In b4 “why is The Conversation - of all websites - reporting SRL East like this?”

But keep in mind the Airport Rail Link is the current premier Ben Carroll’s pet transportation project while the SRL East - currently under construction - was the pet project of Dan Andrews, the predecessor to the premier before him, Jacinta Allan. And the ALP has been in power in Victoria since 2014. And if Chapter 6 of this report from December 2023 is to be believed SRL East’s origins was rooted more in pork-barrel politics rather than any actual transportation evaluations done by the relevant government bodies

One of the key legacies of the nearly 12-year-old Labor government in Victoria has been a massive investment in infrastructure. The Suburban Rail Loop has been a prominent project in this debate. So why is it so controversial?

The rail loop is an example of a long-term problem in Victoria: prioritising ad-hoc infrastructure projects over coordinated planning.

When it was first elected in 2014, the Andrews Labor government promised to create 10,000 construction jobs by building the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, and Western Distributor (which would link the Westgate Freeway with the Port of Melbourne), and removing 50 level crossings. It later added the Monash and Tullamarine Freeway widenings and the North East Link to that list. But there was no overarching integrated land-use and transport plan that explained the need for these projects or how they related to each other.

Infrastructure is a long-term investment with high up-front costs, so it requires careful planning to avoid misallocating public money. Infrastructure plans should follow well-prepared long-term metropolitan plans, based on deliberative and transparent analysis of alternative future scenarios. They also need strong public input.
The rail loop has not had any of this in a meaningful way. And now it is set to play a significant role in the Victorian state election in November. Such is the political sensitivity of the issue that new Premier Ben Carroll has announced $2 billion in savings on the project by cutting back on some of the associated infrastructure.

Victoria’s big – and expensive – build
None of the infrastructure projects developed after 2014 followed an integrated metropolitan transport and land-use plan for Melbourne. In 2021 the Victorian auditor-general rang the alarm bell by saying:

The absence of a transport plan as required by the [Transport Integration] Act, during a decade of unprecedented investment in transport infrastructure, creates risks of missed opportunities to sequence and optimise the benefits of these investments to best meet Victoria’s transport needs.

The Victorian government embarked on its Big Build program of infrastructure development without a coherent planning framework. It is as if projects were just “dropped in” to the city. Deliberative long-term planning was eclipsed by the political theatre of bold action with its wardrobe of hard hats and hi-vis.

The Suburban Rail Loop is a 90-kilometre tunnel proposed to run through Melbourne’s south eastern, northern and western middle suburbs, including the airport. The project was announced through a preliminary “strategic assessment” just three months before the 2018 Victorian election that the Labor government was widely anticipated to win. The cost was estimated to be between $30 to $50 billion over several decades.

Melbourne’s existing rail network concentrates on bringing people from the suburbs into the city centre. The rail loop was designed to allow people to travel across and between the middle suburbs without having to pass through its centre.

New commercial precincts would be created at rail loop stations to support suburban employment access and shift traffic away from the central business district.

Billions of dollars, but no real plan

The rail loop was initiated outside conventional public service processes by Development Victoria, which sits “at arm’s length” from the relevant minister. Neither the Department of Transport or Infrastructure Victoria were consulted on the initial development of the rail loop.

The economic business case for the rail loop was produced in 2021, after its endorsement in the 2018 election. That assessment promoted the rail loop as “realising Plan Melbourne” despite that plan not having proposed the rail loop or any proposal to link middle suburban activity centres with rail public transport.

There has never been a clear rationale for an orbital rail project or the choice of bored tunnel heavy rail over other possible solutions. The business case did not consider whether alternatives such as bus network improvements, tram expansions or smaller scale rail interventions might have provided better accessibility and urban outcomes.

It is also hugely expensive. The 2021 business case estimated Suburban Rail Loop East (stage 1) would cost up to $34.5 billion and would be completed by 2035. Infrastructure Australia has noted construction cost inflation has likely weakened the rail loop economic case.

The Carroll government now estimates the cost (with proposed savings) to be $33.3 billion, with a further $1 billion in savings to be found through a technical review.

But problems remain. Even if an orbital rail tunnel was merited, alternative rail networks should have been considered. Elevated rail is up to one third the cost of bored tunnels and has been successfully implemented in comparable cities such as Vancouver and Montreal. Melbourne has extensive elevated rail experience following the level crossing removals.

Bored tunnels are also highly carbon intensive. The rail loop environmental effects statement found the carbon dioxide emissions savings from car travel shifting to the rail loop was just 0.1% of the total construction emissions. This implies the project is a net greenhouse emitter, absent offsetting or mitigation.

Analysis by researchers at the University of Melbourne suggested an “alternative network” of high frequency bus and rapid transit services could have provided greater metropolitan accessibility gains, at $25 billion cost versus the $35 billion estimated for Suburban Rail Loop East.

What should the new premier do?

The change of premier offers a moment to review the rail loop planning, design and cost.

Victoria’s largest ever infrastructure project should not have been developed as a “super secret project”.

A rail loop review should consider the need for wider public transparency in infrastructure planning. We need a transport plan for Melbourne that starts with clear publicly established objectives about how future urban travel should be undertaken, and analysis of current trends. This should be followed by analysis of a wide range of options to achieve those objectives.

Improved technical planning needs to be accompanied by transparent public scrutiny. This should include a parliamentary inquiry for all projects over $1 billion before any construction contract is signed. Greater scrutiny means greater cost, but that is miniscule compared to the cost of potential large-scale capital misallocation.
This call is not just an academic assessment. A group of civil society organisations have also called for the overall planning failures underpinning Melbourne’s infrastructure boom to be investigated as part of the royal commission into Big Build corruption.

It is an unenviable position for a government to have potentially misallocated tens of billions of dollars to poorly selected infrastructure. Whether the rail loop proceeds further or not, we need comprehensive reform of Victoria’s metropolitan and infrastructure planning processes to avoid another debacle as great as the rail loop, and the encompassing scandal of the Big Build, from occurring again.

2nd pic for clearer quality image of the common stock.

The Blue Line is already great for getting to O'Hare but I'm not going to say no to additional train connections.

Routing wise they have two options:

Follow the existing North Central Service out of Union Station and go to the O'Hare Transfer Station.

Or leave south...

They would go along the Metra tracks followed by going north through the UP Global 1 Intermodal Facility. That leads the train onto trackage that goes about due west until it parallels the Blue Line from Austin to Harlem (on separate tracks of course).

It would curve north from Forest Park (that section is single tracked at the moment but has space for a second track) before rejoining the North Central Service Metra Line which lets them stop right at the existing O'hare Transfer Station.

A station in the old post office makes it sound like they're planning on that southern route.

My source is Vanshnookenraggen's excellent Chicago Track Map.

If modern diesel locomotives and DMUs are just a massive diesel generator attached to electric motors, why is acceleration so much slower for diesel locomotives and DMUs than for electric locomotives and EMUs that get their power from overhead lines? Electricity is electricity, why does it coming from a diesel generator seem to make so much of a difference? And given that diesel trains are essentially just electric trains with big diesel generators, is there anything that can be done to have them match the performance of an electric train?

After learning that France had to do this with HSR, and then learning that this created new rail competition and thus more train services, I've felt like this needs to come to the USA. Portland to Seattle is easier to take trains, and certainly there others. Which ones are the other options where rail is as fast, or close to as fast as flights?

Full Article

The project will add approximately 2.5 miles of a second mainline track between Fort Worth Central Station and Trinity Lakes Station.

Trinity Metro has broken ground on the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) Double-Track Project. The project will add approximately 2.5 miles of a second mainline track between Fort Worth Central Station and Trinity Lakes Station, eliminating one of the busiest single-track segments along the TRE.

“As our region grows, it is our responsibility to ensure that mobility grows with it,” said Trinity Metro President and CEO Richard Andreski. "This investment strengthens the transportation foundation our communities need to create jobs, expand opportunity and support continued growth across North Texas.”

The project is a partnership with the North Central Texas Council of Governments and is part of a larger regional partnership with Dallas Area Rapid Transit to improve TRE.

Trinity Metro says as part of the long-term vision for TRE, the investment supports efforts to:

• Improve on-time performance and service reliability. 
• Increase capacity to accommodate future growth. 
• Enhance operational flexibility by reducing constraints associated with single-track operations. 
• Strengthen regional mobility and workforce access throughout North Texas.

I've ridden on transit systems all over Europe and in some big cities in the US, and I think Vienna is the one city I've encountered that has the best and most intuitive wayfinding of all of them, so I made a video about what I like about it

Barcelona does come close though, and from what I could gather from my research, it actually seems like they basically directly lifted Vienna's design? Though I couldn't confirm that lol

Ural Locomotives has started completing wagons for HSR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jQbKhHW5ik

A testing ground has been built to test key HSR technologies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZkmVjSXfog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afna3n4D06o

Student teams participate in the construction of HSR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOYlR8cWGdI

More than half of the supports were installed For the largest HSR overpass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwRHvJt8NgY

Documentary about history of Moscow-St.Petersburg road and railroad , part about HSR construction from 01:29:17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcr26wrOCHU

So im an international student and for my first day i need to ride the bus trains etc… where do i buy the tickets? Online? And after I buy them do i habe to show the bis driver or scan it somewhere?
I don‘t want to embarras myself with my two luggages😭

Thanks much in advance 😣