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> Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route Interesting, with just about 900km between both cities they seem the perfect candidates for a hi

> Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route Interesting, with just about 900km between both cities they seem the perfect candidates for a highspeed rail link instead.

yostrovs 9y ago
They already have a much faster air link built.
- hnarn 9y ago
  Comments that are ignorant on purpose are rarely impressive.
  - derrida 9y ago
    Meta comments about comments are best left to reddit.
dagw 9y ago
They're working on. It's been under 'serious' discussion since the 80's. There are currently vague plans being discussed that would lead to a high speed rail link being in place as early as 2032, but most people consider that pretty optimistic.
tomhoward 9y ago
Unfortunately the problem is low population density. Political parties are constantly proposing to build a fast rail link between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But at this stage the populations of the cities are just too low to make it economically feasible. Melbourne and Sydney are about 4M each, and Brisbane is 2M. By comparison, the Northeastern United States [1] has a population of 55M, in a smaller geographic area. And Japan has a population of 130M in an area about half the size of Sydney's state of New South Wales. I wish it could be done. It would be so much better to be able to board and disembark in the centre of town rather than having to drive/commute to and from airports. I'm hopeful that Hyperloop may be the answer, but we'll see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States
- JshWright 9y ago
  So, the population density is too low to justify a rail link, but is high enough to support the second busiest air route in the world? Isn't the number of people travelling between the cities the thing that actually matters?
  - thedz 9y ago
    Those airports already exist for other flights, and you don't need to negotiate track and land space for the path between cities. So I could see a heavily trafficked air route being (1) more logistically expedient (2) politically viable
  - tomhoward 9y ago
    I gather the very reason it's the second-busiest air route in the world is that it's just far enough below the margin at which it becomes economically feasible to build fast rail (for now). As a comparison, London and Paris, which are of comparable proximity and economic importance to one-another, have much bigger populations, and thus fast rail is justifiable, so the two cities don't rank highly on the busiest-air-routes list.
  - dagw 9y ago
    Isn't the number of people travelling between the cities the thing that actually matters? Not if you have lay new tracks, then that cost will dwarf all other considerations. A lot of the land between Melbourne and Sydney is quite valuable as well making it even more expensive. Plus the fact that there already are fully functional and reasonably priced air routes makes it much harder for high speed rail to charge a premium, making the profit pr. passenger quite slim. Had they started building the high speed rail line in 1984, before the land prices started to sky rocket and before low cost airlines took of, then it might have worked out very well. Starting to build it today is an entirely different prospect.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Distance is a factor, as distances get larger airplanes' speed advantage gets more and more important. High speed rail is 250km/h, while airplanes generally run 900km/h. Travel time is enough to ensure that even if the train is a lot cheaper (rail costs enough that this is unlikely) many people will fly. High speed rail is very useful for medium distances, but has you get to long distances it doesn't really make sense.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
It really depends on what is between them, which doesn’t appear to be much.
sleavey 9y ago
It's also interesting because Australia only has 25M people. All the others in the top 10 [1] are in countries with much larger populations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...
- toomanybeersies 9y ago
  Melbourne and Sydney are both cities of over 4 million people though. I think it might be due to the fact that Sydney are Melbourne are both similar sized, so it's 50/50 where a company should set up their office, so for in-person meetings, there's a lot of flying to and from required.
briandear 9y ago
Sounds like a big waste of money to lay and maintain all that track when airplanes already make that trip pretty easily.
Pxtl 9y ago
As long as Australia is powered by coal, there's no point. The main benefit of high speed rail over air travel is that it's greener... and in Autralia, it isn't.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

> Sydney-Melbourne is now the world's second busiest air route Interesting, with just about 900km between both cities they seem the perfect candidates for a highspeed rail link instead.

yostrovs 9y ago

They already have a much faster air link built.

hnarn 9y ago
Comments that are ignorant on purpose are rarely impressive.
- derrida 9y ago
  Meta comments about comments are best left to reddit.

dagw 9y ago

They're working on. It's been under 'serious' discussion since the 80's. There are currently vague plans being discussed that would lead to a high speed rail link being in place as early as 2032, but most people consider that pretty optimistic.

tomhoward 9y ago

Unfortunately the problem is low population density. Political parties are constantly proposing to build a fast rail link between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. But at this stage the populations of the cities are just too low to make it economically feasible. Melbourne and Sydney are about 4M each, and Brisbane is 2M. By comparison, the Northeastern United States [1] has a population of 55M, in a smaller geographic area. And Japan has a population of 130M in an area about half the size of Sydney's state of New South Wales. I wish it could be done. It would be so much better to be able to board and disembark in the centre of town rather than having to drive/commute to and from airports. I'm hopeful that Hyperloop may be the answer, but we'll see. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_United_States

JshWright 9y ago
So, the population density is too low to justify a rail link, but is high enough to support the second busiest air route in the world? Isn't the number of people travelling between the cities the thing that actually matters?
- thedz 9y ago
  Those airports already exist for other flights, and you don't need to negotiate track and land space for the path between cities. So I could see a heavily trafficked air route being (1) more logistically expedient (2) politically viable
- tomhoward 9y ago
  I gather the very reason it's the second-busiest air route in the world is that it's just far enough below the margin at which it becomes economically feasible to build fast rail (for now). As a comparison, London and Paris, which are of comparable proximity and economic importance to one-another, have much bigger populations, and thus fast rail is justifiable, so the two cities don't rank highly on the busiest-air-routes list.
- dagw 9y ago
  Isn't the number of people travelling between the cities the thing that actually matters? Not if you have lay new tracks, then that cost will dwarf all other considerations. A lot of the land between Melbourne and Sydney is quite valuable as well making it even more expensive. Plus the fact that there already are fully functional and reasonably priced air routes makes it much harder for high speed rail to charge a premium, making the profit pr. passenger quite slim. Had they started building the high speed rail line in 1984, before the land prices started to sky rocket and before low cost airlines took of, then it might have worked out very well. Starting to build it today is an entirely different prospect.
- bluGill 9y ago
  Distance is a factor, as distances get larger airplanes' speed advantage gets more and more important. High speed rail is 250km/h, while airplanes generally run 900km/h. Travel time is enough to ensure that even if the train is a lot cheaper (rail costs enough that this is unlikely) many people will fly. High speed rail is very useful for medium distances, but has you get to long distances it doesn't really make sense.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

It really depends on what is between them, which doesn’t appear to be much.

sleavey 9y ago

It's also interesting because Australia only has 25M people. All the others in the top 10 [1] are in countries with much larger populations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_...

toomanybeersies 9y ago
Melbourne and Sydney are both cities of over 4 million people though. I think it might be due to the fact that Sydney are Melbourne are both similar sized, so it's 50/50 where a company should set up their office, so for in-person meetings, there's a lot of flying to and from required.

briandear 9y ago

Sounds like a big waste of money to lay and maintain all that track when airplanes already make that trip pretty easily.

Pxtl 9y ago

As long as Australia is powered by coal, there's no point. The main benefit of high speed rail over air travel is that it's greener... and in Autralia, it isn't.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]