This is no silver bullet (train)

More blunt were comments by a director of the University of Southern California's Transportation Engineering program, James Moore who warned: "I can't see any particular scenario in which we should continue to pour money down this rathole."

He went on to say: "Like most people with a technical background, I was susceptible to a gee-whiz factor. I would love it if bullet trains and maglev trains were a good idea because I love technology and want it to be useful. But this is not. Modes of transportation that are more expensive than aircraft and slower than aircraft do not compete very well with aircraft."

California's high speed rail had all the trappings and promises associated with the Australian proposal. The fanfare, "the vision" thing, the dedicated HSR authority – all it needed was practicality, buildability and viability. And keep in mind their distances are a fraction of what Australia's proposal would be and our city populations are smaller.

The ambition to create better connections between our capitals deserve support. But so does financial responsibility with taxpayer dollars. The business case for a HSR providing passenger services designed to provide an alternative for air travel ought also to question how much more connectivity could be achieved with autobahn style intercity motorways engineered for high speed autonomous vehicles. When it comes to rail, its ability to cost effectively move freight (as opposed to passengers) is hard to beat, and so the opportunity to remove inter-city vehicular freight from our highways by getting on with the inland rail freight line should also come into the picture.

For me, by the time any proposed intercity HSR passenger service is ready to board, I will hopefully have clocked up many hours flying in my personal passenger drone, like George Jetson.