The 2026 high-speed train is slower than 1964. Will it be better by 2060?

Super-fast rail in NSW has always been a wild fantasy. Plan after plan to link Sydney to my hometown of Newcastle with a European-inspired high-speed train have been bandied around for the entirety of my life. Not to age myself, but that is four long decades.

Unsurprisingly, I have limited faith in this latest iteration materialising, despite hoping it will. As I have bemoaned in this space previously, the train linking the state’s two biggest cities is a national embarrassment. The new fleet, the long-delayed Mariyung, makes the trip more comfortable, but no faster. In 2026, it takes 2 hours and 11 minutes from Central to Broadmeadow. In 1964, a steam locomotive set a record for the journey, clocking in a time of 2 hours and 1 minute.

My kids recently took their first trip on the Eurostar from Paris to London. “Will it be like the train to Grandma’s?” one asked with trepidation, having endured the Sydney to Newcastle journey several times. Isn’t the innocence of youth delightful, I thought, while trying not to laugh (I dare not suggest we catch the Sydney to Canberra train service. That is even more shameful.)

Maybe I’ve watched too many episodes of Utopia, but I am not alone in my cynicism about high-speed rail eventuating. Premier Chris Minns is lukewarm on the chances too. Asked this week on his thoughts, he sounded more like an uninterested teen than a leader embracing an infrastructure behemoth in his state. Minns said the project would take “a huge effort and a lot of money”. But then added, almost as an afterthought: “I’d love to see investment in NSW. That kind of infrastructure investment is fantastic for our state.”

Just not out of NSW’s pocket. There is some justification for his stance. NSW Labor is determined to be fiscally responsible, unlike its Victorian counterparts. Minns would be prepared to offer planning tweaks (essentially paperwork) but nothing that would put a further dent in his budget. We should not be surprised by this. He has poured cold water on building any more metros despite their overwhelming success. Minns is not an infrastructure premier, and he refuses to be typecast as a big-spending Labor leader.

There have been many reasons that plans for high-speed rail have remained an elusive pipe dream, and the prohibitive cost has always been the main one. This latest version has the eye-watering pricetag of $90 billion, although no mega-project ever comes in on budget (Snowy Hydro 2.0 is a perfect example. Initial estimate $2 billion, current estimate $12 billion). Even the business case for Anthony Albanese’s long-held dream, released this week, acknowledges that. “A project of this scale and complexity carries inherent cost overrun risks,” the 300-page document warns.

A report from the Grattan Institute in 2020 made the similar, albeit more forceful, point. “The east-coast bullet train advocated by the federal ALP,” the report’s summary says, “would be an expensive folly. Australia’s small population and vast distances make it unviable.

“The global story is stark: good bullet trains are expensive, and bad bullet trains are very expensive. It’s time we Australians put this idea to bed.” Albanese, who rejoices in being referred to as the infrastructure prime minister, will never agree.

The business case for the project Albanese has championed for years attempts to kill off the Grattan Institute’s argument that NSW does not have the population to support high-speed rail.

“The Newcastle to Sydney corridor has a population density of 624 people per kilometre,” according to the business case. “This is more than twice the density of the Spanish high-speed rail corridor between Barcelona and Zaragoza, which has a population density of 244 people per square kilometre.”

This, according to the document, means the Sydney to Newcastle corridor “is primed to benefit from high-speed service”. With this comes the attractive proposition that housing will be unlocked along the route, especially around the Central Coast and Lake Macquarie. The business case says it could deliver some 160,000 homes by 2061. This should pique the interest of Minns, who has staked his government’s success on solving the housing crisis.

The forecast economic benefits, which is expected to boost the nation’s economy by $250 billion over 50 years, as well as jobs creation in NSW, should also make Minns think twice about pooh-poohing the mega-project and refusing any financial input. Contributing, even on a far smaller scale than the more cashed-up federal government, would allow Minns to stake a claim in helping high-speed rail progress. NSW has much to gain from what Albanese describes as a “transformational” project.

Despite the years of broken promises, plans for high-speed rail have never progressed as far as they have this time. No doubt this is because of Albanese’s relentless passion for the project. The federal government has pumped in an extra $230 million for preparation work on the 194-kilometre line. Work is forecast to start in 2028. Perhaps, finally, we can dare to dream?

Alexandra Smith is the NSW state political editor

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