<p>The only barrier to the further progress of Australia’s rail freight industry is the upgrade of the north-south rail corridor between Melbourne and Brisbane, a new study has found.</p> <p>The report by BIS Shrapnel, <em>Supply Chain Distribution in Australia, 2004 to 2008, </em> comments that over $800m of Federal Government funds will be released to finance the first but not the only investment initiative required to bring this corridor up to world’s best practice standards. </p> <p>However, from around July this year, its is expected that the New South Wales section of the national rail corridor will be transferred to the Australian Rail Track Corporation on a 50-year lease. </p> <p>Rail freight is forecast to grow by 4.2% per annum to 2006ባ, the BIS study said. </p> <p>Intermodal demand will increase by 4.8m tonnes on a national basis between 2002቟ and 2006ባ. </p> <p>This additional volume will be sourced from four market developments: </p> <p>• Natural growth of existing business will generate 2.2m tonnes </p> <p>• The Darwin-Alice Springs Railway, 0.5m tonnes </p> <p>• The Melbourne-Brisbane corridor, 1.5m tonnes of new business and </p> <p>• Further growth in land bridging between key ports and in-shore terminals, 0.6m tonnes. </p> <p>However, the BIS study leader, Gary Long, believes that the estimate of increased tonnage between Melbourne and Brisbane could be too conservative. </p> <p>The investment of over $1bn in Pacific National by Toll and Patrick Corporation may well encourage freight to be transferred preferentially from road to rail to maximise returns on the investment. </p> <p>The incentive for both companies to encourage this transfer is the economies of scale offered by rail. </p> <p>Hooking up an additional freight car incurs a minor operational cost compared with placing an additional truck on the road. </p> <br />
