In June 1984, the late Premier Wran officially opened rail electrification to Newcastle. This was followed by electrification to Wollongong in February 1986.
The O'Farrell Government had firm plans to use the proceeds of the Newcastle long term port lease to truncate the Newcastle railway line at Wickham, and to replace it by light rail.
WTC suggests that the Baird Government would do a lot better to instead use the funds to improve the Broadmeadow to Wyong track. One simple strategy would be to revert to the alignment in place in the late 19 th century. As part of a policy to ease the ruling grade facing steam trains, a number of deviations were built. Three of them from Morisset via Dora Creek to Fassifern involved nearly 3 km of additional length and many tight radius curves.
The 2012 State Infrastructure Strategy urged cutting back Sydney Newcastle train times to two hours. In 1948, the fastest train took 2hrs 18 minutes, now the fastest takes 2hrs 36 minutes, with the average speed falling to 65 km/h. By way of contrast, Regional Fast Rail in Victoria has slashed times, with the fastest Melbourne to Bendigo train averaging 102 km/h, with even faster trains due on completion by 2015 of the Regional Rail Link project.
A second option for the Baird Government is to share the proceeds of the Newcastle and Port Kembla leases equally - instead of $340m + $100m: $220m for each of Newcastle and Wollongong.
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