SAR

So I recieved an unsolicited e-mail this morning from one Brian Leedham which fills me with hope and expectation. In it, he told me he was interested in my blog, in what I am banging on about, and has similar ideas himself. There is a link to his site on the edge of this page, "South Australian Rail"

While I am concentrating (perhaps too much, given my preferred mode of urban development) on rail lines within the metropolitan region, he has plans concerning the Barossa Valley and rural rail generally. I think we may complement each other, and I hope that I will be able to meet him and Trevor at some point in the near future.

I was just discussing with Sandy yesterday how hard it is to drive a wedge into the rail industry and build profitably from that. He suggested that I need a few friends, either on board or as silent partners, to set up a company and get into the business. It sounds like I'm part of the way there!

The Competition

So today I read two interesting things. Sir Rod Eddington today proposed $18b worth of road and rail infrastructure for Melbourne, finally extending the lines beyond the 1950's teminuses. Taking ten-fifteen years to build, it will be a while before anything actually happens. But it will be interesting to watch.

On the same page, a private concern, "Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Ltd." has announced it wants exclusive rights to build a railway from Toowoomba and Moree. This would form part of a rail link from Melbourne to Brisbane.

I'm worried other people are doing what I wanted to do. But I'm glad someone's doing it. And I'm hopeful I'll be able to buy it off them in time, and my company will be the one to own all of Australia's railways.

On the other hand, that particular rail project (the one from Melbourne to Brisbane) has been on the cards for over 100 years, so it's not really desperate. Or maybe it is?

Deaths/Passenger Kilometre (& Richard Branson)

I was involved in a car crash today, so my next big thing will be safety: rail has a better deaths/passenger kilometre ratio than either cars or planes. I had a look at the ABS website, and I can't find any stats for Australia. The ones I found for Europe and America on the web are from an unreliable source- I might utilise JSTOR for this purpose, I'm sure academic papers have been written on the subject. I'm also interested in things like how much CO2 that works out to be per person, the cost per kilometre, the size of the smallest place to have a station, the size of the largest place not to, etc., etc..

In other news, I learn from NewsRadio today that Virgin owner Richard Branson also owns BritishRail, or some British lines or something, and that he has been invited by the Premier of NSW to fix the rail problems in Sydney.

To that Goliath, this David says: HANDS OFF! But not in a rude way. Apparently the guy tries to make up for his CO2 emissions from planes by promoting rail, too. So he's not all bad. Besides, he could be an invaluable investor.