this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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Thanks for mentioning Japan and Korea
https://files.ikt.id.au/y0q8ls.webp
Japan, South Korea and North Korea would all fit into a space the size of our second smallest state Victoria but that state has a population of 8 million, the combined Korea's and Japan would be 200 million
Speaking of large population sizes:
We are nearly as big as China but with 1.4 billion, if you took their desert which has fuck all trains and transposed that onto Australia we're actually pretty close in terms of trains and public transport
But regardless:
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00416/auto-appeal-fades-one-in-four-japanese-households-do-not-own-a-car.html
Which leaves 3 in 4 who do own a car, so much for skill issue right :)
They run hundreds of trains a day between population centers in that desert, I took them to get to Kazakhstan and back.
The skill issue is being able to build efficient, comfortable, cheap trains, which Japan has the first 2, but they could be cheaper.
I mean that's fine but that doesn't answer my original point when 3/4th's of people are using cars to get around, this public transport paradise is limited to inner city and highly dense locations, and even then 50%+ of people are still using cars
Doesn't scream public transport is a winner
I also much prefer driving in my car listening to music and not having little shits on the train making a racket and running around and my car is more comfortable and when I want to go down to GYG at 11pm for a cheeky fries run I'm not standing out in the dark and cold in my suburb (not the nicest) waiting for a bus to turn up and then the same thing on my way back, that would be the pits
Maybe this works in a big urban centre but the whole world is not a big urban centre
They own or have access to a car, but the bulk of travel is public transit. You like not having to sit in traffic? So did the japanese, despite being a major car manufacturer. Solution is to remove as many trips as possible via alternative transit. I would not call Japan a public transit paradise, but there are things they do well we can learn from.
Earbuds.
Never seen that over here, what are yall doing differently?
You must have excessively shitty trains if having to pay attention to traffic while sitting in 1 position can be more comfortable than sipping tea in a dining car, free to stretch your legs or just using a laptop at your seat.
Yes they are in my ears 24x7, I do like listening through my speaker though
Where are you? I bet I can find out pretty quickly you have security teams on your trains at night
It's really not that hard to drive and I would rather get to work in 30 minutes than sit around for an hour, the comfort difference is minimal to me, especially so if it's busy and trains are packed, then nobody is stretching your legs
Here's a map of most of where I've been in asia, mostly travelling by train or ferry, except in vietnam, where I switch from train to motorbike in Hanoi. I have seen the occasional security guy in China and Korea, never in Japan.
I almost thought you were American given your "rail doesn't work, look how big our country is" BS argument. I guess it works for Australia too, though. Funnily enough your own map shows how Australia is actually perfectly siuted for extensive rail infrastructure connecting most of the metropolitan regions with each other.
Adelade-Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane covers most of Australia's population and is a model case for an HSR corridor, certainly also has the population to support one as well. Add to that a Dutch style multimodal urban model and Australia could be on par with the rest of the developed world infrastructure wise. Perth and Darwin are self contained urban islands anyway, too far for attractive rail but also road connection
Yes, it has been attempted many many many times, it's now parodied in our own parks and rec style comedy program:
Is A High-Speed Rail Possible In Australia? | Utopia
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8av3knflbQo
I don't think you are noticing just how sparsely populated we are and how big those mountains are in between the cities
That is exclusively a problem of politcal and may be incompetence. It doesn't change the fact that Australia is extremely well suited for HSR covering the majority of its urban population. All with a single line.
you are free to crique the last 50 years and 10 different government and private enterprise attempts at doing it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia
apparently you know better 👍
You are aware that your link confirms my point, aren't you? Countless studies showing that the corridor is feasible and makes sense, yet not a single project in 50 years, where the government has shown the political will to get serious about it, never mind showing long term commitment.
If you want to bring up actual arguments why what is possible in Japan, China and much of Europe is impossible on the Melbourne-Sydney corridor, be my guest.
i give up mate, if you can’t read i can’t help you
No arguments? A pity.
it seems it wasn't me who didn't read your own source:
"Every federal government since this time has investigated the feasibility of constructing high-speed rail with speeds above 200 km/h, but to date nothing has ever gone beyond the detailed planning stage"
Even the US has come further already than that.
You’re confused why it’s not getting past the planning stage?
Maybe watch the video again? You’re literally the guy in it :)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8av3knflbQo
Yeah, thanks for confirming my argument. The video is pretty much bringing up the arguments I'd expect. But it really shows how weak they are when they complain about distances being too far when they are actually perfect for HSR and yes, it is enough if individual relations are close enough. That is how many HSR networks work.
But sure, Australia is the only country with mountains and suburbs. And kanguruhs are an unsurmountable issues for rail, but not for highways.
It all boils down to ideology. Weirdly enough it was not impossible to build inner urban highways though, which required much more space. But then, unlike road infrastructure, rail is required to be proftibale and that is why Australia remains underdeveloped and its airports overloaded.
Add to that wavering back and forth with financial support a generally hostile legal environment towards HSR projects and generally hostile laws to building important large national infrastructure, balooning costs on any infrastructure project. I would not be surprised if more money would have to be spent on bureaucracy and judicial things than on actually building that thing. That is not much different from the US where they need to pay multiple times more per km than in other Western countries with comparable corridors.
Please stop down voting comments you disagree with, it makes you look like a dick
I am not downvoting for content but debating style. You started off with ad hominem and then added not a single ( or a few) well defined argument but a video with dozens one liner arguments that cannot be addressed without writing half a book.
But maybe I am indeed in the wrong instance for that and it is indeed a wrong expectation on my side.
Because you keep doing stuff like this, don’t bother writing a book, half a book, or even a paper, the idea you can convince me with something that no one in 50 years in Australia hasn’t thought of is insulting to the thousands of people and engineers who have worked on making it a reality
Here’s a serious video for you
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nEaa3UI5QA
and if you go on youtube you’ll find a dozen more that go into it
If you’ve got 150 billion in your back pocket let me know and we can get started on this thing
You keep ignoring my point but let's try it with a concrete example:
Sydney-Newcastle: ~190 km project length, incl. 70-155 km tunnels, covering both sides of the urban Sydney area, all underground.
So this project would include one of the most central and also challenging parts of a potential HSR network. Cost estimates are somewhat elusive but I found talk of 90 bn AUD. Now, there is a lot to unpack there.
First of all, when we compare that to the current project Lyon-Torino, technically not HSR but still designed for 220 km/h, comparable to the tunnel section in the Sydney-Newcastle plan. It comes also with 100 km tunnel (much of it an actual base tunnel) and 170 km of non-tunnel parts. Price tag: 11 bn EUR ~ 17 bn AUD. Or let's look at the 55 km Brenner base tunnel, designed for 250 km/h, one of the longest base tunnels involving very tricky geology. Price tag is similar 8-10 bn EUR. So even if we compare the rough Sydney-Newcastle plan with very expensive and challenging cross-border rail projects, across the Alps, in other high income, high regulation countries, we are talking about multifold higher per km prices. How come? Likely for similar reasons as in the US or Canada, political and legal reasons. At least in the US, the overhead of any rail infrastructure project is enormous and overshadows the actual construction costs. Extreme bureaucracy, very pro-nimbyism laws and the requirement of minimal or even no negative impact on car traffic during construction. This can be seen when we are looking on the tunnel length in the Sydney-Newcastle corridor. What is commonly reported is on the very upper end of tunnel usage. There is a reason for that and that is also political and legal. While highways were bulldozed through urban areas, rail projects are are rather pushed underground on the entire length, not even using any existing corridor on any of it, until the very end of suburbia and even then. Now, one can debate of course pros and cons of that. There are good arguments for the tunnels, also for speed and operation but it adds a lot of cost. However, even if we don't debate the tunnel length, the costs are astronomically high in comparison to projects in other high income countries, that are not part of the English speaking world.
PS: Even though your own video pretty much is all about the lack of political will and the requirement of it to be at least almost profitable. It also can't manage without mentioning the oh so low Australian population density, when that does not matter at all. What matters is the corridor and in this corridor with pretty perfect distances of Sydney to Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane there is a corridor population of 12 mio. That is perfectly fine for such an HSR corridor. I mean the report is contradicting itself when it is first talking about how Sydney-Melbourne is the second busiest aviation corridor in the world and then later talking about how there is no population for HSR, when the HSR would be highly competitive with aviation on such 3-4h corridors.