Queensland's Surat Basin to the Port of Gladstone - Dual gauge?

[ozbob]

MEDIA RELEASE
The Hon Mark Vaile MP
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister for Transport and Regional Services
Leader of the Nationals

Queensland's Surat Basin to the Port of Gladstone.

The Surat Basin Railway consortium is about to carry out the detailed engineering and financial planning that is needed to build the line, after receiving an unconditional exclusive mandate from Queensland.

The Australian Government will provide up to $3.5 million to extend the planning work to consider the economic and financial viability of dual gauging the line. A dual gauge line would be able to handle huge standard gauge coal wagons as well as the smaller narrow gauge equipment used by Queensland Rail.

"Queensland's coal lines are struggling to keep up with the international demand for the state's coal. One of the reasons is that Queensland coal trains are narrow gauge: they run on rails that are 3 feet 6 inches apart," Mr Vaile said.

"The interstate rail system and the Hunter Valley coal line to the Port of Newcastle use standard gauge, where the rails are 4 feet 8? inches apart.

"As a result, a typical Queensland coal wagon can only carry 83.75 tonnes of coal. In contrast, a typical standard gauge coal wagon has a 30 tonne axle load and can carry 97 tonnes. A typical Queensland coal train has 122 wagons, so a standard gauge train of the same length would be able to haul an additional 1,600 tonnes of coal.

"My vision is that the Surat Basin Railway should be dual gauged so it can handle both standard gauge and narrow gauge trains. It would enable Queensland to reap the productivity gains of using standard gauge coal wagons. It could also be expected to result in lower coal freight rates, because it would give interstate train operators a fair chance to compete against QR for coal contracts.

"As a first step, the Australian Government will provide funding to the planning work so it can cover dual-gauging the line from Gladstone through to the planned Wandoan mine and then to Toowoomba. The dual gauge track could be extended later to the massive Felton deposit near Pittsworth.

"The funding is subject to an agreement that the Australian Government will have the option of becoming an equity partner in the development of the line upon the consortium reaching successful financial close. The Government will decide whether to participate after the planning work is completed and will only become involved if the line is covered by an open access regime.

"We are already in the process of investing $389 million to boost the capacity of the Hunter Valley coal line following our lease of the line from New South Wales in 2004. We are similarly interested in investing in new infrastructure in Queensland to improve the efficiency of its coal network," Mr Vaile said.

The Government's funding for the planning work is also contingent on each of the consortium partners making a matching contribution to the planning work and meeting key benchmarks.

The consortium partners are the Australian Transport and Energy Corridor, Industry Funds Management, Queensland Rail, Xstrata Coal and Anglo Coal.

URL: http://www.ministers.dotars.gov.au/mv/releases/2007/July/119MV_2007.htm