Newcastle–Sydney high speed rail enters $659.6 million development phase.

newy.com.au – The Federal Government announced a $659.6 million development phase over two years to prepare high speed rail between Newcastle and Sydney for construction, targeting a travel time of about one hour.

The High Speed Rail Authority, established in 2023, describes the Newcastle–Sydney link as Line 1 of a broader east coast network proposed to connect Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The government said the project would reshape how communities in Newcastle, the Hunter and the Central Coast live, work and travel, with the Central Coast 30 minutes from either city.

Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King said the development phase would make Line 1 construction ready by locking in design, scope and the approvals process while work is done to secure the rail corridor and refine project costs. She said high speed rail between Newcastle and Sydney “will change the way people live, work and travel in our country’s most populous region”.

King said the next two years would involve engineers “going metre by metre along this rail track”, with the detailed work to inform a final Commonwealth investment decision in 2028. She said the first stage, known as 1A and 1B, was costed at around $55 billion.

The business case released on Tuesday forecasts the project would boost the national economy by $250 billion over the next 50 years and create more than 99,000 jobs, supporting sectors including construction, advanced manufacturing and tourism. In an overview published by the authority, the project is also projected to unlock the opportunity for up to 160,000 new homes by 2061 across Newcastle and the lower Hunter, the Central Coast and Sydney. The authority says the Newcastle–Sydney rail corridor carries almost 15 million passengers a year and is forecast to reach capacity in the early 2040s.

Infrastructure Australia’s evaluation said the preferred option would use a dedicated 194 km alignment with six proposed stations, including Broadmeadow in Newcastle, Morisset in Lake Macquarie and Gosford on the Central Coast, plus stops at Sydney Central, Parramatta and Western Sydney International Airport. It said the line would include 115 km of tunnels, with trains capable of up to 320 km/h outside tunnelled sections and up to 200 km/h within them. The preferred staging envisaged operations to the Central Coast by 2037, reaching Sydney Central by 2039 and Western Sydney International Airport by 2042, while the agency cautioned that cost certainty needed to improve as design matures.

The Australasian Railway Association welcomed the announcement, with chief executive Caroline Wilkie saying the sector would be ready to “put boots on the ground in 2028”. Wilkie said the Newcastle–Sydney route should be treated as a starting point for future lines and called for planning to consider housing and urban renewal opportunities.

Property Council NSW executive director Anita Hugo said the region stood to benefit if housing and enabling infrastructure were planned from the outset, particularly around future station precincts such as Broadmeadow. “Infrastructure Australia has rightly warned that housing benefits don’t simply materialise because a rail line is built,” she said.

Federal member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon praised the CEO of the High Speed Rail project, saying “If anyone can builing this project, it’s Tim Parker, having finished the Metro project in Sydney, this will be a walk in the park”.

The federal government said the two years of development work would also assess public and private financing options, which would inform a future investment decision once the project’s scope, cost and risks are finalised. Major construction would only follow after that decision and the completion of the planning work. King told ABC Radio Newcastle she hoped construction could start in 2029.