Getting into Melbourne from the north

Melbourne’s CBD isn’t quite as hard to access as Sydney’s, but it’s still no walk in the park. The Macedon Ranges on the west and the Kinglake Ranges on the east restrict northern access to a single corridor; all plausible alignments pass roughly through Heathcote Junction. We look at the four most promising corridor options.

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Passenger demand for a Sydney-Canberra fast train

We use a variety of different sources to estimate the captured and induced demand for the proposed regional high-speed rail link, and find much higher ridership than projected by previous studies due to serving a large number of regional stations.

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Earthworks

http://www.aggman.com/case-cx470c-excavator/

The AECOM13 study has a detailed cost breakdown for various types of earthworks, a simplified version of which will be adopted for Hot Rails. First, some definitions: “Cut” is your basic excavation – there is dirt or rock in your way, and you want it not to be there. “Fill” is…

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A critique of the 2013 HSR study

The 2013 Phase 2 report into high-speed rail by AECOM took two years and 20 million dollars to complete, and it is a remarkable piece of work, comprising detailed alignment routes, costings, economic analysis and much more. It is easily the most comprehensive HSR study undertaken in this country to date. It’s a…

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So what is a “hot rail” anyway?

http://unsplash.com/post/71169964532/download-by-kholodnitskiy-maksim

In the jargon of American rail workers, a “hot rail” is a section of railroad over which the passing of a train is imminent; the closer or faster the approaching train, the hotter the rail. Most of Australia’s railways have been cold for decades, and there is no political, business or…

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