1. Australian Freight Railways for a New Century
Philip Laird
Max Michell
Alex Stoney
Gabriella Adorni-Braccesi

2. Australian freight railways start a new Century with a mixed legacy.
Big changes to ownership of rail assets and operations over the last 10 years.
Rail has increased, assisted by coal and iron ore, but gone backwards in general freight market share.
Road has increased general freight market share.
Road dominates interstate land general freight except on the corridor to Perth

3. Australian Land Freight Tasks Billion tonne kilometres
Rail
Coal + iron ore ± 111
Interstate ±
Total ± 158
Road
B-Doubles
Road trains
Artic. trucks
Interstate ± ±
Total

4. The Australian rail network
Some 35,690 route kilometers
16,303 km of standard gauge (1435 mm)
15,063 km of narrow gauge (1067 mm)
4028 km of broad gauge (1600 mm)
296 km of dual gauge
National Network comprises some 8700 km between Cairns and Perth
Managed by ARTC (6000 km), QR (1800 km),
Westnet (700 km) and RailCorp (200 km)

5. Major corridor alignment overview
Section of Track Length Steep Tight
km Grades Curves
km km
East West Corridor Perth - Melbourne
Perth - Adelaide
Adelaide - Melb
Total
Percentage of corridor % %
North South Corridor Melb - Brisbane
Melb - Glenlee
Strathfield - Bne
Total
Percentage % 29%

6. “..many curves tighter than 800 m ..”
Yumbunga NSW Photo Credit GRMS Media

7. Rail performance -best practice
The iron ore railways in the Pilbara
Export coal in Central Queensland and Hunter Valley
Adelaide - Perth general freight trains

8. Severely constrained rail performance
Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane - poor track condition, steam age alignments [and some signalling] severely impact on transit times and make the running of a rail operation almost non viable. Rating F.
Infrastructure Report Card 2001
Modal shares of about 11% between Melbourne and Sydney, 19% between Sydney and Brisbane and 21% between Melbourne and Brisbane

9. The ARTC North - South programme 2005-09
The billion dollar plus ARTC upgrade plan for the Melbourne – Sydney – Brisbane route will:
Reduce Mel-Syd time from 13.5 hrs to 10.5 hrs
Reduce Syd-Bne time from 19.5 hrs to 15.5 hrs
Reduce Mel-Bne time from 35.5 hrs to 27.0 hrs
TARGET: Increase market share
now 10% of 11 mtpa (M-S), 19% of 7 mtpa (S-B)
and 21% of 5 mtpa (M-B).
Plan is for compound growth around 8%
Compared to underlying market growth of around 3.5%

10. North-South corridor deviation options
Why bother?
reduce the point to point distances
provide less curvature/easier grades
allow shorter transit times
reduce train and track operating cost
lower external costs for freight

11. Major Alignment Options
Melbourne – Sydney Route Options:
Campbelltown to Mittagong
Goulburn to Yass
Yass to Cootamundra
Combined length 164 km would replace
219 km of existing track on “steam age” alignment.
For each ‘standard’ (2600 tonne) freight train
time saving of 84 minutes and
fuel saving of over 1500 litres of diesel.

12. Wentworth Deviation

13. Centennial deviation T-Line

14. Bowning -Cootamundra

15. Sydney - Newcastle Issue
Key issue is increasing capacity for freight trains across more of the day in among a reasonably busy passenger service
(passenger services have been expanded over the last 30 years without any track capacity expansion or enhancement)

16. Major Alignment Options
NSW North Coast
Karuah Valley option between Hexham and Stroud Road
existing route has 90.8 km of poor alignment.
new route would be 67.2 km (save 23.6 km)
existing route requires trains to traverse the equivalent of 18.5 complete circles of curvature;
new route less than one circle of curvature

17. “…Stroud Rd the long way…”
Stroud Road NSW Photo Credit GRMS Media

18. Karuah Valley Route:
Train simulation (using SimTrain) indicates that for each ‘standard’ (2600 tonne) freight train (typically 34 each way / week)
42 minutes of time saved
650 litres of fuel saved
11500 KWh of brake work

19. Indicative savings for use of new track as compared with the existing track
To the train operator -
$960 per train movement;
To the track owner variable costs - $240 per train movement.
PLUS a 2.8 per cent increase in market share of Sydney Brisbane Freight.

20. With an estimated 8.3 million tonnes of Sydney - Brisbane freight in the year 2009
A reduction of about $4.6m in external costs.
The sum of these benefits (and there are others) for 2009 would be $7.7m.

21. Grandchester - Gowrie The existing route is about 107 km in length,
ruling gradient of 1 in 50,
poor horizontal alignment (37.6 circles).
The proposed new track is
67.5 km long,
ruling gradient 1 in 60,
ruling curvature of 1500 metres,
only 2.4 circles of curvature.

22. “…37.6 complete circles…”
Ballard Qld Photo Credit Mr John Hoyle

23. Trains take nearly three hours to traverse the existing route in one direction, but would only take about an hour to traverse the new route.
To the train operator - approx $1640 per return coal train movement; and,
To the track owner - variable costs $280 per return train movement.
Potential savings to the train operator and track owner from the new line
about $7.3 million per year.
plus significant reductions in ext. costs

24. CONCLUSIONS New alignments can save distance, time, costs
Advanced planning required now for improved alignments.
Increased use of rail will significantly reduce external (community) costs
Issue of road cost recovery remains very immature – needs to be fixed
Improved rail capacity, infrastructure and alignment will facilitate this.