How is Value Added to a NSW Opal Card?

I purchased an Opal Smart Card for NSW public transport at a newsagent for $10 and was told it had $10 credit on it, but it did not. Registering the card online and attempting to add to the balance did not work either. The $40 top-up I requested was returned (with an SMS message saying:

The top-up requested on DD/MM for Opal card ending in 9999 wasn't collected and has been returned. Please do not reply to this SMS.

No explanation of "collected" was provided. But this may indicate that the card has to be used within a few days of money being added. My reason for getting the card was to travel from Sydney Central Station to the international airport by train. The buses in my vicinity are not equipped for the Opal card, so there is no reason, or way, to use it before then.

 

While the Victorian "Myki" smart card had some problems, at least I was able to put some money on the card and not have the money vanish.

How Much Does a NSW Opal Card Cost?

I purchased an Opal Smart Card for NSW public transport at a newsagent for $10 and was told it had $10 credit on it, but it does not. I registered the card online  (this is optional you can have an anonymous one). This was reasonably simple to do and the system sent me a conformation SMS, which is useful. But I was surprised to find the card had a balance of zero. So I added $40 online (the minimum), the balance remained at zero for several minutes, before changing to $40. Other online translations only take a few second: why does the Opal system take minutes?

The other annoying aspect of the Opal card is the need for yet another smart transport card. This is my fourth Australian state smart ticket card (I already have cards for Victoria, ACT and West Australia). I only need one electronic tag to driver my car in multiple Australian states, why can't I use the one travel card across Australia? The reasons can't be technical, as these cards all conform to the same smart card standards. In fact I also have a card for Singapore which uses the same standard (as will the Vancouver Compass Card).

Plan for Australian High Speed Trains

The Greens party have released "Building High Speed Rail: 21st Century Infrastructure" (The Greens, 5 August 2013). This proposes a dedicated High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) with a budget of $664M for preliminary work and a $570M environmental impact study. Two lines would be investigated (Sydney - Canberra - Melbourne and Sydney - Newcastle - Brisbane). The trip times appear based on the best current in service technology with Sydney to Melbourne at 2 hours 44 minutes.

Mr. Anthony Albanese, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, released the High speed rail study phase 2 report, 11 April 2013. However, the ALP government has no proposals to implement high speed rail. Insetad Mr. Albanese is proposing to build a second airport in Sydney (which would not be needed with a high speed rail line from Sydney to Melbourne)

The Greens proposal does not estimate the cost of high speed rail. My suggestion is to fund the project from the increase in land value along the route, building new cities in regional Australia. New cities could be built rapidly, relying on broadband for many services currently provided by bricks and mortar. This would relieve development pressure on Sydney. Also a second airport would not be needed, with passengers changing from aircraft to trains on the busy Sydney -  Canberra - Melbourne air corridor..