QR confirms deal with P&amp&semicolan#38&semicolanO at Acacia Ridge

<p>In another major intermodal move by P&#38O Ports, QR has confirmed a three-year contract with the stevedore to manage the Acacia Ridge intermodal terminal, which it wrested from Pacific National in a Federal Court judgment earlier this year. </p> <p>The court gave Pacific National 90 days to renegotiate a deal or give up its sole control of the facility. </p> <p>QR and P&#38O will now develop a much larger common-user operation at the facility. </p> <p>"QR is committed to healthy competition in the rail freight market, and to help achieve this we plan to develop the Acacia Ridge facility into a multi-user facility," QR chief executive Bob Scheuber said. "We believe the terminal will help provide opportunities to increase rail’s share of the total logistics market in Queensland and Australia, which benefits our business as well as others."</p> <p>QR and P&#38O have been in talks on intermodal issues for some time and the Acacia Ridge deal could be the start of a larger alliance between the pair. The contract will start on May 31 this year.</p> <p>QR also plans to double capacity over the next 20 years at the facility, which acts as a transfer point between the main north-south rail route and the Queensland narrow-gauge network. </p> <p>The rail operator said there was only a "limited number" of suppliers to look at after deciding to adopt a third party operator model at the terminal. </p> <p>"We operate our own rail terminals in all our terminals, and in suburban locations. There were not many potential operators who could have reacted in the timeframe given," Mr Scheuber said. </p> <p>P&#38O Ports managing director Tim Blood said its intermodal strategy was based on shuttle train operations extending the working capacity of its container terminals, rather than entry into domestic interstate rail. </p> <p>"If we are not moving 40% of boxes out of ports by rail, they will become unworkable," Mr Blood said. </p> <p>He suggested there might be some terminals where domestic and international traffic would co-exist and where P&#38O would have a domestic role. </p> <p>He said that each major port would require more than one terminal. </p> <p>"In Melbourne, we are working on the basis that there will be three. Sydney is more complicated but there is now considerable planning work going on with locations in natural catchments close to rail paths at ports," Mr Blood said.</p> <p>The legal dispute was sparked in 2003, when QR, which owns the terminal land, moved to terminate Pacific National’s lease to develop the facility with more space for non-Pacific National and QR traffic. </p> <p>Pacific National challenged the cancellation in the Federal Court, claiming that its predecessor, National Rail, had provided most of the investment, while QR said the facility was under-utilised. </p> <br />