The Minerva Plan a rail strategy for Southeast Queensland Foreword The history of rail in Australia strategy since the Connecting Queensland will be addressed, is dotted with pivotal moments SEQ 2031 regional transport describing the envisioned which have had far-reaching plan was dis-endorsed. It is in development of the network implications. From Bradfield’s this absence of a rail strategy over the coming decades – vision and predominant that Cross River Rail has with a modified Cross River Rail realisation of his railway been allowed to come to its at its core. scheme for Sydney which has current form, with no guiding served our biggest city for framework with which to This document is the Minerva nearly a century, to the pre- measure its suitability in the Plan, a rail strategy for Federation break of gauge long term. Southeast Queensland. The debacle which took almost one Minerva Plan will revisit hundred years to resolve, the Major inner-city rail previous works, including long term implications – both infrastructure has a lifespan Connecting SEQ 2031, to good and bad – of railway extending beyond a century, present a rail strategy that planning decisions are clear with the potential to increase is ‘familiar, yet different’, to see. In 2020, Queensland is the efficiency and liveability and for which considerable facing its own pivotal moment of a city, and it is important investigation has already been with the design of the Cross that the project is designed undertaken. River Rail project. Cross River to deliver on these objectives. Rail has been approved, had Unfortunately, Cross River Rail This plan will set out the contracts signed, and early is not fit for purpose. logical sequencing of projects works have commenced to enhance the capacity and to deliver the second river Fortunately, through minor functionality of the rail network crossing in Brisbane’s CBD by changes to the project, it will into four distinct phases, 2024. be possible to increase capacity without being prescriptive in both the short and long- about specific years. In this However, rather than term, allowing Cross River Rail way, the development of relieve the current capacity to play the role in enhancing the rail network will be able bottleneck and form the the network for which it was to correspond to patronage backbone of a transformation always intended. growth and economic of the rail network as it was conditions. long intended and currently This document will present the promoted as delivering, case of change, demonstrating The Minerva Plan is not Cross River Rail in its current in detail how the current sanctioned by government; iteration will itself become design for Cross River Rail however, we welcome and the bottleneck and prevent is flawed, and how it can be encourage government to almost all future expansion of modified to meet its target adopt the recommendations the Southeast Queensland rail criteria more effectively while listed here. network. improving cost efficiency. Southeast Queensland has Further, the lack of a rail Minerva Transport Planning been without a detailed rail strategy in Southeast Company Limited, June 2020 Caveats and assumptions All information used in the development of the Minerva Plan is publicly available and referenced throughout. In most cases, information has been sought from the Queensland Department of State Development, Tourism and Innovation website through its hosting of track layouts and other information from the various Project Change applications, as well as from Queensland Rail and TransLink’s websites including the Open Data portal. While most of the analysis was conducted using the track arrangements depicted in Project Change 4, the outcomes and findings remain the same with the most recent Project Change 7 revisions from June 2020. Given the last decade has seen multiple variants and business cases developed for Cross River Rail, there is a large amount of detailed rail operational information which has been used as a basis for filling in missing information in the current proposal. On top of this, expert analysis has been conducted to determine the findings presented herein. The Minerva Plan, and the intellectual property contained therein, is copyright of Minerva Transport Planning Company Limited - © Minerva Transport Planning Company Limited 2020. All rights reserved. However, the use of the contents is made freely available to government, government bodies including Government Owned Corporations and Authorities, and community groups on a non-commercial basis. Commercial exploitation of the content is not permitted. Table of Contents Introduction - how to read this document 1 Objectives of this strategy 3 A brief introduction to the Brisbane network, and how it operates 4 Cross River Rail: as it stands 5 What the current version of Cross River Rail will do - understanding the operations 5 A misallocation of new capacity 9 The value equation for the current version of Cross River Rail 16 Phase One: Fixing the current Cross River Rail project 18 Inspired history 18 Modular development and future proofing 27 Phase One peak Hour 28 Phase One Off-Peak Hour 29 Phase Two: The long tunnel 30 Clapham yard, Yeerongpilly, and Sailisbury to Flagstone 34 Phase Two Peak Hour 41 Phase Two Off-Peak Hour 42 Phase Three: The northern expansion 43 A grim forecast 49 Phase Three A Peak Hour 50 Phase Three A Off-Peak Hour 51 Phase Three B Peak Hour 52 Phase Three B Off-Peak Hour 53 Phase Four: Beyond Cross River Rail 55 The “Clevewich” line 57 Phase Four A Peak hour 59 Phase Four A Off-Peak Hour 60 Phase Four B Peak Hour 61 Phase Four B Off-Peak Hour 62 Maintenance and track possessions 63 Improved sectioning 63 Increases track centres 64 Outer network enchancements 65 Signalling 65 Track amplification on Beenleigh line 65 Duplication of Sunshine Coast line 69 Duplication of the Cleveland line 72 Duplication of the Doomben, Airport, and Shorncliffe lines 73 Freight-specific enhancements 74 Ripley Valley extnsion 74 Fourth track electrification between Corinda and Darra 74 Sensitivity testing 75 Are there alternative ways of achieving the vision described here? 75 Cross River Rail 75 Extension of the tunnel to Yeerongpilly 76 The extension to the Trouts Road Corridor 77 The Trouts road Corridor itself 78 Stabling and fleet requirement 79 Underlying timetables 80 The Mains - Kippa-Ring to Springfield Central and Ripley 81 The Suburbans - Ferny Grove and Shorncliffe to Beaudesert 84 The Coastal Line - Maroochydore, Gympie North, and Brisbane Airport to Beenleigh and Collangatta 86 The Clevewich Line - Cleveland to Rosewood and Ipswich 90 The Shuttles - The Dooben Line, and Park Road to Cannon Hill 93 Freight 93 North Coast Line - between Gympie North and Exhibition via Northgate 95 Western Line - between Corinda and the Exhibition loop via Roma Street 96 Conclusion 97 Next Steps and further studies 98 References 100 Appendix One - end state timetables Mains sector Suburbans sector Coastal sector Clevewich sector Freight paths Appendix Two - programme and projects Introduction One of the most important things to understand is that this document is not arguing against a form of Cross River Rail. A significant increase in rail capacity between the north and south of the city is crucial to both cater for near-term patronage growth and to facilitate expansion of the rail network over time. However, the current design of Cross River Rail is fundamentally flawed, meaning it will not achieve its goals in terms of capacity enhancement, nor enable the development of the rail network in decades to come. As such, the early part of this plan describes the current Cross River Rail configuration, and how it will operate, to illustrate the shortcomings of the project. It is acknowledged that in order for the project to change, a strong justification must be given, and this document sets out that justification – this forms the first part of the Minerva Plan. After this, an altered Cross River Rail plan is presented, describing the changes to the project and the levels of additional capacity it then would provide through enhanced operation. Building on this enhanced Cross River Rail, a series of additions and improvements to the network are presented to deliver a comprehensive rail strategy for Southeast Queensland – the Minerva Plan. Traditionally rail strategies have specified exact years for when projects would become operational, yet these are almost never remotely accurate – by way of illustration, Cross River Rail was originally planned to commence operations in 2016. Furthermore, this document has no official status with government or funding bodies, so the idea of specifying introduction years for different projects would be doubly disingenuous. Rather, the Minerva Plan sets out to identify phases of work, noting that some projects are contingent on others and therefore follow a logical sequencing. These phases will contain the different projects that can be completed around the same time, to allow a vision of the network development future to be plotted out. The exact timing of the projects in many cases depends on a range of factors – demand exceeding capacity, political will, State finances – and given these factors are variously unreliable or fickle, the sequencing rather than timing of the projects here is the key focus. There are a further range of projects that are not strictly necessary from a capacity perspective but would overall increase resilience or improve travel time outcomes for passengers. While some projects could conceivably be delivered at any time, this document will attempt to decipher which phase they are best suited to in order to maximise benefits. That being said, they will not strictly be bound to these phases, and are grouped simply to complete the strategic story. As this is not an official document – it is not related to the Queensland Government in any way, and is not the subject of a commission to produce – there is an element of freedom granted to the form of the document that would otherwise not be present.