Environment and Sustainability, Freight Rail, Research & Development

Flurry of minor projects for Inland Rail

The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) has in recent weeks awarded several contracts to progress planning on the Inland Rail project.

A total of more than $11 million in contracts has been handed out, with contracts including a range of field studies and environmental assessments across three states.

Federal infrastructure and transport minister Darren Chester announced the contracts during a visit to the ARTC on Tuesday.

“Inland Rail is now in the planning and environmental approvals phase and ARTC and its consultants will commence critical field studies along the alignment over the coming weeks,” Chester said.

A technical an engineering advisory contract was won by a joint venture of SMEC and Arup. The pair will provide a team of subject matter experts, who Chester said will “significantly bolster” the ARTC’s Inland Rail team.

“This is vital work that the Government committed to ensure Inland Rail is construction ready,” the minister said

A further six contracts have been awarded to GHD, Parsons Brinkerhoff, AECOP, Arup and Jacobs, to deliver the initial environmental investigations and engineering design for each of the projects in the Inland Rail programme.

“The consultancies will work alongside our existing Inland Rail team, gathering environmental data, talking to communities and further developing designs to enable ARTC to take each of these projects to the relevant planning agencies for initial assessment later this year,” Chester said.

“This will then help to set terms of reference for the formal Environmental Impact Assessments required for the programme to progress through the planning assessment process.”

Inland Rail was last month listed as a priority initiative on Infrastructure Australia’s Infrastructure Priority List.

“Inland Rail is a game-changer for Australia as it is being designed to provide a dedicated Melbourne to Brisbane freight link that is reliable and provides a less than 24 hour transit time at an attractive price, enabling the market to move goods when the market wants,” Chester said.

“Inland Rail will boost regional economic growth and drive national productivity as it will connect key production areas in Queensland, NSW and Victoria with export ports in Brisbane and Melbourne, with linkages to Sydney, Adelaide and Perth.”

1 Comment

  1. This is all very well, but is there any funding to actually build this important project – or will the road transport lobby cry foul, and once again the government will bend to those vested road transport interests, again.