In this special issue, we focus on some of Australia’s biggest rail projects currently in the pipeline, as well as looking towards the sector’s future in the years to come.

We catch up with the latest developments in the contentious Inland Rail project, which has been more than a decade in the making, and ask whether it can live up to its ambitious promises.

As Australia stands out as the only continent lacking in high-speed networks, our map feature traces the country’s potential such routes, particularly along the east coast.

We also investigate the troubled Sydney Light Rail project, which is as close to an urban nightmare as it gets, marred by delays, cost overruns and a bitter legal dispute with a major subcontractor.

Finally, we look towards the future to learn how Australia’s railway stations can improve in terms of design and passenger satisfaction, and take a look inside the continent’s first ever rail training centre funded by the Australian Government, which employs an international research team tasked with training up the next generation of rail engineers.



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In this issue

Inland Rail: the controversial talking points

Australia’s ambitious Inland Rail project has the potential to revolutionise rail freight running between Melbourne and Brisbane, but a project as large as this comes with its share of complications. As the project rolls slowly towards completion, Elliot Gardner takes a look at the major developments and talking points.

Read the article here.

Mapping Australia’s high-speed rail routes

High-speed rail has been on the agenda for every Australian Government since 1984, but no project has ever made it past the advanced planning stages. With the CLARA consortium looking to use transport as part of its A$75bn ‘smart cities’ proposal, we can at last see Australian high-speed rail come to fruition. Here, Elliot Gardner maps out some of the potential high-speed rail routes in the country

Read the article here.

Best-laid plans: Sydney’s light rail fiasco

Sydney’s CBD and South East Light Rail project has turned into an urban construction nightmare featuring delays, cost overruns and a bitter legal dispute with a major subcontractor. Is the project a case of political point-scoring overriding commercial sense and technical reality? Chris Lo finds out.

Read the article here.

What does the future hold for Australia’s railway stations?

A recent report on the state of major rail stations has revealed several Australian rail hubs languishing at the bottom. Why are these hubs not up to scratch, and what is being done to address the problem nationwide? Joe Baker finds out.

Read the article here.

Wizards of Oz: training Australia’s future rail engineers

Earlier this year saw the doors swing open to a new rail training centre in New South Wales. As the first such institution to be funded by the Australian Government, it aims to equip budding engineers with the skills they need to help Australia’s rail sector gain an edge over the rest of the world, as Ross Davies reports.

Read the article here.

Next issue | December 2018

Dubbed the “Train of Hope”, South Africa’s Phelophepa travels across the continent’s railways to provide care and education to people in remote rural areas. In our next issue, we profile this outstanding service,

We also turn our attention to a pilot project initiated by the Belgian Government, which intends to collect and process data from Eurostar travellers as part of the Passenger Name Record regulation that applies to international flights.

In Japan, we look at how Tokyo is preparing to welcome the world for the 2020 Olympics, and also review the history of Moscow’s Metro to better understand how the operator has been designing its legendary stations.

Finally, we ask how VR can help design more passenger friendly rail stations, and investigate the latest holdbacks that have contributed to Crossrail’s lengthy delay.