New interstate rail link brings national standard gauge a step closer

By Jennifer Perry
Getting the go ahead for the corridor that will link Moree and Toowoomba is a “significant step forward” in the development of a national standard gauge railway, ATEC chairman Everald Compton told Rail Express.
“Australia has been dwarfed by the fact of having three different gauges and this has meant rural areas of Queensland have never been linked,” Compton said.
“The commencement of the Border railway means that for the first time, regional areas of Queensland will be linked over the border of New South Wales and vice versa.”
The 340 kilometre open access standard gauge railway will connect with an existing standard gauge railway from Moree to Parkes that links with tracks to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The new corridor will cost around $900 million and will be built by a consortium led by ATEC, along with partners Laing O’Rourke and the Inland Railway Trust.
Compton said the Border railway had received “strong endorsement” from both the New South Wales and Queensland Governments, with both states agreeing that the project should proceed immediately and an EIS be prepared “as a matter of urgency”.
The commencement of the Border railway is also good news for ATEC’s Surat Basin railway (SBR), an open access rail corridor that will link Toowoomba to the Port of Gladstone.
While SBR was planned to be narrow gauge, Compton said getting the go-ahead for the Border railway has enabled ATEC to open discussions with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to have both the Border and SBR declared “national railways” of either standard or dual gauge capacity, linking together the ports of Melbourne, Newcastle and Gladstone.
“This will provide an efficient long term solution to the barriers and bottlenecks that retard the export capacity of the bulk minerals industry in this part of Australia as well as open up the inland for significant economic development,” he said.
The corridor will require the construction of 195 kilometres of new greenfields railway with 2000 metre passing loops spaced every 50 kilometres, and the replacement of 142 kilometres of existing track. It will connect to the Charlton Intermodal Freight terminal that is being developed west of Toowoomba, where it will connect to the SBR.
With the Border railway’s business case underpinned by the development of ATEC’s two large freight terminals at Toowoomba and Forbes, Compton said its case had been developed on the basis of several freight trains running daily in both directions, with an initial forecast capacity to move an estimated 14 million tonnes of intermodal and bulk freight annually.
According to Compton, the railway will improve upon freight transit times between Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and will make the transportation of freight to the ports of Newcastle and Gladstone more efficient.
By helping to meet the freight needs of Australia’s major eastern seaboard cities as well as helping tackle the congestion caused by interstate rail having to coexist with Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane’s metropolitan rail systems, Compton said the railway will “revolutionise” the way freight is carried in Eastern Australia, in turn freeing up metropolitan passenger rail to concentrate on “achieving the efficient movement of people”.
The new corridor will also encourage mining companies located nearby to go ahead and develop their tenements that Compton says are not currently viable without the railway.
“This project will put freight back on to rail, in preference to road – a matter of considerable importance to the economy and the environment which is currently not happening,” he said.
ATEC is expecting to reach financial close for the project in 2011 and to complete construction by 2014, approximately one year after SBR is opened.