: The running costs of just about all country passenger rail services in this
: country are extremely high, on average about 33c per net passenger km,whilst
: the revenue earned from the service ranges from about 6 c to 16 c per net
: passenger km.
Hey, I have a ticket that cost me close to 25 cents per net passenger km.
: Its interesting that the State with the lowest country Rail passenger costs is
: NSW with costs of 17 c per net passenger km & revenue of 13 c whereas the
: State with the worst is VIC with costs of 34 c per npk and revenue of 6 c
: per npk.
How are the costs calculated? Don't they depend on the vexed issue of track
access charges?
: .One could raise an argument here that the SRA,(countrylink)
: should take over all country passenger services in the country.
Yes, the SRA would argue that as well.
: The only rational explanation for the SRAs lower costs would be the XPT fleet
: and its extremely high utilization .
Given slight improvements in the Melbourne - Adelaide corridor (concrete
sleepering completed in Victoria and $80 million of track grading and
alignment between Monarto South and Mount Lofty), existing Overland rolling
stock could make a return journey between Adelaide and Melbourne with
cleaning and refurbishment within 24 hours.
The IP could also do with a return to three or four services per week to allow
more flexibility of planning of journeys.
--
Arthur Marsh, telephone +61-8-8370-2365, fax +61-8-8223-5082
arthur@dircsa.org.au
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