In praise of low-speed rail

I caught a bus from Albury to Melbourne last Wednesday. It left Albury station at 4.52 and stopped all stations to Seymour where we waited 24 minutes for a train to take us to the railway station formerly known as Spencer Street. We arrived there at 9.36 pm. All of these times were scheduled. There were no delays. So it took four hours and forty four minutes to get from Albury to Melbourne, a distance of about 327 kilometers.

It has been impossible to get a V-Line train from Albury to Melbourne for about two years. They fixed up the track and this fixing didn’t work and so now they are fixing it again. Nobody has any idea of when it might be fixed.

So buses now run instead and the trip takes nearly five hours.

I for one am sick of hearing about “high-speed rail.” Just get the normal-speed rail working first. Set modest goals. When you’ve shown you can run a normal train service at normal times then maybe we’ll think about letting you play with the more expensive model.

But first things first.