Australia to launch first high-speed bullet train after 50-years delay

More than 50 years later, the federal government has announced construction of a bullet train line from Sydney to Newcastle will begin in two years.

“A second airport for Sydney has to be connected to Sydney by both an expressway and a railway or perhaps some rapid transport system … a high-speed rail could be constructed,” the late Liberal MP for Mackellar, Bill Wentworth, said in 1971.

As informed by the infrastructure minister, Catherine King, on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, the planned high-speed rail will “change the way people live, work, and travel in Australia’s most populous region.”

Up to 16 million people a year could end up using it by 2041, while it will also contribute to the government’s net zero emissions by 2050 target.

Once it’s up and running, commuters will be able to travel between Newcastle and Sydney in an hour (for $31), instead of more than 2.5 hours, and from Gosford on the Central Coast to Sydney in 30 minutes, down from 90.

King has pledged another $230m for detailed design work, taking the spend in the development phase to $659.6m.

The Sydney to Newcastle stage will cost $61.2bn overall, and the bill goes up to $93bn once the line goes all the way to the new Western Sydney international airport.

The plan is to link the cities with 140km of track for trains that can go up to 320km/h.

King said the spending announced on Tuesday was for very detailed design work.

“It is a costly and expensive project, but we’ve got to get it started.

“We don’t want to be one of the few populated countries in the world that does not have a high-speed rail network.

Key reasons behind the high-speed bullet train's delayed plan:

There have been multiple iterations of the visions for high-speed trains, but so far they have all been derailed majorly due to high-cost project plans.

In 1984, the CSIRO took a proposal for a very fast train (VFT) from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra to Bob Hawke’s federal government, as well as the state governments of NSW and Victoria, for the first time, but it proved too expensive.

But Albanese is determined to finally start the project officially after recent approval.

The new high-speed bullet train project will generate more than $250 billion in economic activity, almost 100,000 jobs, and see up to 160,000 homes built in the Sydney-Newcastle corridor.

Currently, the train between Newcastle and Sydney takes more than 2 hours and 40 minutes.

According to the business case, the line was originally planned for steam trains and has “barely changed” since its completion in 1899.