I'm glad someone appreciates a good ol' fashioned double entendre.

Well I don't know. But whatever it is, replacing the majority of current road linehaul by rail would free up significant numbers of drivers for other work.

Don't forget @6newsau.bsky.social

Obviously I'm not talking about replacing all trucks with trains. But with such abysmally low proportions of freight currently travelling by rail on the busiest long-haul intercapital routes, which rail is IDEALLY suited to, there is great potential to free up drivers for where road is suited.

They already exist, and they're under-used. We could solve this by next Wednesday if we cared.

Tech bros will save us.
Autonomous AI e-drones bookable via an app, with surge pricing to ensure supply matches demand. Problem solved. We might as well just rip up all other transport right now.

In an environment where just 2% of freight between Melbourne and Sydney moves by rail, the problem is not a shortage of truck drivers, it is that there are too many trucks.

I'm more into pasties.

Must be the alkaline water

I very well may do just that. I'm sure you know all the gunzel fleshpots.

I may strike out in a few new directions too. I’m not sure yet, I’ll see where things take me. I have some ideas for more content on the railmaps.com.au website, and I might possibly even do a bit of Youtube (not too sure about that one), and I hope to get a bit more travel in too. We'll see

6/6

My ‘Historic Photo of the Day’ series in which I post a daily original pic to numerous social media sites will, in late March, reach a continuous 10 years of publication. I’m starting to scratch for unpublished pics now, so I’ll continue until its 10th anniversary and then call it a day I think.
5/6

The website itself is still going, in fact an updated Melbourne train and tram map is online just today railmaps.com.au/melbourne.htm (with new fares, updates for recent platform tram stops plus a slightly neater map layout). More enhancements coming soon including selectable layers

4/6

Now it’s 2026, which is the 30th year of the Australian Rail Maps website – yes, it’s been online since mid 1996. I want to do something to mark that anniversary when it comes, but I haven’t quite figured out what just yet.

3/6

As for me, 2025 was quite a year. I sampled the new Sydney Metro, Parramatta Light Rail and Melbourne Metro Tunnel, but I haven't yet got to Perth to see the completed Metronet. I must remedy that. And I stepped out of my comfort zone by doing some @railnatter.uk episodes with @garethdennis.uk

2/6

It is sad to see a once admired mentor and role model in decline - both in a human and national sense. But perhaps it's time for us to step up, to fill the gap the US once occupied. We're not as rich or militarily powerful a country, but we can still be an example.