Trigger warning:

This site may, in fact always will contain images and information likely to cause consternation, conniptions, distress, along with moderate to severe bedwetting among statists, wimps, wusses, politicians, lefties, green fascists, and creatures of the state who can't bear the thought of anything that disagrees with their jaded view of the world.

Apr 14, 2016

High speed rail; the new Eastern Suburbs Railway line

The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement of the projected building of a high speed rail network up the East coast including regional centres will come as welcome relief to many traditionalists.  It is believed that it will probably replace the Eastern Suburbs Railway Line in Australian mythology.
For those not familiar with the ESRL, it was a line that was initially proposed in the late 1800s, planned in 1926, started, stopped, and promised at every election thereafter.  As such it became a part of our folklore until 1979 when it was completed by the Wran government, creating many idioms on the way.  Unemployment, for example was referred to as “working on the Eastern Suburbs line.”
Recognising the hole left in the Australian psyche by the lack of a never-never election promise, the Hawke government showed interest in the idea of high-speed rail as a politically viable though uneconomic alternative in the early 80s.  Most governments seeking re-election since then have backed the idea, which raises the possibility that in another thirty years or so, it could become an iconic promise.
At this point it will have to be either acted on or dropped, owing in this day and age to the risk of it becoming a heritage listed promise which would prevent any further action on it.
In the meantime though it will offer generous employment prospects for planners, researchers, study groups, lawyers, and think tanks, keeping them on the gravy train for the foreseeable future.
The lack of any implied commitment to HSR by the Turnbull government, raised concerns among some commentators that the government would rely on the newer, tried and tested pledge to adopt fiscal restraint, balance the budget and pay off the deficit. Economic restraint in the Liberal Party is showing signs of remaining a pipe dream for 50 – 100 years, with an accelerating rate of postponement already apparent. 
You must however respect the PMs desire to stick with tradition and offer the vision of sleepers and rails heading off into the sunset.
We need to be grateful that Hawkie came up with high speed rail rather than our own death star, an idea which is just so 80s.  Death stars, while offering the sort of kudos derived from commitments to spend a billion trillion gazillion dollars, tend to be more impractical than high speed rail. Sooner or later, everyone wants one and they lose their effectiveness when other nations realise that you wouldn't be stupid enough to blow yourself up in order to get your own way. 
This would probably happen sometime after the current crop of politicians leave office.
(UPDATE) The government has denied that this is how the idea got started:




19 comments:

  1. You're forgetting the Central Australian Railway - Port Augusta to Darwin. They got over a hundred years of mileage out of that one before Howard went and spoilt everything by building it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm aware of it Tim, its just that it never seemed to get the same traction in the Australian mindset attained by the ESRL. This may be because it was out of the way in low population states and wasn't likely to pull anywhere near the votes.

    ReplyDelete

  3. I think this is one of the most vital information for me. And I am glad studying your article.
    clipping path service

    Photo Editing Services

    raster to vector conversion service

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you so much for the detailed article.Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for picking out the time to discuss this, I feel great about it and love studying more on this topic. It is extremely helpful for me. Thanks for such a valuable help again. 바카라사이트

    ReplyDelete
  6. I haven’t any word to appreciate this post…..Really i am impressed from this post….the person who create this post it was a great human..thanks for shared this with us 토토사이트

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Unquestionably believe that which you said. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the net
    the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I certainly get annoyed while people consider worries that they plainly do not know about.
    You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out
    the whole thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal.

    Will likely be back to get more. Thanks 야동 "

    ReplyDelete
  8. "I've been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or weblog posts on this kind of house .
    Exploring in Yahoo I finally stumbled upon this website.
    Studying this information So I'm glad to show that I have an incredibly just right uncanny feeling I found out exactly what I needed.
    I most indubitably will make sure to do not disregard this site and give it a look on a constant basis."

    마사지

    ReplyDelete
  9. We like to honor numerous other world wide web websites around the web, even though they aren't linked to us, by linking to them. Beneath are some web pages really worth checking out.

    건전마사지

    ReplyDelete