If we were to try to put in high speed rail, we would need to do significant work to the rail to get it ready for high speed. Part of this would could involve that track being upgraded to standard gauge. This wikipedia page talks about how Japan, India, Spain, and others have built their high speed trains in a different gauge than the rest of the country.
I’m assuming by high speed we are talking 250kph+. If we’re talking 160kph, then this article talks about how Australia has already done it on narrow gauge.
Yeah in the NZ context I think looking at the Australian style narrow-gauge high speed is the only realistic option. One of the reasons we have narrow gauge now is our challenging terrain, and even if you could get the bits that are on land straight enough and flat enough, you’d likely also need to upgrade so many bridges and viaducts that you just would never get enough track capable of 250kph to make the investment worthwhile.
Especially coupling the challenge of the project with our terrible infrastructure capabilities post 80s reforms. We would be spending so much money on outside consultants and contractors that we’d probably barely get the main trunk on standard gauge. No doubt on narrow there would still need to be improvement works, but to a degree getting that average speed up above 120kph is probably as much as anything else just faster units and a will to schedule passenger rail past freight.
Yeah I think if we are going for bang for buck, faster units is a good bet. There will still be stretches where they need to slow down, but if you could have them doing long straights at 120kph+ then you can get that average speed up and beat car trips in terms of time.
If we were to try to put in high speed rail, we would need to do significant work to the rail to get it ready for high speed. Part of this would could involve that track being upgraded to standard gauge. This wikipedia page talks about how Japan, India, Spain, and others have built their high speed trains in a different gauge than the rest of the country.
I’m assuming by high speed we are talking 250kph+. If we’re talking 160kph, then this article talks about how Australia has already done it on narrow gauge.
Yeah in the NZ context I think looking at the Australian style narrow-gauge high speed is the only realistic option. One of the reasons we have narrow gauge now is our challenging terrain, and even if you could get the bits that are on land straight enough and flat enough, you’d likely also need to upgrade so many bridges and viaducts that you just would never get enough track capable of 250kph to make the investment worthwhile.
Especially coupling the challenge of the project with our terrible infrastructure capabilities post 80s reforms. We would be spending so much money on outside consultants and contractors that we’d probably barely get the main trunk on standard gauge. No doubt on narrow there would still need to be improvement works, but to a degree getting that average speed up above 120kph is probably as much as anything else just faster units and a will to schedule passenger rail past freight.
Yeah I think if we are going for bang for buck, faster units is a good bet. There will still be stretches where they need to slow down, but if you could have them doing long straights at 120kph+ then you can get that average speed up and beat car trips in terms of time.