Last week, Mr Tim Parker was named the inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA), while the Australian Government has committed $500 million to facilitate a high speed rail network on Australia’s east coast, starting with the Sydney to Newcastle section.

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The HSRA is tasked with advising on, planning, developing and overseeing the construction and operation of the network.

Speaking to ABC Newcastle’s Paul Culliver on Wednesday 17 January, Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the project was in its very early planning stages.

“We’re working our way through all of the things that will need to be done to stack this up to make sure that we can get high-speed rail (from) Sydney to Newcastle.

“It’s not just about the rail; it’s actually about the economic opportunities it brings to Newcastle and the Hunter once we’ve got it here.

“But we’ve got a lot of work to do.

“This is not something that you can just magically build.

“There’s a lot of lessons to be learned from high-speed rail in other countries as well as the failures of rail projects in our own country as well that we’re very determined to learn from to make sure we get this done right.”

Ms King could not provide any timeline for project delivery, but expects the HSRA to deliver a business case for the Newcastle to Sydney section by the end of 2024.

“It’s well and truly time we had high-speed rail in this country.

“This corridor is the busiest, busiest corridor.

“The fact that you’ve got a train service that is now slower, I think, than when it first started a long, long, long time ago, is ridiculous.”

Not all are impressed with the concept however, with a report by the Grattan Institute in 2020 describing an east-coast bullet train as “an expensive folly”.

The report, ‘Fast train fever: Why renovated rail might work but bullet trains won’t’, recommended that Australia should “abandon the idea of bullet trains”.

“Bullet trains are unsuitable for Australia,” the report stated.

“Governments should stop using public money to continually study proposals for bullet trains.”

Grattan’s Transport and Cities Program Director Marion Terrill said at the time, “The global story is stark: good bullet trains are expensive, and bad bullet trains are very expensive.

“It’s time we Australians put this idea to bed.”

By Doug CONNOR