McNaughton, who is chair of the UK’s Network Rail (High Speed), said he was expressing his own views and not the outcome of the review. He is in Sydney to speak at an Australian High Speed Rail Association conference on Tuesday.
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The former Perrottet government quietly shelved plans for high-speed trains between Sydney and Newcastle in its final 18 months, while the new Minns administration de-scoped the fast-rail program last year.
However, the federal Labor government has committed $500 million to facilitate a high-speed rail network on Australia’s east coast, starting with the Sydney-to-Newcastle section of the network. The new High Speed Rail Authority is working on a business case for the first section.
While it did not have to be “super” high speed, McNaughton said a line to Newcastle would need to be a new dedicated rail link and not an upgrade of the existing railway.
He cautions that the cost of a fast-rail link from Sydney to Newcastle will be “bloody expensive”, easily running into the tens of billions of dollars because it would have to comprise tunnels under Sydney and the Hawkesbury River.
However, while it was high-cost to build the line to Newcastle, it offered high benefit, McNaughton adding that the reason why it should be prioritised was because it had “banks of potential”.
Then-premier Gladys Berejiklian with Professor Andrew McNaughton and then-transport minister Andrew Constance, announcing the review in 2018.Credit: AAP / Dean Lewins
“That’s the place where there are lots of people … demand and lots of growth,” he said.
A 2011 study commissioned by the federal government favoured a high-speed link connecting to Sydney’s Central Station, which is not a view McNaughton supports because he said it was a “very constrained site” and “not everyone wants to come to the Sydney CBD”.
In 2022, greater Parramatta was singled out in a confidential report by Transport for NSW as the location for a major hub for dedicated fast-rail lines connecting Sydney to Newcastle, Wollongong and the state’s west.
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It also named Epping and an area around Campbelltown and Macarthur as sites for “key interchanges” to link fast-rail lines to Sydney’s suburban rail network.
McNaughton said he “wouldn’t disagree” with people who suggest Olympic Park was a potential hub for a fast rail in Sydney because there was room to build, whereas doing so in Parramatta’s CBD would require major building demolitions.
“What’s important is you’ve got to connect with the existing Sydney transport system because people have to get places,” he said.
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