ANOTHER visit to the Queensland Museum Rail Workshops in North Ipswich got me thinking again about the rail commute from Ipswich to Brisbane.
In 1880 it took old steam trains anywhere between 65 and 80 minutes to make the journey running on lower grade track and with fewer stations on the route.
Today, the shortest express time to Central is 52 minutes, with all stations being an hour.
We have better engineered tracks to allow greater speed for modern air-conditioned electric passenger trains, but there’s still a major problem with the timetable.
Ipswich has a very limited number of express trains, and this must put off a lot of potential passengers even with the carrot of 50 cent fares.
A third track was added to the north coast line between Northgate to Lawnton years ago and later extended to Petrie in 2016 to accommodate traffic on the new Redcliffe line.
Express trains and significantly reduced travel times make it often quicker than driving for northside commuters.
The 2005-2026 Southeast Queensland Regional Plan flagged a third track from Darra to Redbank to allow for faster and more frequent express services between Ipswich and Brisbane – sadly it hasn’t happened.
There’s a pressing need to get the third track to Redbank back on the infrastructure agenda.
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