Victor P Taffa

As our population increases and ages the expansion of all heavy railway networks throughout Australia is essential in order to meet these growing pressures over the next few decades.

In a series of articles The Southern Thunderer investigates a number of issues that spells out why Governments of all persuasions must meet the challenges ahead and instead of deferring or abandoning railway expansion realise the positive impact that this will have on our economy and society as a whole.

The plans for expansion of our railways were included in the Detailed Overview Report as written by myself and distributed in the first instance in January 2001. On 26 February 2009 all of the plans became accessible via the internet. The website address is www.isput.com.au

The Detailed Overview Report will be used as a template for individual websites of Railway expansion that will be progressively launched for every State, Territory and a National focus.

Many of the plans for Sydney are simply a revival of routes laid out by John Bradfield during the 1920’s and there are routes that were drawn up during the 1910’s. The third article focuses on GENERAL RAILWAY IMPROVEMENTS.

SUMMARY OF GENERAL RAILWAY IMPROVEMENTS:

The following general railways improvements while are designed for the requirements for New South Wales would also be used as a template for every State, Territory and a National focus.

Former New South Wales Minister for Transport Carl Scully fought a tough battle through Cabinet to increase track capacity on the East Hills Line.

Duplication and Quadruplication projects are essential to ensure that existing services can function safely and smoothly.

Commuters go to a station expecting that there will be no breakdowns however these issues arise and as with lanes on road additional tracks are simply lanes on a railway. Trains cannot run without tracks.

Reconstruction/realignment of:

• Northern Line between Hornsby, Newcastle and Brisbane.
• Northern Line between Woy Woy and Cowan.
• Illawarra Line between Sutherland and Wollongong.
• Southern Line between Macarthur, Goulburn, Canberra, Cooma & Melbourne.
• Western Line between Penrith, Orange and Broken Hill.
• All other lines to key Regional towns throughout New South Wales.
• Quadruple the Northern line between Hornsby & Strathfield.
• Quadruple the North Shore line between Chatswood & North Sydney.
• Quadruple the Southern Line between Macarthur & Granville.
• Quadruple the Illawarra line between Hurstville & Sutherland.
• Quadruple the East Hills line.
• Quadruple the Bankstown line between Birrong & Marrickville.
• Quadruple existing Freight corridors to allow for passenger use.
• Connect Parramatta to the Carlingford line and extend to Epping.
• Duplicate the Richmond line.
• Duplicate every Country line.
• Amplify the Western line between Strathfield & Olympic Park.
• Construction of a Sydney Harbour Rail Tunnel or restore the Sydney Harbour Bridge Eastern side tracks.

• The Northern Line at Epping will be realigned so that the underground platforms contain dive tunnels for the trains to enter and rejoin the surface tracks on the Northern Line thus allowing passengers to board trains to Chatswood and Parramatta easily. These new dive tunnels allows for the unused Platform 4 to be placed into commission.

• While under reconstruction/realignment, some of these railway lines would be closed to rail traffic and all services replaced by buses during the period of the works. The South Australia Government recently upgraded the Belair Line and buses replaced trains for the duration of the works.

• If necessary, the relocation of whole railway stations, which has occurred in the past, may have to occur as part of the reconstruction /realignment programme.

• These improvements to the rail network are designed to meet the growing demand for an adequate transport system for the large population centres of New South Wales over the next 30 years. These projects will go a long way to reducing the death toll on our country roads.

Railway line construction does not remove the need to maintain or upgrade roads. However given the large expansion of residential areas over many decades without a railway line it is quite apparent that there is a bias against the construction of railway lines.

The difference between the cost of construction of roads and railway lines is marginal.