Riding the roads and rails

Nostradamus

I have a close friend who is something of a railway or railroad fanatic – he tends to prefer the American term. It is his opinion that Tasmanian railways have been run down quite deliberately for years. When he retired to Tasmania, there were actually stations in Hobart suburbs and Launceston, including some that should’ve been regarded as possible for National Heritage – Western Junction springs to mind. He spent considerable time on research and came up with a series of suggestions that would maximize freight on railways but at the same time permit the use of diesel-electric rail buses from Hobart to Bridgewater. The plan was taken to the Field Labor government …
THERE IS little doubt that the last week was better for Premier David Bartlett, once he had admitted that both he and infrastructure, Minister Graeme Sturges, had been totally ignorant of Pacific National’s plans to pull out of Tasmania. ABC radio’s Tim Cox made a rather appropriate point when he asked who would want to take over clapped-out railway, especially at a time of economic downturn. Who indeed?

I have a close friend who is something of a railway or railroad fanatic – he tends to prefer the American term. It is his opinion that Tasmanian railways have been run down quite deliberately for years. When he retired to Tasmania, there were actually stations in Hobart suburbs and Launceston, including some that should’ve been regarded as possible for National Heritage – Western Junction springs to mind. He spent considerable time on research and came up with a series of suggestions that would maximize freight on railways but at the same time permit the use of diesel-electric rail buses from Hobart to Bridgewater.

The plan was taken to the Field Labor government and my friend was granted an audience with a minister (that red-headed fellow, wotsisname, the former Premier) who told him in no uncertain manner that roads would be used for freight haulage. This included cargo from the ferry – there was only one at the time – and containers from merchant ships in Devonport. Passenger trains and rail, he said pompously, had had their day. My friend pointed out that during the great oil shock of the 1970s, public transport became a viable option for many people but was told that Hobart was too small and did not need such infrastructure.

Somewhat disenchanted but with hope in his heart, he went to see two Green politicians, Gerry Bates MLA and Mike Foley. They were certainly receptive and kept copies of the paper but what with one thing and another, it probably went out with the trash and the Field government. Still persisting with his quixotic adventure, he approached the then Democrat Senator Robert Bell and was given a good hearing but that was the epitaph for his ideas. As he said later, he had wasted his time and emotional energy trying to convert the unconvertible.

So with recent announcements by the Greens and so-called transport economists about the need for light rail to serve greater Hobart, my friend was more than slightly amused. The line to Bridgewater would not take too much upgrading for passenger services but there are no stations. With light rail, a station need not be necessary but for it to be a viable option, people must park their cars somewhere. After all, you could hardly expect them to walk to a train stop. As the price of petrol approaches $2 per litre, there will be more squealing about government intervention to bring the price down. When you consider that diesel is grossly overpriced, providing little alternative to gasoline, I suppose it makes some sense to be talking about hybrid cars.

Prime Minister Rudd’s green Camry makes for little more than light reading. The fact of the matter remains that for many years the petroleum industry has convinced a gullible Australian public that a big country needs a big car – preferably a V-8. The only people that need vehicles with big engines for the outback do not reside in Tasmania. Four-cylinder cars and utes would satisfy the average user and one can see with the smaller fuel misers on the road, only petrol-heads really go for the hot V-8s. Australia is a country of urban and suburbanites, not the guys with 4x4s and bull-bars, who are less than 5% of the population.

Whether we like it or not and despite the Green party’s message that we must move away from private transport to public, people will drive personal transport because they consider it to be a human right. It could well be that various fuel cell systems, including hydrogen, or more exotic ideas that use stored flywheel energy will power the family car of the future. But to think that people will abandon their cars while they still draw breath is the biggest error made by dewy-eyed dreamers, especially transport economists – nomenclature that is rich in irony. The average Australian is joined to his car by the seat of his/her pants and if petrol hits $5 per litre, the car will still be used; the motorist will seethe with fury while the oil companies make big profits (and let us not forget that speculation is a driver of fuel prices) and governments will be in the hot seat, quite literally.
Australian elections may not be decided on the price at the pump in but when you reflect on Brendan Nelson’s preposterous proposal to cut 5 cents from each litre and how briefly that was popular, you can gain some idea of the individual’s attachment to his beloved motor vehicle. The knit-your-own-yoghurt, self-sufficient householder is one of the privileged minority who can work from home. It is certainly not for the majority.

Conspiracy theorists hold that all manner of alternative propulsion for driving motor vehicles have been bought out by the big oil companies. I know of one car, which ran on coal dust: it wasn’t viable but the inventor’s patent was still bought out by Esso. There is talk of compressed air being used to power motor vehicles and some months ago an enterprising young man connected with the University of Tasmania aroused some interest with his project. But do you remember the Sarich orbital engine? It was to be the “big breakthrough” and while a number of manufacturers purchased a modified version of the engine, there was no breakthrough. Who would want to buy a three cylinder motor car? In those days, no one: today, perhaps just about anyone feeling the pinch.

Many reputable international fuel experts consider that there are still major untapped oilfields, including shale layers, to produce diesel and of course, bio-diesel fuels. There is also something to commend the view that today’s crap will produce tomorrow’s methane-driven engines. And why not, methane from the Hobart tip is used for heating in the city. There is a perverse satisfaction at the thought of getting one own back, in a manner of speaking.

My railway friend “Chuffy” (a distant relative of the Fat Controller) also said that Tasmania’s rail system was so small that a billionaire could afford to run it as his own personal train set. That is a slight exaggeration, of course, but anyone who thought that Pacific National would upgrade its rolling stock and dent the bottom line of its parent company falls into the category of those with rocks in their heads. PacNat was here to make a profit, not for the benefit of Tasmania. Some of the photographs of clapped-out rolling stock in the Mercury tend to prove the point. If the railways are to be run as a going concern, new engines and rolling stock are needed but we are stuck with the narrow gauge. Nevertheless, modern narrow gauge technology is perfectly adequate for the task and we need tri-partisan agreement among our political parties that rail must be the major mover of freight in this state and that a dedicated consortium is needed – a mixture of private and public involvement. This will get already uneconomic trucks off the roads but not before we experience even more pain with price hikes in food, goods and services resulting from increased petrol/diesel prices. If the situation persists, it will not be a good time to be in government.

As for the light rail program, there is some hope of Hobart to Bridgewater. Trains could be run in the rush-hour and loops put in place for oncoming traffic. During the daytime, it would probably only require two rail buses, one starting in Hobart the other in Bridgewater, running every hour or so. They would carry as many passengers as we see in buses outside of rush hours. The real problem comes with the expansion on the Eastern shore and Kingston. Laying new railway lines would be horrendously expensive to these areas and would require funding from the federal government. Like the idea of a monorail from Hobart to the airport, such notions are more like pipedreams than reality.

Meanwhile, no one should forget the political dimension of the transport problem. Apart from the economic crunch, there will be social dislocation and lifestyles will be modified, like it or not. And there’s the rub. We have a toy-town Parliament and a blinkered bureaucracy. My own view is the “sit it out” mentality will prevail and politicians will not think beyond the next election. That is not satisfactory but it is the way that Tasmania has always operated and we deserve better. If Mr. Bartlett is serious about ruling a line under the past 10 years and starting afresh, serious thought in the ALP must be given to retiring or deselecting nonperformers and increasing the size of Parliament. An increase is no panacea if the same tired old faces are put before the public at the next election. We need farsighted experts, even visionaries with their feet on the ground but not donkeys even without blinkers.