Some inconvenient thoughts
The start of a new year turns our thoughts toward the year ahead, while the end of the first decade of the 21st Century in one year’s time gives us further pause for reflection and thought.
There’s been some points about the rail industry ripe for debate that have been rolling around in my mind for a while that I think are worth sharing. In no particular order, they are as follows:
1. Australian railways are world leaders in the bulk haulage of minerals across long distances from pit to port. However, the mining industry and the minerals they extract will be among the first to suffer in any sort of any scheme to price greenhouse gas emissions. Does this mean that our world leading heavy-haul railways are fast becoming dinosaurs?
Are the extensive investments by government (particularly in NSW and Queensland) to upgrade the rail element of the coal supply chain and the heavy private sector investment in the Pilbara iron ore railways an example of poor decision making by rail operators and infrastructure owners? While the miners of the Pilbara could be excused for trying to maximise their profits and get as much out of the ground before an ETS starts ‘taxing’ their off-shored profits, are ARTC and QR gambling on a losing horse by expending a big chunk of the finite budget for rail infrastructure on mineral heavy haulage? Could that pot of money have been ‘gambled’ on rail technology that had better long-term prospects, such as upgrading the interstate mainlines for intermodal freight or improving urban public transport?
2. Over on ‘the ‘Page’, there’s a spirited debate about electrification of the interstate rail network. While most of the commentary is pure pie in the sky, an important question is raised about how the power will be produced for mainline electrification (and also for any future high-speed rail corridors). Again, one of the fundamental issues is the reliance on black and brown coal for baseload electricity generation in Australia, largely due to plentiful supplies and the relatively low cost and short lead times for building new coal-fired power stations.
Again, the introduction of some sort of ETS or other pricing regime for carbon emissions could place other sources of baseload generation on a more competitive footing with coal. This would mean that the nuclear option for baseload energy generation comes back on the table for rail electrification, along with other, renewable sources of energy generation, as outlined in this report from the Parliamentary Library. This prompts me to ask the question, does supporting mainline electrification and high-speed rail in Australia necessarily mean supporting nuclear power in Australia? It does seem to be presented as a mutually exclusive argument that you can’t have one without the other. On the other hand, do new models of distributed generation of baseload power using renewables at a number of dispersed sites (based on solar thermal concentration and geothermal technology) for traction power supply and augmented by solar photovoltaics and hydro-electricity provide a better way to electrify the interstate mainlines and future high-speed corridors than a cluster of nuclear reactors along the Great Dividing Range of the eastern states?
Personally, I’m still undecided on nuclear power in Australia and if there were an alternative to coal and nuclear generation of baseload power, I’m all for it.
3. What to do with the spiderwebs of rural branchlines that are the legacy of the high-water mark of railway construction in the 19th and 20th Century. Do we declare them as assets of importance and try to keep them going, even with the ‘last resort’ traffic of seasonal grain? Do national and state governments pass legislation to compel the carriage of dangerous goods (fuel, chemicals) by rail to provide some additional non-seasonal traffic for these lines and fund an upgrade to the lines serving the major country fuel depots so that derailments don’t shift the danger of dangerous goods from road to rail? Are there other options for revitalising and upgrading these rural branchlines?
Or is the decision made to abandon the rural branchlines and many of the settlements they once served (and now only pass through) to better consolidate settlement in rural and regional Australia into the larger centres? There would perhaps be a new role for these branchlines in supplying the great retreat of European settlement in Australia and the remediation of the landscape to provide a buffer zone between the consolidated settlement and the desertification, salination and erosion that climate change is sure to bring.
4. Climate systems are not behaving as many people would believe them to. Instead of global warming meaning that average temperatures everywhere are rising, average temperatures are swinging to extremes. In Britain, extremely heavy snowfalls over December and January have brought transport networks to a standstill, including the Eurostar services under the English Channel, while in Australia, extreme weather has seen wholesale cancellations on Melbourne’s suburban network and shut down the Adelaide-Darwin railway line. Other weather extremes such as strong winds and heavy rain test the resiliance of transport networks across Australia and around the world. While governments make promises about measures to improve the resiliance of public transport networks and oppositions criticise them for not doing enough, others argue that the costs of preparing transport networks for extreme weather events that may occur relatively rarely (at least 1-in-20 year events) is not a good use of public money.
Yet, strategies to mitigate events that occur more regularly as the climate begins to ‘flicker’ between extreme highs and lows (such as heat related failures) probably are worth investing in. How then do we harden urban public transport networks against extreme weather events and how do we build in resilience in people and infrastructure to keep the network running? And how do we achieve this hardening and resiliance building without robbing urban public transport of funds for more immediate and pressing matters like addressing long-term maintenance backlogs, ordering new vehicles and extensions to the network?
So there you have it. Four thoughts to ponder in the New Year. I hope this provokes some good responses (I’m sure that it will).
Branch lines – and indeed railways heading out from major capital cities provide much opportunities for the urbanisation of the bush and relief for the inner city densities.
Europe is a perfect example of how high speed (in Australia, this could be existing line upgraded to allow speeds as low as 160 km/hr) railways allow people to live ‘in the country’ while working and ‘living’ in the cities. The australian ‘acceptance’ of up to 90 minutes of travel in each direction to and from work should provide a wide ‘ark’ around all of the existing capitals of almost 200 km – much larger than existing ‘city’ catchments.
If Australia’s population does head towards 35 million as has been suggested, such a transport network will be the only way to cope with the population. Inner city (even within 150 km of capital/major cities) simply won’t be able to support such populations short of New York style population densities which is not in keeping with the Australian ideal of a ‘back yard’. Cars and busses will always play a role in any transport mix, however fast rail – indeed even slow rail – will always be required for the mass ‘migration’ that occurs during ‘peak’ times.
Such an upgrade to networks will require either big brass ones from Canberra (stick or carrot), or the well publicised and socially motivated social movement to provide such links. Road and freeway construction is increasingly being proven to simply exacerbate existing problems, and increasingly, rail will be seen as the only viable solution.
The construction of a VFT between melbourne and Darwin, via Brisbane and Mount Isa, and between Sydney and Perth, via Broken Hill and Adelaide would set the tone for such a transport network. European experience has shown that when rival or ‘other’ areas see the benefit of such a network to neighbouring communities, generally they press for similar links, providing a positive feedback loop of expansion and network upgrades. Such a network, with major interchanges at places like wagga wagga, parks, broken hill, etc, would also mean that it would be socially possible to live 30 minutes from, say, parks, and be only 60 minutes by VFT to sydney or Melbourne (or even adelaide!).
Personally, I see the best candidates for ‘construction partners’ (read, financiers!) to be the existing domestic airlines. Someone like Qantas or Virgin Blue could easily afford to contribute a couple of billion a year in construction costs over a 20 year period in return for a portion of the profits. You could even let them operate the networks themselves, and build the infrastructure in a model like the ARTC operates. A tie in with their existing partner networks would allow you to check your bags in at, say, parks, and connect with an international flight to china.
Possibly, all very pie-in-the-sky stuff, but such a project requires you to ‘think big’ and the social and economic benefits (not to mention the environmental) would make such a project very socially easy to justify to the public as a candidate for federal funding – or should that be problematic, at least low interest loans.
my 2c worth!
^ Aren’t the sort of branch lines LS would be referring to be unrelated to the sort of things you’re proposing?
I’ll look at NW Victoria as an example – from Bendigo the only line with daily traffic into the Mallee is the one to Swan Hill, with two passenger trains each way, plus the odd seasonal grain train whenever one needs to run.
Another line in the general area would be the Kulwin line that stretches a long distance for seasonal grain as it’s only traffic and has a town of 600 people (Sea Lake) as the main centre of the region at the northern end of it.
So where can that line fit in the grand plan?
Agree, the Kulwin branchline is not going to do much for the ‘urbanisation’ of the bush or the relief of cities.
If anything, its unnecessary retention will make it worse, by diverting funds that could have been used to make cities better.
I think one issue LS, is what good is it expanding the coal rail network if we shouldn’t be mining coal? The fuel used to power the locomotives hauling the coal is a small fraction of the problem – the issue is the payload itself.
I’m not convinced either way about nuke – either in favour or against. It seems to me that all the options (nuke, clean coal socalled and renewables) all require increased costs – and getting this message out there at a time when people want bigger houses, bigger appliances and so on is not going to be easy.
I tend towards the idea of rural consolidation but am also mindful that the problem is not settlement size, as such, but settlement economy, demography and (f)utility.
For example, a little settlement in the Yarra Valley like Dixons Creek might have several tourist oriented wineries producing $ for the area and a younger, more mobile resident population. Another town of much greater size, say Walgett, might be feeling the ill effects of declining terms of trade in agriculture, have an aged and poor population, with large indigenous disadvantage.
So I wouldn’t arrive with the Riccardo-brand bulldozer at Dixons Creek and say “everybody out” but might suggest to the Walgett folk that life is slightly better in Narrabri and you might find work in the mines (assuming we stick with coal) or in cotton or related industries (assuming we still have water)
I’m not an Israel booster, but I would say there are precedents for making dry lands productive, but you need a government and populace committed to do so. Across the board – better collection of water, better distribution, better watering (to the roots ideally), better harvesting, better plant selection and breeding, and so on.
I think Australia does OK in this but considering the very survival of agriculture in the dry inland SE corner is at stake, you would think the government’s every waking moment was diverted to questions like this.
And the disconnect between agriculture and the rural population has never been greater.
There was once a time when agriculture and the rural population were one and the same. You didn’t live in the country if you didn’t do ag (unless you did mining in the relevant areas). Now you can be on welfare, or retired (and hanging around for emotional rather than practical reasons) or in the large government sector, or whatever. And while agricultural production, according to the figures, continues to rise, it is being concentrated in fewer hands.
The govt should be actively managing people away from the country (though there are cynical reasons to suggest they won’t).
I have just been reading parts of “Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil” by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl.
http://richardgilbert.ca/transportrevolutions/index.htm
They believe that most transport in the future – a future where oil is no longer cheap or plentiful – will by by grid connected vehicles. It is quite an extensive read and they cover a range of subjects in what appears to be a well researched book. It is not alarmist like Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” and puts the prospect of peak oil into perspective. They do look for ways to achieve a soft landing rather than a hard one.
Peak oil is something we have to factor in sooner or later. ATM people are sidetracked by the climate change debate: the prospect of a real shortage of oil could be a serious and long-lasting as climate change. Indeed they go hand in hand.
Loose shunter: the weather extremes in the UK and to an extent in Australia in the past few weeks are just aberrations. It is the trend line that you need to look at, just as we need to look at the trend line for the price of oil: here is one for West Texas Intermediate
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=RWTC&f=M
I’m concerned about two things:
- the lack of spending by the Federal Gov’t on rail (Labor *has* spent more than the Libs but not much); in NSW there is NO new construction planned by ARTC in the next 5 years, only the ongoing Northern Sydney Freight Line
- the long lead time in rail infrastructure construction and the paucity of long term planning.
We are not currently planning for the day when oil (ie. diesel) becomes very expensive.
@ martin – The lines I’m referring to are the marginal rural branchlines beyond the passenger network with only seasonal traffic – the likes of Robinvale and Kulwin lines (Vic) and the marginal dryland grain lines of NSW (Walgett, Naradhan, Rankins Springs, Grenfell and Tottenham lines). No government would be promoting urbanised settlement out there, far beyond the principal passenger rail network and the clustering of government services (education, health, policing) that are centred on the major regional cities.
As for high-speed rail (and medium speed rail for that matter), Victoria’s RFR project for all its faults points the way for state governments to provide medium-speed (160kph) regional rail feeders into the hubs of the high speed rail network which realistically would only go Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne in its first phase.
@ Somebody – my point exactly. These seasonal branchlines that run into marginal country were never much good, even in the heyday of rail. Best to run 80kph trains made up of open wagons of clay, gypsum and topsoil, louvre vans full of tree and grass seedlings, container wagons filled with food and water and tankers of diesel for powering generators to serve the people who’ll be revegetating the mallee and the dryland farms to stop whatever topsoil is left blowing away.
@ Riccardo – re: coal: In my typically oblique way, you’ve hit upon the question I was trying to ask. If coal mining becomes more expensive at either the point of extraction or end use then I think that Australian coal exports will drop and provide a strong impetus to find alternative to domestic coal-fired electricity generation. Either way, that investment in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland coal railways might never be fully realised and the queue of 55 ships I saw off Newcastle on New Years’ Day will be only a memory in another 20 years. If so, then that money is better invested somewhere else in rail that could target ‘rail-contestable’ freight or in urban passenger rail.
In terms of energy policy, the thinking seems to be that an-ETS driven increase in electricity prices will start to improve the attractiveness of alternatives to coal and be the push that sees Australia diversify its fuel mix for baseload energy generation.
LS
Here’s some costs from WA for maintaining branchlines vs shifting grain onto trucks: http://www.countryman.com.au/article/2744.html
In short, you’d save $94m to upgrade 736km of branchlines, but it’d cost $96m to upgrade roads to handle the grain trucks. Which assumes the road funding arrives, which it hasn’t for the previous branchline closure at Bruce Rock.
@James – thanks for the link. Some interesting costings in there. I do wonder though which option (bearing in mind that funding promised may not be delivered) provides a better public policy outcome.
On a purely Benefit/Cost analysis, the $96 million to upgrade the roads to handle the increased traffic would be a better option as the roads are more intensively utilised by cars and trucks all year round. On the other hand, if a wider socio-economic analysis was used, the $94 million might be better, once costs of road trauma and other ‘wider’ economic benefits/disbenefits are accounted for.
That being said I would still be concerned that the notional $94 million would be spent on upgrading lines that only see seasonal traffic for 6-7 months a year. I’m sure that $94 million would fund only a ‘miniumum’ level of upgrading that would ensure that non-time critical cargoes like grain could be carried at reasonable maximum speeds (60-80km/h). I wonder how much more it would cost to upgrade key elements of that network to 100km/h to make rail from Perth time competitive with road for transporting containerised general freight and fuel which at least would provide a year-round source of traffic and higher levels or utilisation.
LS
My concern about so-called upgrades is exactly that – they are merely catching up on deferred maintenance and the lines will be let go again, as soon as the political spotlight has shifted. How many of these lines stay ‘permanently’ good?
How many times have the Mudgee, Avoca and Kyabram routes been restored within living memory? Too many to count.
It is just deferred maintenance.
That said, was in W Wyalong last week – had to laugh, the Lake Carg line was speedboarded at 80 and looked in fine fettle. So here’s the mental picture – pair of 48s goes careering through there with 30 wheat on the back at 80 clicks, meanwhile down on the beloved Dandenong line, deep in the suburban area and on 60-kg rails, X class with containers on the back restricted to 60!
Talking of which, Kyabram baulked at Echuca junction again! Why even bother?
And for the info of those interested – Tocumwal-Narrandera was curate’s egg, some of it had trees growing out of it but much was clean and clear ballast, straight and strong-looking sleepers. Lines in the middle of desert take longer to rot!
There’s really not that close a link between the deployment of nuclear power in Australia, and rail line electrification.
Sooner or later, whether using nuclear power or not, the electricity grid has to be decarbonized, and so does transport.
Even after mainline electrification, the vast majority of electricity generated in Australia will be used for things other than moving trains around.
If renewables are going to be up to the task of running our TVs and air conditioners, they’ll be up to the task of powering our trains. If not, we’ll need nukes anyway.
@ moonetau – apologies for not noticing your reply of 13 Jan earlier in the ‘pending’ queue. It’s now up. Not having read the text in question, I can’t say too much, but if the term ‘grid connected vehicle’ encompasses everything from a pure electric version of one of those 2-seater Mercedes-Benz, to a trolley bus or an articulated LRV, a 6- or 8 car suburban train to a 16-car High Speed Rail set or a 5,000 tonne superfreighter then I’d broadly agree with them.
In terms of peak oil, yes, I agree that it’s a ‘not if but when’ proposition. The trouble is that if it hits at the same time as the climate starts ‘flickering’ between extremes (as some climate scientists predict it will) before reaching a new level, then there’ll be trouble at a level that makes our transport problems look minor. That being said, the weather extremes are important in that they expose the vulnerability of our economies and societies to rapid fluctuations in climatic conditions. Increases in the frequencies of these extreme events are worth analysing too. Unfortunately, there’s not much out there – yet.
@ Robert Merkel – You may well be right in what you say. My fear from a rail perspective is that deployment of HSR will be linked to the deployment of nuclear power, which because of its iconic, nation-building profile might occupy people’s minds a bit more than the fact their lights, air-con and plasma TV is also running off the products of nuclear fission. The equation that HSR=Nukes will only serve to rally the ‘red-green’ coalition that formed in the late 1980s when the Multi-Function Polis and VFT were conflated together as a sort of ‘technocratic dreaming. I’m still on the fence about nuclear energy – there are strong arguments for and against, but if we can no longer rely on coal for abundant, relatively cheap energy, then the nuclear option may be the only way out for our stationary (and some of our transport) energy needs.
LS
LS was there really ‘technocratic dreaming’ directed against the 1980s VFT? I thought it was the usual mix of naysayers in Com Dept Finance and so on, combined with some opposition to it using the Snowy Valley corridor. Peter James wrote this in the same vane as our friend Brendan Gleeson I wrote about earlier. The wistful, dreamy, nostalgic Left who imagine a nice place where people are nice to each other.
While the proponents thought patronage would be greater via Cooma, they also realised the cost would be higher that way too, and when the route via Albury was announced there was a sigh of relief in environmental circles.
I remember some guy writing into Railway Digest decrying the VFT and saying 160km/h was ‘fast enough’, based on his ‘anxiety’ at travelling faster than that on conventional UK mainlines. But fast enough for whom? 160km/h might get you to Penrith quicker, it won’t get you to Melbourne in fast enough time to be useful.
I try to distinguish Green politics from NIMBYism. Most Greens would be happy to see the end of SYD-MEL from the top 10 worldwide air routes – replaced with electric rail. And would expect such investment to also remove some of the road traffic from the Hume, one way or another.
I don’t believe the line itself would require nuclear power to run it – foreseeable amounts of renewable power can be provided to run the train. Eurostar makes a virtue of it for EU companies wanting to reduce their carbon emissions, and I would imagine the same here.
Riccardo,
Gippsland was an environmental flashpoint too – some kind of wetlands, some kind of frog endangered by the big, bad VFT.
The critique in ‘Technocratic Dreaming’ is very much the late 1980s seeds of the lunar left’s anti-globalisation neo-Luddite agenda which has flowered rather spectacularly in the lunar left of the Green movement (the ‘Red-Greens’) and so-called Anarchists in the 2000s. James’ book is an uneasy confection of local interest groups (NIMBYs or BANANAs), opponents of economic rationalism, conservationists, subscribers to the then dominant fear of Japan’s imminent ‘takeover’ of the West (through economic rather than military power), the rail trade unions (afraid of foreign skill and expertise undercutting their ’sheltered workshop’ jobs) and many others. I think many of those themes in new guises would trot out of the woodwork if another HSR project was announced. Although there’s no Multi-Function Polis to muddy the waters of HSR this time, I’m worried that something else (be it nuclear power or whatever) will be the albatross around the neck of HSR.
LS
Thanks LS.
I’m hoping at least the union influence on such thinking is reduced now. A lot of angst was directed at VFT being privately owned, when having transport and utilities still in government hands was common. Now I suspect it being private would not raise an eyebrow.
I never understood the whole ‘Japanese taking over’ meme. They can scarcely run their own country now – JAL is bankrupt, their domestic savings is diverted to propping up government debt and insolvent banks. They’re very short of new ideas too.
I think most of a route if it followed the freeway easements would not generate too much negative comment. As discussed elsewhere, SYD-MEL is a btard owing to the rugged albeit low mountain range that runs long most of the straight line route. And as the 1980s backers found, Canberra is on the wrong side of a conservative SYD-MEL alignment, an expensive hole-punching of the Brindabellas would be required.
Syd-Bris would be easier – the worst section being the Hawkesbury estuary but the benefits of building a new line through this area would not just accrue to long distance travellers, but could easily slice 30-45 minutes of the Central Coast-Sydney commute, for which some cost recovery should be possible.
I could imagine a HS1 type arrangement here, a 350km/h long distance train ex SYd first stop Newcastle, and in between a shuttle to Newcastle stopping (depending on actual route) Woy Woy, Gosford, Tuggerah/The Entrance, Budgewoi or Lower Lack Mac, and so on) that carried commuters. The Cityrail service could also be withdrawn, or at least limited to a simple suburban style service on the remaining sections (but not really running through to Sydney)
If anybody tries to make the link, it needs to be shot down straight away because it’s completely bogus.
A TGV in operation uses about about 4 megawatts (with a peak of around 10). So if you’ve got 15 trainsets in operation on a Melbourne-Sydney line (half-hourly trains both ways) that’s about 60 megawatts.
The lowest demand level recorded in Victoria over the the last month is 4000 megawatts.
In any case, if you do the sums, even if you powered a VFT using Victoria’s brown coal, it’d still result in about one-third of the emissions of flying (and that’s without factoring the extra “forcings” from the water vapour in the stratosphere when you fly).
The environmental case for a VFT over flying, regardless of where the energy comes from, is pretty much open and shut (at least until you start getting into opportunity cost arguments).
Railpage is still off the air, so please indulge me as I treat my withdrawal symptoms here.
1. Greenhouse theory and implications has been scientific orthodoxy for 20 years now. It’s widely regarded humanity is dancing toward disaster on this one. But in that time no-one has done anything to make a meaningful difference. Essentially I think this is a failure of the approach taken so far. Basically a few people have changed a few light bulbs and used that as a basis to take the high moral ground and blame everyone else for not selling their cars and skateboarding to work. And this is occurring on an international scale. The international diplomatic process is that everyone agrees something needs to be done (more than *anyone* is prepared to do), and from then on the whole diplomatic apparatus is used by each individual country to try and reduce their contribution as much as possible.
Personally, I think the only way greenhouse is going to be properly addressed is if it’s done on an industry by industry basis. If the airline industry succeeds in developing it’s algae based bio-fuel, then that might be the catalyst for this sort of approach. For coal fired power to be a long term solution – and by that I mean over the next 50 to 100 years, not the next 10 – they are going to need to get sequestration working. That hasn’t gotten beyond proof of concept stage, but the engineering and economics are sound.
So I see that no-matter what happens with the politic or consequences of greenhouse pollution, we are going to be hauling coal to our ports for a long time yet. 10 years as an absolute minimum. And even if the industry does bite the dust in our lifetimes, the current investment is still going to pay for itself many times over before then.
2 Nukes? Forget it. Regardless of the pollution issues they simply aren’t economically viable. Like the VFT they *might* be viable with heavy government subsidies, and government are the only people who are prepared to “insure” the required buildings (ie, if they do stuff up, no-one can ever expect to be properly compensated). This is the reason next to no new nuclear reactors have been built in the first world in the last 20 years (Scandinavia excepted IIRC). The don’t make financial sense. Go out to Coober Pedey some time and check out how much wind they have out there, and how much space they have to put up windmills. This will and should happen long before we get nukes.
3 Branchlines? Rail trails. In NSW most of the disused branch lines are 60lb rail which is sitting around on terrible alignments literally pushing up daisies. The youngest 48 in more than 40yo now, and at 900hp they were never a particularly viable rail freight engine anyway. These lines are an anachronism, and in fact many were ever when they were opened. If a viable rail cargo emerges on any of these routes, it will be cheaper for everyone to just rebuild a shorter, modern link to the nearest main line.
Many rail trails in Victoria have shown to stimulate more tourism economic activity than many of their former rail lines ever did. As Australia becomes increasingly urbanised there will be an increasing demand for “normal” people to engage with the rural environment in some way other than looking at it from their car window on the freeway.
Most disused branch lines have $40-$50/m worth of perfectly good 100yo steel sitting there doing nothing. A rail trail costs $10-$20/m to build, and $2-$3/m a year to maintain. It’s a unique sort of public investment in that the benefits a real and tangible, but the cost is negative.
Thanks DJF
I almost regard the legacy branchline network as if it had never existed – at best it distorts debate on good transport options.
If you read the NSW Govt grain lines report you see a fundamental disconnect between what is there, and what is needed. The sentimental lines around Cowra just aren’t needed because the grain for that market is small volume, domestic grain, where the best returns are from exports.
A relative is the water manager of a large rural council, he was telling me that it really is no longer the rivers that matter, but the aquifers. Some ostensibly dry land areas, which none-the-less have good underground water, are going to be carrying Australian agriculture when the riverine and rain fed systems fail. This is changing the whole layout of Australian agriculture.
And the wheat economics in NSW are actually pathetically small distances, it is often pointed out in US and Canada and grain haul could be 1000km plus – much too far for a single truck driver.
On farm storage is taking away from the traditional use of the grain handlers’ silos for storage purpose. And I gather even when siding silos are used, the actual silos are become irrelevant, with grain stored on the ground much as coal has been.
I would suggest the future of this industry needs to be much more towards multimodal general freight – with places like Griffith or Mildura for preference accepting containerised loads on flats, much as the capital cities do, on mainline standard rail lines (where the wagon and crew utilisations rival mainline standards) – no more 15km/h crawls that take three shifts to move a single grain train to/from the likes of Gwabegar or whatever.
I have few regrets about branchlines. I think Tumut could have been made to work with resusication of the line to Coolac, and a Hume Hwy alignment to Adelong, and maybe retention of the last little bit into Tumut, for the paper. Oberon ditto (although the preservation mob are making strides here).
I also think the Mt Gambier debacle is regretable as it relates to Government failure than lack of traffic – I suspect the paper trains would still be running if the Heywood line had been standardised with the mainline.
But few other regrets – hard to think of too many lines that were prematurely closed.
A report from a community meeting about the WA Strategic Grain Network Review. The most interesting thing:
@James, thanks for the quote from the report. I would love to think it’s as easy as CBH would like to get a shortline up and running.
An American ‘railroad’ lobbyist once explained to me the main reason American why shortlines blossomed as they did (and in the case of G&W or Wisconsin Central set out to conquer the world) was the passing of the ‘Staggers Act’ (1980) that de-regulated rate setting, governance and the operating environment of the rail industry. This allowed Class I railways to abandon, lease or sell their branchline networks to concentrate on the trunk routes and created opportunities for medium- and short-haul operators to take over the branch lines.
LS
**Blatant linkage**
I’d normally blush to do it but the TT site is quiet and this post is potentially of interest!
http://thomasthethinkengine.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/myki-vs-free-pt/
cheers.
Isn’t ARG a US shortline?
@Riccardo, ARG once was a joint-venture of Wesfarmers and the local subsidiary of a US shortline (Gennesee and Wyoming). G&W and Wesfarmers sold ARG’s Western Australian operations to QR (above rail) and Babcock and Brown (below rail) in 2006. G&W’s Australian presence is now largely in the SA and NT, running the broad and narrow gauge lines and trains in SA, runs trains on the ARTC standard gauge network and manages rail operations between Tarcoola and Darwin for Asia-Pacific Transport Consortium.
LS