Forget all those yarns about benefits to regional Australia – we will get the noise, the closed crossings, the land acquisitions, but the train won’t stop here because any stops other than Melbourne- Canberra Sydney would grossly compromise the possibility of super-fast times.

Get 525 cars off the road?

The train would have to be full on every journey, and that’s hardly likely.

I travelled to Sydney on the midnight XPT only a week ago.

At $59 for a senior’s ticket, the first class carriage was barely occupied, and when I checked in daylight I thought I would be right in guessing that not one passenger had paid full fare.

A bumpy wheel ensured we couldn’t sleep. The train was on time into Wagga but an hour late into Central Station.

Contrast that with the full midday jet to the Sunshine Coast, at $89.

No senior’s discount here, that was the fare all week for most flights.

It arrived five minutes early.

The same week internet fares from Sydney to Townsville were $79 each way, the Gold Coast $45.

This is the reality, full planes, several times a day to suit traveller’s needs, at very cheap fares that can never be matched by high-speed rail unless competition is stifled.

The Queensland Tilt Train is a great experience.

Quick, smooth, with comfortable reclining seats, showers, all the home comforts, but at three times the price of an air ticket to Sydney when I travelled, and I still had to buy a ticket from Brisbane to Sydney.

When QR was being sold by the Queensland Labor government a few years back, the true costs of Queensland passenger services were published.

Every Tilt Train passenger was being subsidised by the Queensland taxpayer to the tune of $661.10 with the total cost of running the Tilt Train costing the taxpayer $1 million every week.

As for benefits for regional Australia, travel with Rex – the planes are painted in Albury, maintained in Wagga, and bookings are handled at Orange.

Australian and overseas pilots are trained here in Wagga.

Services are several times a day, and no high-speed train will get you to Sydney in an hour.

It is worth noting that a $68.4 billion, 350km/h high-speed rail project in California that was narrowly approved in 2008 faces defeat when a final vote is necessary on August 31, simply because construction funds have not been raised.

California, Britain and France all have dense populations.

Australia has only distance.

High-speed rail is estimated to cost $60 to $108 billion.

Let’s nip this one before the federal government adds a white elephant to our national debt.