If Australia’s inland rail is a game changer, why are we shortchanging it?

A freight railway between Melbourne and Brisbane is planned to provide a 200-year service. We owe it to future generations to build this properly

• Trouble on the tracks: is Australia’s $14bn inland rail project going off the rails?
• Australia’s inland rail: a long-held dream, but for whom and at what cost?
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The inland rail project is an epic undertaking. A once-in-a-century infrastructure project, built for heavy lifting of the nation’s freight task with a planned life of 200 years. On a global scale it’s like building a new freight railway between Paris and Istanbul.

These kinds of projects should last many lifetimes and pay their costs back to the nation many times over.

Guardian investigation: Trouble on the tracks: is Australia’s $14bn inland rail project going off the rails?

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