Homeward bound

Starting the long journey home today. Due to the dual business/personal nature of this trip, we need to head back to Prague to fly out for home. Thankfully it’s a comfortable and easy four hour train ride without any changes.

I’m always jealous of the easy nature of long-distance train travel in Europe and wish that something like that would be possible here.

Perth to Sydney is a… 4,000km drive. The straight line distance is only 3,300km but that crosses over the Great Australian Bight.

So let’s say we can build a straight-ish train track that tunnels through mountains, minimising climbs, and is 4,000km long. The fastest high speed trains in China are operated at 350km/h, so it could do that in 11 hours if we’re not stopping anywhere on the way. We also need to maintain that speed the whole time. I think that’s fine for a sleeper train.

Cost of construction and maintenance aside, I think the biggest barrier to a high speed rail link like that is actually wildlife. Hitting a wombat at that speed could be catastrophic!