A South East Queensland Fast Rail network will connect with the existing CityTrain services as well as other existing and future transport projects as part of a single integrated transport system. This will strengthen South East Queensland’s regional connectivity.
The greatest benefit from Fast Rail is achieved if the system is integrated with other transport modes as per the “hub and spoke” model. For instance, the proposed extensions to the CityTrain and busway networks will be integrated with Fast Rail as will the proposed Cross River Rail, Brisbane Metro, Gold Coast Light Rail and Sunshine Coast Mass Transit projects.
Future CityTrain Passenger Rail Line Extensions
The physical extents of the existing CityTrain passenger rail service are Varsity Lakes in the south, Gympie in the north, east to Cleveland and west to Rosewood. Queensland Rail provides CityTrain passenger services throughout South East Queensland as a radial network focused on access to Brisbane City.
As well as passengers travelling on CityTrain services within the region, the South East Queensland rail network caters for the movement of freight (bulk commodities and containerised) and passengers on long distance Tilt Train and intra-state services across Queensland and inter-state south to New South Wales.
There are significant future extensions and upgrades planned over time for the region’s rail network. However, it will be difficult for the existing South East Queensland rail network (passenger and freight) to expand into new routes until Cross River Rail has been completed (as confirmed in the SEQ Rail Horizon report).
Significant future extensions and upgrades to the rail network may consist of:
- Northern Corridor
- Beerburrum to Nambour (B2N) Rail Upgrade Project, which will provide additional capacity and reliability for both passenger and freight rail services along a 40km section of the North Coast Line.
- New greenfield urban passenger rail connection (CAMCOS) between the existing north coast line at Beerwah and coastal areas including Caloundra, Kawana and Maroochydore.
- Southern Corridor
- New greenfield and brownfield urban passenger rail extension from Salisbury to Flagstone with an ultimate future extension to Beaudesert (S2B)
- Extension of the existing urban passenger rail line from Varsity Lakes to the Gold Coast Airport at Coolangatta.
- Kuraby to Beenleigh (K2B) Rail Upgrade project, which will provide an additional two tracks to give a four-track section and station upgrades that will ultimately allow for the separation of express and all stops services. Currently express services between the Gold Coast and Brisbane must share a single track with ‘all stops trains’ between Kuraby and Beenleigh (20km). The upgrade will allow increased frequency of Beenleigh and Gold Coast Line services in both directions and reduce overcrowding during peak periods.
- Beenleigh to Yarrabilba passenger service as a future option to potentially connect the main southern corridor with the growing area of Yarrabilba. While this opportunity is in early stages of consideration, it provides an example of how local transport solutions can connect into the regional network.
- Eastern Corridor:
- Cleveland Rail Line Duplication Project, providing additional track capacity (to give a total of two tracks) and reliability between Manly and Cleveland (13km), benefiting passenger movements.
- Western Corridor:
- New greenfield urban passenger rail connection, from Ipswich to Springfield via Ripley. The alignment connects to the existing Springfield urban passenger line at Springfield Central then travels west via Redbank Plains, Swanbank and Ripley before turning north at Deebing Heights. The rail corridor then continues north through Yamanto and Churchill before connecting to the existing Ipswich line at West Ipswich. There are a total of 9 stations planned. The priority section is understood to be between Springfield and Ripley.
- Extension of the existing rail services from Rosewood to locations further west, such as Gatton, Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba.
- Network-wide:
- Cross River Rail, which will provide a 10km rail line from Dutton Park to Bowen Hills, including 6 kilometres of twin tunnels under the Brisbane River and Brisbane CBD. The project includes four new underground stations at Boggo Road, Woolloongabba, Albert Street and Roma Street. It will also deliver upgrades to eight above ground stations (at Salisbury, Rocklea, Moorooka, Yeerongpilly, Yeronga, Fairfield, Dutton Park, and Exhibition) and three new stations on the Gold Coast line at Pimpama, Helensvale North and Merrimac. As part of the project, new railway signalling is being introduced – European Train Control System (ETCS Level 2). This system will improve the safety and operational efficiency of the inner-city rail network, which in turns benefits the entire regional network, including in terms of service reliability.
The rail network expansion and upgrade projects above will each play a part in supporting the introduction of a Fast Rail network. These projects can complement Fast Rail by providing feeder services. Some of these projects, such as those along the northern, southern and western rail lines will also have the potential to directly accommodate the Fast Rail mode.
Brisbane Metro Project, existing busway network and future Northern, Southern and Eastern Busway Extension Projects
Brisbane Metro will provide a 21 kilometre public transport service connecting 18 stations along dedicated busways between Eight Mile Plains and Roma Street, and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and University of Queensland.
The Brisbane Metro is retrofitted within the inner-city busway network, and links directly with the existing busway network and future busway extensions.
As per the “hub and spoke” transport vision, Brisbane Metro provides high frequency services supporting the existing transport “hubs” as well as providing high quality “spoke” trunk connections.
Brisbane Metro will be integrated with other public transport network services such as busway and Cross River Rail services. Passengers will have the opportunity to transfer to other metro, bus, rail or Fast Rail services at Roma Street and Boggo Road stations.
Future extensions of the project could include lines to Chermside, Brisbane Airport and Carindale, further improving public transport connectivity in Brisbane and across the region, which will also assist with strengthening regional connectivity through a fast rail network.
Other proposals include future busway extensions to the north, south and east of Brisbane. An example of this includes the proposal to extend the South East Busway beyond Springwood to Loganholme to assist in servicing the growing communities of the City of Logan.
Gold Coast Light Rail extensions and Sunshine Coast Mass Transit projects
The Fast Rail network will work in combination with coastal mass transit projects to provide additional public transport connectivity to encourage passengers to utilise public transport instead of private vehicle travel, helping to ease congestion pressure on major arterial roads.
Better transport connectivity is crucial to connect these high-growth residential and employment coastal areas. That is why a transport system with both regional connectivity (in the form of Fast Rail) and local urban connectivity (in the form of light rail, bus and other quality public transport) is critical to underpin the whole of South East Queensland’s continued growth, liveability and prosperity.
Cross River Rail
Fast Rail supports and enhances the benefits of Cross River Rail by:
- providing regional transport connectivity that directly builds on the urban passenger rail function
- directly enhancing the economic activation anticipated by rail investments such as Cross River Rail, and
- supporting population growth and maintaining our quality of life on a regional scale.
Cross River Rail unlocks a bottleneck within the inner-city rail network, by delivering a second river crossing allowing more trains to run more often across the entire South East Queensland rail network.
Fast Rail builds upon and complements the benefits of Cross River Rail. Cross River Rail provides network capacity benefits in the form of more train paths throughout the rail network, as physical tracks are expanded within the core network and as upgraded signalling allows greater throughput along existing track sections.
This additional rail network capacity benefits both urban passenger services and Fast Rail services. Cross River Rail will also provide network reliability in the form of a second rail river crossing, providing an alternative rail route through the inner-city rail network.
Fast Rail services could therefore potentially be linked from north to south via either the existing at-grade corridors or via the new Cross River Rail tunnel (depending on the gauge of the Fast Rail rollingstock).
The additional rail capacity and network reliability afforded by Cross River Rail will allow higher quality passenger rail services. The Fast Rail builds upon the benefits of Cross River Rail by adding longer distance fast rail connectivity, allowing the transport system to fulfil both urban and regional passenger transport tasks.
Rail projects, such as Cross River Rail and Fast Rail, improve accessibility to employment opportunities as a whole, and more specifically allow a larger proportion of the population to access major activity precincts (such as CBDs) where higher value employment opportunities are available.
Throughout Australia there is an increasing need for economic activation, to increase employment opportunities and maximise important drivers of growth.
Fast Rail Station Precincts will become key activity centres, supporting various employment, health, education and community uses as well as vital transport interchanges providing connection between regional rail and suburban rail modes, bus feeder services, Park-n-Ride facilities, cycleways and amenities.
Improved regional connectivity will ultimately provide access to employment CBDs and the innovation and activity precincts at Fast Rail stations. Fast Rail can ultimately become a critical driver of employment growth for South East Queensland. Efficient and sustainable transport solutions servicing the region can support the economic growth and population needs of South East Queensland.
The population in South East Queensland is forecast to grow from 3.5 million today to 4.9 million in 2036. While over 80 per cent of that growth is occurring outside the Brisbane Local Government Area, in the same time period 45 per cent of jobs growth will be concentrated inside the Brisbane metropolitan area.
Fast Rail will provide the level of strengthened regional connectivity that South East Queensland requires. With increased capacity for more frequent rail services providing greater connectivity to other public transport, the Fast Rail and Cross River Rail projects will also encourage road users to use rail services instead of the private vehicle, helping ease congestion pressures on major arterial roads and communities.
Fast Rail enhances the benefits of Cross River Rail by providing a viable alternative to private vehicle travel, this is because it is faster, more sustainable, delivers intergenerational transport benefits, supports jobs growth and stimulates the economy. Careful planning and vision will maximise the prosperity and liveability benefits across South East Queensland.
CityTrain operating cost benefits
The opportunity to review the wider South East Queensland rail network to respond to Fast Rail could deliver network efficiencies and integration benefits.
This is similar to Queensland Government’s extensive network planning to reconfigure urban passenger rail to respond to Cross River Rail. Further planning could consider how the passenger rail network could seek to deliver local, all stops and intra-regional services across the region to promote efficiencies across the network.
With Fast Rail in place, there is an opportunity to reconsider the existing rail operational model. A Fast Rail system would enable the existing CityTrain services to focus on providing an urban passenger rail (local) function rather than providing longer distance (intra-regional) services.
The existing passenger rail services are limited by the maximum operating speed of rollingstock (typically a maximum of 140km/h and a lowest of 110-120km/h), operational parameters and track alignment.
As an operating scenario example, the potential operating cost benefit of re-allocating 12 morning peak period (3 hour peak, 6-9am), 10 off peak period and 12 evening peak period (3 hour peak, 3-6pm) services from CityTrain services to Fast Rail services could deliver an operational cost benefit of the order of $88 million per annum (as outlined below).
The services that have been replaced by Fast Rail express services could either be taken as a cost saving or these service kilometres could be re-invested in other elements of the CityTrain network.
Further operating cost savings and optimisation of South East Queensland rail services could also be considered with more detailed service planning under a two-tier rail hierarchy of “Fast Rail” and “Urban Passenger Rail” services. This process would seek to optimise the level of service delivery type (express and all stops) aligned to customer requirements and to minimise the total system cost.
Indicative Annual Operational Cost Benefit Savings
Corridor | Operational Cost Saving per Revenue Train Kilometre* | LOW SCENARIO^ | HIGH SCENARIO^ | ||
Annual Services Re-allocated from CityTrain to Faster Rail | Annualised Operational Cost Saving – LOW | Annual Services Re-allocated from CityTrain to Faster Rail | Annualised Operational Cost Saving – HIGH | ||
North – consider weekday morning & evening peak period services Nambour to Roma Street (94km) | $3,927 per service | 6,160 services | $24.2 Million | 9,520 services | $37.4 Million |
South – consider weekday morning & evening peak period services Varsity Lakes to Roma Street (88km) | $3,677 per service | 6,160 services | $22.6 Million | 9,520 services | $35.0 Million |
West – consider weekday morning & evening peak period services Ipswich to Roma Street (40km) | $1,671 per service | 6,160 services | $10.3 Million | 9,520 services | $15.9 Million |
Total Savings | $57.1 Million | $88.3 Million |
*Based on Queensland Rail 2018-19 Annual Report, Operational Performance Summary, $29.48/km Operational cost per Revenue Train Kilometres – SEQ Above Rail and $12.30/km Operational cost per Revenue Train Kilometres – SEQ Below Rail.
^Service frequency scenario, assumes Fast Rail between 6am and 9pm with morning peak period between 6am – 9am and evening peak period 3pm – 6pm. Low scenario assumes service frequency of 30 mins in peak periods and 1 hour in off-peak. High Scenario assumes service frequency of 15 mins in peak periods and 1 hour in off-peak. The calculation assumes a 280 annualisation factor.
In addition to the operational cost reduction benefit, there are a range of other wider economic benefits that could be realised such as improved on-time travel time reliability, reduced road network congestion, increased capacity availability for freight rail, increased rail network capacity, and an improved customer experience.
Commuter and freight movement benefits
Commuter and freight travel times both have a significant impact on the economy and South East Queensland’s competitiveness.
Fast Rail will increase the attractiveness of passenger rail for commuters, reducing demand and pressure on major motorways and arterial roads across South East Queensland’s road network. Fast Rail will help free up capacity across the region’s road network and major corridors for freight, better supporting connectivity to high-value markets and facilitating local-to-global connections.
Fast Rail will bring about both commuter and freight efficiencies, making South East Queensland more competitive globally.
The existing CityTrain service does not currently meet its role as the backbone of the public transport network due to speed restrictions, poor geometry, rail capacity constraints and its inability to effectively service the key population centres of the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and greater western areas in South East Queensland.
For example, consider a trip between Maroochydore and Roma Street during a weekday peak period. There is currently no direct rail connection to Maroochydore or the primary coastal populations at the Sunshine Coast. Depending on whether passengers opt to travel via private car or a combination of private car and public transport, travel time for this trip could vary between 1 hour 30 mins up to 2 hours 30 minutes, as outlined below.

Currently, CityTrain does not provide a competitive commuting experience compared to the use of a private vehicle.
Fast Rail would provide a step-change improvement for passenger movements. Fast Rail services could provide significant benefit for passenger travel times. The improved passenger travel times would generate significant flow-on economic, social and environmental benefits.
Indicative Travel Time Benefit by adopting Fast Rail in South East Queensland
Corridor | Existing CityTrain Service Travel Time | Fast Rail Travel Time* | Travel Time Savings Benefit |
North – consider a morning peak period journey from Caloundra to Roma Street (95km) | 2 hour 15 minute public transport journey (assumes 45 minute bus journey from Caloundra to Landsborough, and rail from Landsborough to Roma Street) | 41 minutes | 94 minutes travel time benefit |
South – consider a morning peak period journey from Helensvale to Roma Street (67km) | 1 hour 5 minutes | 33 minutes | 32 minutes travel time benefit |
West – consider a morning peak period journey from Ipswich to Roma Street (40km) | 56 minutes | 21 minutes | 35 minutes travel time benefit |
*Fast Rail network speeds are subject to detailed design and the choice of rollingstock as well as operating parameters such as maximum operating speed, the implementation of ETCS (or similar) systems, track geometry, service stopping pattern and the like.
Travel times from Roma Street Station (Brisbane)
60 Minute Region
Gold Coast Line (mins) | Toowooba Line (mins) | Sunshine Coast Line (mins) | |||
Altandi | 13 | Ipswich | 24 | Petrie | 23 |
Loganlea | 22 | Gatton | 45 | Caboolture | 35 |
Beenleigh | 27 | Withcott | 54 | Beerwah | 48 |
Helensvale | 39 | Toowoomba | 60 | Caloundra | 58 |
GC Airport | 52 | Maroochydore | 70 | ||
Total cost: $16.9 billion |
45 Minute Region
Gold Coast Line (mins) | Toowooba Line (mins) | Sunshine Coast Line (mins) | |||
Altandi | 13 | Ipswich | 21 | Petrie | 12 |
Loganlea | 19 | Gatton | 38 | Caboolture | 20 |
Beenleigh | 23 | Withcott | 46 | Beerwah | 32 |
Helensvale | 33 | Toowoomba | 52 | Caloundra | 41 |
GC Airport | 45 | Maroochydore | 53 | ||
Total cost: $28.8 billion |
The way passenger rail services are operated directly impacts on the capacity to operate rail freight services. The travel time savings potential of Fast Rail could also generate significant efficiencies for freight movements – both rail and road freight. The potential freight benefits arise due to:
- a reduction or re-allocation of existing CityTrain “express services” with freight rail benefiting from improved track availability.
- reduction in private vehicle congestion due to Fast Rail patronage and more efficient road freight movements through slowing growth in car trips across key road corridors.
There is a need for increased rail freight capacity in South East Queensland. For example, there is pressure on rail freight services on the North Coast Line and it is predicted to reach capacity for rail freight paths by 2023.
Beyond 2023, without intervention, any additional rail freight demand growth would need to be absorbed by the road network, placing additional pressure on the road network (in this example, on the Bruce Highway).
Fast Rail, by taking the role of the current “express services” on the urban passenger rail network and utilising its own Fast Rail corridor, would instead provide a fast, reliable and efficient transport alternative.
Reductions in the urban passenger rail “express services” will free-up capacity for rail freight. In addition, the reduction in private vehicle trips due to a more attractive trip with Fast Rail means a reduction in private vehicle travel which delivers capacity benefits for road freight.
Fast Rail will integrate with the other existing and future transport projects achieving strengthened regional connectivity as part of a single integrated transport system.