Revealed: The high-speed rail line Sydney needs first

The first part of high-speed rail in NSW should be from Sydney to the Central Coast as part of a staged construction of a new line to Newcastle, given the enormous cost and the engineering challenges, says the British rail expert who led a wide-ranging review into fast rail in the state.

Professor Andrew McNaughton, a former technical director for a major high-speed rail project in the UK, believes a dedicated Sydney-Newcastle link for trains travelling at up to 250km/h should be built before other potential corridors to Canberra and Wollongong.

British rail expert professor Andrew McNaughton is in Sydney this week.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

A speed of 250km/h for trains would achieve the “magic number” of an hour-long journey from Sydney to Newcastle, spurring businesses and young people to move to the latter while making it a 30-minute trip from either city to the Central Coast.

“You can change the face of Newcastle – it becomes the next city of NSW. It could easily be a million or two [residents],” McNaughton said.

However, he advises that the project would need to be staged and should be built using Sydney as a starting point – instead of Newcastle – due to the challenging geography to the state capital’s north.

“It’s no good building Tuggerah-to-Newcastle if you can’t get back to Sydney. You have to start in Sydney and the first step is you have to get across the bloody Hawkesbury [River],” he said.

“You don’t build a tree starting with the branches. You have to start with the roots. The roots are in the Sydney basin, and the trunk gets you out to Gosford.”

McNaughton was commissioned in 2018 by then-premier Gladys Berejiklian to canvass four routes for fast rail from Sydney: south to Wollongong and Nowra, north to Newcastle and the Hunter, west to Bathurst, Orange and Parkes, and south-west to Goulburn and Canberra. The final report from his review was completed in 2021 but remains secret.

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.

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.

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.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.