HOP aboard a train from Melbourne to Sydney and you’re in for a gruelling 11-hour journey; take rail for the same distance on one of Japan’s record-breaking maglev trains and you’ll get there in two hours. Why has Australia fallen so far behind?

600kmh maglev train record Japan's magnetic levitationtrain has set a new world speed record at over 600km/h

Australia has been dreaming up and rejecting plans for high-speed rail since the mid-1980s. Two years ago, the Gillard government released a $20 million study into an east-coast network that once again imagined a bullet train in our future. The link would have slashed the travel time between Melbourne and Sydney — one of the busiest flight paths in the world — to just under three hours. So what went wrong this time?

A CONTINENT WITHOUT FAST TRAINS

Before it was axed by Abbott government in November 2013, the High Speed Rail Advisory Group released a report arguing the biggest threat to high-speed rail in Australia was not cost or any other obstacle, but “inertia” — brought about by perceptions a bullet train was unrealistic or would simply take too long to build.

According to an independent report into high-speed rail released by think tank Beyond Zero Emissions last year, Australia is the only continent — barring Antarctica — not to commit to high-speed rail. Even the US has plans in the works to commit to high-speed rail as early as next year.

Co-author of the Beyond Zero Emissions report Gerard Drew said there is “a window of opportunity” right now for high-speed rail, due to the downturn in the construction sector, bewildering property prices and low borrowing rates. A high-speed rail network would provide thousands of jobs, boost tourism, develop and connect regional areas, and provide affordable housing to commuters.

Already, foreign investors like Japan’s Shinkansen operator Central Japan Railway Company and Mitsubishi have eyed up rail prospects in Victoria and NSW.

But the tracks have been jammed since the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss declared his intention, 20 days after the High Speed Rail Advisory Group was abolished, to discuss preserving a land corridor for a high-speed rail network with affected state governments. Two years later, those discussions are still going on.

A spokesperson for the minister told news.com.au the government is considering the role of high-speed rail in Australia’s “long term transport planning”.

OVERWHELMED BY COST

Former member of the High Speed Rail Advisory Group Sue Holliday, a professor of planning practice at the University of New South Wales, said the project has been stalled by cost and changes in government.

Ms Holliday, who has advised on high-speed rail schemes in Australia since the mid-eighties, said the mistake the federal government’s study made was in costing the entire proposed east-coast route, which was estimated at $114 billion in 2012.

Internationally, she said, most high-speed rail projects start small. France, for example, launched their TGV network with a high-speed service between Paris and Lyon in 1981.

“That was a big part of what went wrong,” said Ms Holliday. “The whole thing was priced, and everybody looked at it and went, ‘there’s absolutely no way that we can afford that’.”

One of the biggest costs predicted by the study was 67km of tunnelling expenses in and out of the Sydney CBD.

Ms Holliday argued these costs could be halved by terminating the high-speed service at the new Badgerys Creek Sydney airport and providing an express link to the CBD. She said Badgerys Creek has the potential to operate as a “mini-city” similar to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, which provides over 65,000 jobs as well as servicing airlines and both local and high-speed trains.

The Beyond Zero Emissions report estimated a much lower cost of $84 billion for the project and a timeline of ten years. Mr Drew said the fifty-year timeline proposed by the government report further contributed to a “demotivated” government and public.

“We think that some of those findings are pretty far from the mark. Certainly it can be built a lot quicker than that.”

The government high-speed rail proposal also suffered under the road-obsessed Abbott leadership.

“With the change in government we didn’t have the support any more of the Minister for Infrastructure,” said Ms Holliday.

IS THERE A BULLET TRAIN IN AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE?

Since the ousting of Abbott and Turnbull’s recent appointment of Jamie Briggs as Minister for Cities, there is growing optimism that high-speed rail might once again pick up momentum.

Liberal MP John Alexander, who said he has been involved in discussions surrounding high-speed rail as chair on the board of the Committee on Infrastructure and Regional Development, is “very positive” high-speed rail has a place in Australia’s future.

“I am a devout believer that high-speed rail can effect a strategic decentralisation that can provide Australia with a plan of sustainable greater growth,” he said.

Mr Drew is optimistic that common sense will prevail in parliament.

“I think a lot of policy makers understand there’s been an infrastructure deficiency in Australia over the last decade or so.

“They have to start considering a few out-of-the-box ideas, because the same playbook of building up roads is not improving the situation.”