We Built a Railway Across a Desert. So What’s Stopping Us Now?

Quite a few years ago I accompanied Peter on a business trip which required him and a few colleagues to visit Belgium before moving on to the Netherlands. We stayed overnight in a hotel in Brussels with the intention of catching a plane to Amsterdam the next day. It takes about 55 minutes, one of those flights where the plane’s barely up in the sky when it’s landing again. If you decide to drive it takes about three hours to cover 204km, which says a lot about traffic congestion.

We caught the train. Rail services in Europe were great then and even better now. The train goes from a station in the middle of one city to another station in the middle of another city. Brussels to Amsterdam takes two hours and eleven minutes. No security rigmarole, no customs, no taxis to and from the airport. It was great. We got off the train at Amsterdam Central, within walking distance of just about everything, in about 2.5 hours, about the time it would have taken to fly (if you include getting to the airport, check-in, security, baggage pick up, transport to hotel) and a lot less stressful.

In fact some airlines in Europe have stopped offering short-haul flights where a convenient train connection exists. The shift is partly due to environmental concerns and government regulations.

• France: The French government has officially banned domestic flights on routes where a train journey of 2.5 hours or less is available. This affects routes like Paris to Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lyon (unless it’s part of a connecting international flight).
• Netherlands: KLM has partnered with NS Dutch Railways and Thalys to replace some short flights (e.g., Amsterdam–Brussels) with high-speed trains. They’re actively encouraging passengers to take the train instead of flying these short routes.
• Germany: Lufthansa has similar rail-air partnerships, notably with Deutsche Bahn. They offer combined train-plane tickets (e.g., Frankfurt Airport to Cologne or Stuttgart), and some flights on those short routes have been reduced or phased out.
• Austria: Austrian Airlines replaced the Vienna–Salzburg flight with a train service, thanks to an agreement with ÖBB (Austrian Railways).

As rail networks become faster and more integrated with airports, it’s a practical and more sustainable move, especially for distances where trains are faster door-to-door than flying.

So why aren’t we doing it in Australia?

Melbourne to Sydney (750km – about 1.5 hours by air) is one of the most heavily used routes in the world. In 2024, it ranked as the fifth busiest domestic flight path globally, with over 9.2 million passengers. The route has maintained a top five position for several years, underscoring its significance in both Australian and global aviation networks.

Despite its high traffic, there’s no serious push to replace the route with rail travel. The current train journey between Melbourne and Sydney takes approximately 11 hours, making it uncompetitive with the 1.5-hour flight. High-speed rail (HSR) between Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney has been talked about in Australia since at least the 1980s but despite numerous studies, political promises, and feasibility reports, nothing has been built.

As far back as 1980-90 there was talk of a French-style TGV line between Sydney and Canberra. It failed due to lack of funding and political will. In the 2000s Very Fast Train (VFT) and later East Coast High Speed Rail concepts were floated, and often revisited during elections. All were shelved after feasibility studies showed astronomical costs—tens of billions of dollars. In 2013 a federal government report estimated a full Brisbane–Melbourne high-speed line would cost $114 billion (in 2012 dollars) and take 40+ years to complete. Despite strong public interest, the plan was shelved again.

More recently, the Albanese government revived the idea in the 2022 election campaign, pledging to establish a High-Speed Rail Authority. The High-Speed Rail Authority Act was passed in 2023. The first priority was a Sydney–Newcastle link (about 170 km). Seen as the most achievable first step, it would cut travel time from ~2.5 hours to just over an hour. The authority could then consider extensions to Melbourne and Brisbane. $500 million was committed for planning, land acquisition, and early works—but this is planning money, not construction. It will be years before work commences on the Sydney–Newcastle line.

Okay, there are serious obstacles in starting such an enormous project.

• Cost: $100+ billion is a huge upfront cost with long-term returns.
• Population Density: Australia is relatively sparse; critics argue there would not be enough passengers to justify it, even though 9.2 million passengers fly between Melbourne and Sydney every year.
• Politics: Every new government tends to hit reset.
• Geography: Terrain and land acquisition make it complex—especially in urban fringes.

But here’s another project that was done just after the Australian colonies joined together in 1901 to create the Australia we know today. The Trans-Australian Railway is one of the most significant infrastructure projects in Australian history. It links Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to the eastern states via Port Augusta, crossing the vast and arid Nullarbor Plain.

When Western Australia joined the Federation in 1901, one of the state’s key conditions was a railway link to the eastern states.  At the time, WA was effectively isolated, reliant on ships to communicate and trade with the rest of Australia.  A transcontinental railway was seen as essential for national unity, economic development, and defence.

Surveying of the route commenced in 1907 and construction started in 1912. A line from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Port Augusta in South Australia, a distance of 1,693km, was opened in 1917. The diagram above shows how the new line connected with existing lines so by 1919 (with a few train changes or bogey changes) a person could go by train from Perth to Sydney. The iconic Indian Pacific train started taking passengers between Perth and Sydney without train changes in 1970.

It’s never going to be any easier or cheaper to build that high speed train between Melbourne and Sydney than it is today. What we need is somebody with the political will to make it happen.

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