 1/2 hours and I’m sure that a lot of people would be thinking the same thing.

To say that it would revolutionize the way we get around would be a massive understatement and it really is a no brainer to the future development of the eastern sea board.

But it would take a long sighted government with a bit of vision and a lot of backbone and an electorate that wouldn’t mind paying for it for some time to come before it could eventuate and I just can not see that happening in the short term.

And from what I’m seeing in Sydney and our other Capitals PT systems it’s no wonder that the majority of people living in them prefer to use a car, it’s frustrating to say the least!
I’m living back in Sydney after spending 10 years living in the UK and every time I heard the English complain about there PT system I couldn’t help but laugh as I explained what it’s like back home.

Come on Aussie, bite the bullet and get with the program!!!

But, put a Queensland Tilt Train on the same route and it could achieve a 25% faster top speed and be 25% faster in corners. Limit the number of stops to 6 and I think you could cut the 2hr 40min down to about 1hr 40min – an average speed of about 100km/h. Then business customers might take it seriously.

There are things like this our governments could do now to give us quality inter-city services.

By the way, I also fully support very high speed (300km/h +) in the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane corridors – even considering constrcution costs, a much better deal for the environment.