Say goodbye to dreams of a Perth-Bunbury bullet train, says Regional Development Australia South West director

Regional Development Australia South West director Charles Jenkinson rubbished the idea of a high-speed train between Bunbury and Perth while speaking at the release of the SW Regional Futures report in Bunbury on Friday. Transport between Bunbury and Perth remains a question mark in the future of the South West, with no current operational train line due to refurbishment. Fielding questions from a room full of South West business, industry and council leaders, Mr Jenkinson — who said he has a master’s degree in planning with a focus on transport — said rail plans had to remain realistic about travel in the future. “We talk about fast track to Perth and people thinking about bullet trains and trains that go for 100km/h, like forget it,” he said. “Even ordinary, everyday trains ... unless you are putting 13,000 people a day on a train system, it is more environmentally sound to put everybody in their own LandCruiser.” In the report’s section on potential projects it describes a number of actions aimed at improving rail and road. On the rail side, implementing ways to speed up the Perth-Bunbury railway line and investigating reinstating the Greenbushes line are earmarked to ideally occur in the next five years. In the next 20 years, the report recommends duplicating the South West main railway line between Bunbury Port and Brunswick as well as linking Kemerton to the port by rail. Road projects suggested mainly centre around upgrading local roads, putting lights at the heavy truck brake check stop on Coalfields Road and investigating a Vasse-Dunsborough Link ahead of the Busselton Outer Bypass. Mr Jenkinson said the South West was a hot spot for car dependency. “Some of the highest car ownership is in places like Manjimup, Bridgetown ... Nannup, because they are totally car dependent communities,” he said. “You don’t have a choice, you ain’t got a car, you ain’t going anywhere, there’s no bus.” The report also outlines a number of threats to the region moving forward, some of the most pressing being water security, slow pace of energy transition and housing shortages for workers.