Infrastructure funding on track but warning light flashing

By Francis Dwornik

This money will be spent on direct heavy and light rail investment as well as studies that will lead to many more billions of dollars being invested in metropolitan rail upgrades in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia.
The showpiece rail infrastructure spend from the last federal budget is a $3.225 billion contribution to the Regional Rail Express from Werribee to the Melbourne CBD. This was followed recently by a scoping study for a $4.5 billion rail line from Footscray to Parkville and possibly the Melbourne CBD. At the same time the federal government is funding the investigation of Melbourne’s East West Rail Tunnel and an inner city rail system in Brisbane.
Even a rail line from Melbourne to Brisbane is also under consideration that would be one of the biggest investments in Australian rail history.
A Very Fast Train is also something that be kept in consideration for Australia as they are now being rolled out across all developed (and some less developed) economies of the world, in response to the financial and environmental hurdles now being faced by the rival short-haul aviation industry, and the frequent airtime delays and airport-CBD travel times being experienced by passengers.
While these Australian infrastructure projects are predominantly passenger services, there is a huge investment required to bring the freight rail network up to standards as well, with the recent National Transport Commission (NTC) predicting a doubling in Australian rail freight volumes by 2030, subject to productivity. (This was discussed directly in two previous articles, ‘Central body needed to coordinate rail freight reform’ Part One and Part Two).
A major source of concern regarding productivity is the present sharing of lines by passenger and freight trains. Line separation needs to be inbuilt into these large infrastructure commitments on a national scale to ensure passenger and rail freight are not condemning these billions to creating further bottlenecks.
The government’s commitment to this infrastructure spend also necessarily translates into encouraging private endeavour, and joint government and private ventures. O’Donnell Griffin Rail is poised to begin work on the latest BHP Billiton rail infrastructure phase in Port Hedland, with ODG works on this RGP5 stage following previous works with BHBP on Phases 1-4. The latest $96.5 million works, for example, cover signalling along BHP Billiton Iron Ore’s main railroad which runs south for 426 kilometres.
Economically, it is critical that government plays its part in mine-to-market infrastructure that guarantees lifted levels of productivity.
Rail has massive advantages for passenger and freight transportation including vital reductions in green house gases produced by the dominant motor vehicle alternatives that now dominate our cities, freeways and freight transport corridors. Pollution for rail is negligible, which will also strengthen the industry as carbon-emission-reliant competitors need to pay the price for this reliance within the carbon-adjusted economies to which the world is moving.
The billions that are being spent, and the billions more required, will be a testament to the long term planning required to make Australia not only a greener country in the decades ahead, but also one which has been wise enough to turn that attribute to economic advantage.

*Francis Dwornik is O’Donnell Griffin Rail’s (ODG) director rail engineering.