$100M For Canberra to Sydney Train

#transit #canberra #trains

Current Issues With The Canberra Branch

There have been upgrades on the Canberra Branch that have been long overdue as stated by the government.¹ As someone who rides the train semi regularly, I 100% agree with as you can feel the tracks a lot more there compared to when you get past Goulburn. One Big issues with the line is speed as it goes through the Molonglo Gorge.² It's also slow because the line is old and wasn't designed for the speed of trains today.

One big issue which is not 100% the tracks fault is frequency due to the popularity of the lunch time train service it's almost always booked out. Which is where you think why don't they just run more trains? The current issues is that the rolling stock the Xplorers, are limited and were built in 1993 so even if you wanted to add more train there just are not enough in the network. Now this issue is being fixed by the new rolling stock the R-sets³ which while looking good, I don't think they are getting the amount that will be needed.

Now where does the track come into this? Well if they want to run trains close to each other because people want to get the train around lunch time let's say a service leaving Canberra at 1100, 1200, 1300. That would not be able to be done with the current tracks even if we had the trains lots of the it is single tack and you would have the morning train from Sydney coming the other way.

Why Now is a Good time?

With the new train sets coming into service maybe late 2027 it's not very clear. There will be plenty of time to do the required track work before the new trains go into service. This hopefully will allow for faster speeds on parts of the track and not track closures when the new trains enter service. I think it's critical that when the new trains enter service there is the least amount of interruptions possible due to people who may have not considered the train considering it because of the new trains.

Target Journey Time

With the new track works happening and the New train fleet coming into service I have been thinking about what the Journey time needs to be in order to be competitive. To start we need to look at the two bigger competitors driving and catching the bus. Let's start with driving if go from Canberra to Sydney Central the time it takes is 3hr 13min with tolls.⁴ Now let's look at the bus option I looked at getting for Canberra to Sydney central according their website it will take about 3.5h.⁵ Now if we look at transport NSW it time is 4h and 8 minutes with it being a few minutes late most times I take it.⁶

So taking this data let's look at what time we should be aiming for. While the driving option looks like the best option for speed I don't think most people are doing that drive without a stop. If we add just a 10 minute stop which is not the shortest but also not huge it's around the 3.5h mark. Considering that I think the train should be aiming for a speed of about 3.5h to Sydney which I don't think that just this track work can meet but if they do more work in future and potentially electrification up to Goulburn. This is a reasonable speed to achieve without spending billions on High speed rail.

Other improvements

Even though other options may be faster even after the track work the train still provides the best comfort. Compared to driving it has a huge bonus if you're the one driving, which I will talk more about in another post. The ability to do other things you don't have to focus on the road you can read a book, play games or watch a show. But it also has advantages over the bus you can get up and stretch your legs got to the buffet car and get something to eat and drink.

Now that I have talked about the advantages of the train, let me tell you about why it's worse compared to other options currently. The big ones is frequency 3 options a day. Compare this to the bus which runs every hour or the car ride were you can leave when ever. With the new train this should be fixed and they run more trains but we don't know yet.

Location Jolimont centre has the advantage of being right next to the city bus interchange, Compared to Canberra station which has one bus line going to it from the city. Now how do we fix this in a perfect world we would have trains go into the city but that ship has sailed. But what we can do is a few things first have a better bus shelter there with added signs, which make it easier for people who have never been to Canberra understand what they have do. This should mean there are posts telling people they can pay with there cards, but also signs telling them where to go and which bus to catch depending on where they want to go. Second there should be more busses from different interchanges which busses arriving for every train frequency from Woden, Tuggeranong, Belconnen and Weston Creek not just the city so most trips can be done with a single bus change. Compared to the 2 changes from most places.

Final Thoughts

While this is great that they are doing these upgrades in my opinion as they are long overdue. But if they want to increase ridership which will need to happen if we want to build a low carbon future they should think about other changes like people connecting to the train in Canberra and the frequency. If some money goes into these parts I think it will drastically increase ridership along with the new trains and these track works.