• Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 months ago

    Personally, I don’t think upgrading locomotive-hauled stock is worth investing that money into anymore. They absolutely should have a decade ago, but trying to do that now to delay an inevitable upgrade to a more efficient D/EMU design seems like a waste of money.

    What I’m more frustrated about is the missed opportunity here for state cooperation. If the government’s of Qld, NSW, Vic & SA (with federal funding support) all collaborated on a long-distance train-set, then it would benefit a lot more people for a lot less money. You could replace the useless Overland service from Melbourne-Adelaide, and bring public services back to routes like Sydney-Adelaide (currently $795+ on the Indian-Pacific). It could be built with gauge-changing bogies so state regional train authorities can use it too.

    But there just doesn’t seem to be any political will for that on a federal level, and the state’s certainly aren’t going to suddenly cooperate on rail standards after 150yrs of bickering.