Since Australia's first steam trains ran during the 1850s, railways have moved people and assisted economic development. From the 1950s, rail has faced increasing competition from road transport and planes. As a result, many train services have been withdrawn, branch lines closed and some main lines not upgraded.
However, with selective investment rail has excellent prospects. For example, in 1981, the Perth urban lines had only 6.5 million passengers per year and were marked for closure.
Instead of closing the lines, a decision was made to invest in major improvements including new lines and the introduction of modern high voltage electric trains. Today Perth has Australia's best urban rail system with annual patronage exceeding 35 million journeys. A new 71km Perth to Mandurah line has been completed this year [2007], capable of taking six trains each way each hour during peak periods with a journey time of just 48 minutes.
On the other hand, the Sydney rail system that gave a gold medal performance for the 2000 Olympics is now struggling to cope. A 70 to 73 km peak hour journey that will take 48 minutes from Perth and 60 minutes in Brisbane or Melbourne requires at least 70 minutes from Sydney's Central Station to Woy Woy or Blaxland, or at least 79 minutes to Thirroul and 87 minutes to Douglas Park.
Rail in regional NSW also presents considerable scope for improvement. During the 1910s, much of the track from Picton to Cootamundra was duplicated with deviations to ease ruling grades for steam trains. The cost was extra track length and excessive curvature. One striking example, as found in a University of Wollongong project, is that a modern superfreighter moving over the old 19th Century alignment between Goulburn and Yass would give transit time savings and fuel savings of 12 per cent when compared with the present track, Rebuilding to modern standards would give gains of about 25 per cent.
Another example is that construction of the Wentworth deviation [Menangle to Aylmerton, originally proposed by the Hon Bill Wentworth in 1991] coupled with tilt trains could see Mittagong-Sydney journey times halved. This deviation would tie in well with completion of the Maldon to Port Kembla railway - the rail link between southwestern Sydney and Port Kembla abandoned half-completed by the NSW Government 20 years ago.
The NSW North Coast line started by joining up branch lines. No less than 47 per cent of the Maitland to Grafton track has curvature of radius less than 800 metres. Reflecting terrain and better standards, the corresponding percentage for the Melbourne-Perth "Ease-West" rail corridor is just three per cent. A train moving from Maitland to Grafton turns about 110 circles - some 55 to the left and 55 to the right.
A recent House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services report entitled The Great Freight Task: Is Australia's transport network up to the challenge? concluded that Australia's greatest need is the reconstruction and realignment of the main freight networks.
This report noted the benefits, as quantified by a UOW-Rail CRC project, of one rail deviation. Construction of a new 67km line from Hexham to Stroud Road would get rid of 97 km of steam age alignment (with 18 circles), cut train transit times from 82 to 42 minutes, and reduce fuel use in the track section by 40 per cent.
Upgrading and straightening mainline tracks for faster and heavier freight trains has worked well in Queensland. The track upgrades allowed Queensland in 1998 to start an electric tilt train passenger service at speeds up to 160 km/h. Within a year, the service was providing strong competition to regional aviation.
Conventional trains in Victoria and Western Australia also travel at 160 km/h. Why not in NSW?
Turning to freight, the railways in the Pilbara region of Western Australia are now moving over five million tonnes of iron ore per week and operate at world's best practice with incredible energy efficiency. Queensland Rail now moves over two million tonnes of coal per week, and their use of electric traction saves nearly 200 million litres of diesel each year.
In moving freight between Australia's five major cities, rail's performance varies from world class in moving over 80 per cent of interstate land freight in and out of Perth down to poor performance on the corridors linking Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Quite simply, freight trains using "steam age" alignments are no match for B-Doubles using the reconstructed Hume and Pacific Highways. The solution, following the current rehabilitation of the existing track, is to commence track straightening.
On average, rail uses half the energy to move people compared to cars. In peak hour loadings and traffic, electric rail is five times more energy efficient than cars. For moving line haul freight, rail uses one third of the diesel that trucks do. Rail can also use electric traction, while road vehicles and planes are reliant on oil. In addition, rail is some twenty times safer than trucks to move freight.
Energy efficiency, climate change and safety are all compelling reasons to invest in rail. Other reasons include improving export supply chains and the need to reduce road congestion in Australia's capital cities.