‘Bullet’ train talk turns to reality

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 37

‘Bullet’ train talk turns to reality

NZPA Sydney A proposed sAust6 billion ($7.62 billion) “bullet” train between Melbourne and Sydney has finally turned into commercial reality after years of talk.

A private consortium comprising the Australian giants, 8.H.P., T.N.T. and Elders IXL and Japan’s Kumagai engineering company, will spend sAustl9 million on a feasibility study over the next two years. The 350km/h Very Fast Train (V.F.T.), due to start running in 1995, will be one of Australia’s biggest engineering projects.

Each V.F.T. service will carry about 400 passengers and take three hours as against the present 12hour plus inter-capital express service.

Up to 30 services in both directions will run each day to cater for traffic on Australia’s busiest transport route. ■ Preliminary studies indicate up to 9.6 million people, many of them business people, will use the service each year. The V.F.T. is expected

to offer three travel classes, each cheaper than equivalent business economy and first-class airline services.

A spokesman for the V.F.T. consortium, Dr Paul Wild, said the train would be as smooth as a jet aircraft, without the turbulence. As the V.F.T. cornered, centrifugal forces would be minimal. The outer rail would be higher than the inner, allowing the 400-tonne train to bank into turns.

For people apprehensive about travelling in a train at 350km/h, Dr Wild pointed to the unrivalled safety record over almost three decades of other super-trains. Japan’s famous Shinkansen "Bullet” trains had carried 2.5 billion passengers — equivalent to half the world’s population — at speeds up to 240km/h since 1962 without a single fatality, he said. Super-trains were also outstandingly economical and profitable. The ParisLyons T.G.V. express made a profit equivalent to $349 million last year on turnover of $lOl6 million, he said.