Article: No concerns over coal route

[ozbob]

From the Queensland Times 20th December 2012 page 6

No concerns over coal route

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

20th December 2012

More coal trucks on the roads???

Greetings,

Exposed by Queensland Times today, plans to add hundreds of coal hauling B double trucks to the road network.  NOT ACCEPTABLE, will only worsen trauma, road damage, congestion and environmental impacts.

Well done Queensland Times on exposing this outrage.  From the Queensland Times 20th December 2012 page 6


http://backontrack.org/docs/qt/qt_20dec12_p6.jpg

I bet the public has plenty of concerns.  Madness ...

Enjoy your Christmas ...

Cheers
Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

[colinw]

Coal hauling B-doubles, from Ebenezer, which has a perfectly good branch line and loading loop that only opened just under 23 years ago (February 1990)?  Are they mad?

Why propose road haulage from a site that has its own branch line?

[somebody]

Coal hauling B-doubles, from Ebenezer, which has a perfectly good branch line and loading loop that only opened just under 23 years ago (February 1990)?  Are they mad?

Why propose road haulage from a site that has its own branch line?

Isn't there a nearby mine that does precisely that?

[ozbob]

Coal is hauled already regularly from Ebenezer AFAIAA.

Running B troubles is madness.  There is plenty of rail capacity east of Grandchester ... 

[ozbob]

From the Couriermail click here!

Coal dust problem set to increase in Brisbane and Ipswich suburbs as OGL Resources re-commissions Ebenezer mine


http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/12/20/1226541/448477-ogl-resources-proposed-coal-transport-route.jpg

Coal dust problem set to increase in Brisbane and Ipswich suburbs as OGL Resources re-commissions Ebenezer mine

    by: Tuck Thompson
    From: The Courier-Mail
    December 21, 2012 12:00AM

ONE-third of the coal transported from Darling Downs mines to the Port of Brisbane may miss out on a new coal dust mitigation program trumpeted by the Queensland Resources Council.

The peak mining industry association last week announced plans to suppress dust emissions on coal train wagons using the urban rail corridor by a process called veneering, but The Courier-Mail understands two of three miners concerned have not committed to the plan.

And the urban coal dust problem looks set to expand across the city, with plans by a Malaysian-based miner OGL Resources to truck 1.5 million tonnes of coal from a mine near Ipswich to Pinkenba, where a second portside coal stockpile would be built.

The trucks would use the Ipswich, Logan and Gateway motorways to reach Pinkenba, exposing more suburbs in Ipswich and Brisbane to coal dust.

QRC last week announced a dust mitigation program using veneering, a process that coats train wagons with a sticky polymer that can reduce dust emissions by between 50 and 90 per cent.

Health experts have conducted research that shows exposure to coal dust can cause significant health problems.

While New Hope Coal, which transports 6 million tonnes of coal to the port, has announced it will veneer coal wagons from late March, The Courier-Mail understands Yancoal and Peabody Energy are uncommitted. Both declined to discuss the issue with The Courier-Mail. They each transport 1.4 million tonnes of coal along the West Moreton Line.

QRC chief executive Michael Roche said he was confident all miners would be veneering their coal by the end of next year.

Although New Hope has committed to veneering coal wagons, its subsidiary Queensland Bulk Handling, which leases the port facility, has not agreed to veneer its 900,000-tonne stockpile.

Exclusive electron microscope testing conducted by the University of Queensland for The Courier-Mail revealed coal residue made up as much as 40 per cent of dust deposits in homes near the stockpile and along the urban rail corridor.

OGL Resources has re-commissioned a mine in Ebenezer, southwest of Ipswich, and plans to start trucking coal to Pinkenba next year.

Managing director Allan Fidock assured residents the trucks carting the coal would be completely covered.

But the plan has drawn fire from residents who say roads are already clogged with industrial vehicles and the air is polluted enough.

OGL said it had conducted an independent feasibility study into the route which found "no issues of concern".

[ozbob]

Sent to Ipswich Mayor and my local councillor (Cr Paul Tully)

21st December 2012

Plans for road transport of coal OGL Resources

Dear Mayor,

I wish to put in strong objections against OGL Resources being allowed to use road transport of coal from Ebenezer.

Hundreds of B double trucks on the road network through Ipswich and Brisbane is just going to cause more congestion, increased road trauma, more environmental issues and massive damage to the roads.

There is a rail head at Ebenezer, and this can be used.  There are a number of coal trains daily from that rail head already.  A coal train is equivalent to around 40-50 B Double trucks.  Just imagine the chaos that is going to occur if the proposed road transport of coal is allowed.

This will be a disaster for Ipswich and Brisbane if permitted.

Best wishes
Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

[ozbob]

Sent to all outlets:

21st December 2012

Re: More coal trucks on the roads???

Greetings,

It gets worse.  Couriermail,
Coal dust problem set to increase in Brisbane and Ipswich suburbs as OGL Resources re-commissions Ebenezer mine --> http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/coal-dust-problem-set-to-increase-in-brisbane-and-ipswich-suburbs-as-ogl-resources-re-commissions-ebenezer-mine/story-e6freoof-1226541452257

Hundreds of B double trucks on the road network through Ipswich and Brisbane is just going to cause more congestion, increased road trauma, more environmental issues and massive damage to the roads.

There is a rail head at Ebenezer, and this can be used.  There are a number of coal trains daily from that rail head already.  A coal train is equivalent to around 40-50 B Double trucks.  Just imagine the chaos that is going to occur if the proposed road transport of coal is allowed.

This will be a disaster for Ipswich and Brisbane if permitted.

Best wishes
Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

Sent to all outlets:

20th December 2012

More coal trucks on the roads???

Greetings,

Exposed by Queensland Times today, plans to add hundreds of coal hauling B double trucks to the road network.  NOT ACCEPTABLE, will only worsen trauma, road damage, congestion and environmental impacts.

Well done Queensland Times on exposing this outrage.  From the Queensland Times 20th December 2012 page 6


http://backontrack.org/docs/qt/qt_20dec12_p6.jpg

I bet the public has plenty of concerns.  Madness ...

Enjoy your Christmas ...

Cheers
Robert

Robert Dow
Administration
admin@backontrack.org
RAIL Back On Track http://backontrack.org

[ozbob]

An interesting letter to the editor Couriermail 21st December 2012 page 64

Rail pain tracked to past

[#Metro]

There are copies of queensland planner at UQ architecture and music library. Call number ht 169.a8 p 5

[colinw]

An interesting letter to the editor Couriermail 21st December 2012 page 64

Rail pain tracked to past

What are they smoking?  The Cleveland corridor has carried freight since the 19th century!

Relevant opening dates:

Albert to Cleveland Central: 1 Oct 1889
Cannon Hill to Abbatoirs: 1913
Murarrie to Gibson Island: 1926 (A portion of which was Brisbane's first electrified line, by the way)
Gibson Island branch extended to Austral Pacific Fertilizer Works: 1929
Lindum (Lytton Junction) to Lytton Oil Refinery: 1965
Lytton Junction to Fisherman Islands: 15 Nov 1980
Dual gauge freight line: 1993

What it boils down to is a bunch of people have moved in near what has been a passenger & freight rail corridor for 123 years now, and have gone "we don't like the twaaains, please spend billions of taxpayers dollars for the sake of our peace and quiet".

Colinw says: "go and get knotted, and next time evaluate the neighbourhood properly before buying a property".

I'd like to phrase it more strongly, but would probably get myself a warning for doing so.

Of course, we could roll back the clock to the 1950s and run lots of nice smoky PB15s burning West Moreton coal past their houses.  I'll go get my camera.

[huddo45]

An interesting letter to the editor Couriermail 21st December 2012 page 64

Rail pain tracked to past

What are they smoking?  The Cleveland corridor has carried freight since the 19th century!

Relevant opening dates:

Albert to Cleveland Central: 1 Oct 1889
Cannon Hill to Abbatoirs: 1913
Murarrie to Gibson Island: 1926 (A portion of which was Brisbane's first electrified line, by the way)
Gibson Island branch extended to Austral Pacific Fertilizer Works: 1929
Lindum (Lytton Junction) to Lytton Oil Refinery: 1965
Lytton Junction to Fisherman Islands: 15 Nov 1980
Dual gauge freight line: 1993

What it boils down to is a bunch of people have moved in near what has been a passenger & freight rail corridor for 123 years now, and have gone "we don't like the twaaains, please spend billions of taxpayers dollars for the sake of our peace and quiet".

Colinw says: "go and get knotted, and next time evaluate the neighbourhood properly before buying a property".

I'd like to phrase it more strongly, but would probably get myself a warning for doing so.

Of course, we could roll back the clock to the 1950s and run lots of nice smoky PB15s burning West Moreton coal past their houses.  I'll go get my camera.

According to the Courier-Mail, the plan is to truck all this coal to a new stockpile at Pinkenba, which makes the above rant somewhat irrelevant.

1.5 million tonnes of coal.

If each B Double can carry (say) 50 tonnes, that's 30,000 truckloads one way so that's 60,000 more trucks on the road.

If it goes by rail instead, I imagine the NIMBYs at Ascot will go birko.

How could the railway cope with all the extra trains through Normanby, Albion Eagle Junction?



.

[ozbob]

Rail is the only acceptable solution. It is also possible that road A doubles could be in the mix, OGL Resources are being very coy. 

A couple of coal trains a day is far more acceptable than the massive road truck movements.

Some how, I just don't think is going to happen as they plan  ..

[colinw]

An interesting letter to the editor Couriermail 21st December 2012 page 64

Rail pain tracked to past

What are they smoking?  The Cleveland corridor has carried freight since the 19th century!

Relevant opening dates:

Albert to Cleveland Central: 1 Oct 1889
Cannon Hill to Abbatoirs: 1913
Murarrie to Gibson Island: 1926 (A portion of which was Brisbane's first electrified line, by the way)
Gibson Island branch extended to Austral Pacific Fertilizer Works: 1929
Lindum (Lytton Junction) to Lytton Oil Refinery: 1965
Lytton Junction to Fisherman Islands: 15 Nov 1980
Dual gauge freight line: 1993

What it boils down to is a bunch of people have moved in near what has been a passenger & freight rail corridor for 123 years now, and have gone "we don't like the twaaains, please spend billions of taxpayers dollars for the sake of our peace and quiet".

Colinw says: "go and get knotted, and next time evaluate the neighbourhood properly before buying a property".

I'd like to phrase it more strongly, but would probably get myself a warning for doing so.

Of course, we could roll back the clock to the 1950s and run lots of nice smoky PB15s burning West Moreton coal past their houses.  I'll go get my camera.

According to the Courier-Mail, the plan is to truck all this coal to a new stockpile at Pinkenba, which makes the above rant somewhat irrelevant.

1.5 million tonnes of coal.

If each B Double can carry (say) 50 tonnes, that's 30,000 truckloads one way so that's 60,000 more trucks on the road.

If it goes by rail instead, I imagine the NIMBYs at Ascot will go birko.

How could the railway cope with all the extra trains through Normanby, Albion Eagle Junction?



.

Don't be daft!

What?  You are saying that because there is a high tonnage to carry, it has to go by road because the rail won't cope and the NIMBYs in Ascot won't like it?  What kind of perverted Queenslander logic is this?  Are we really going to use road freight between to locations equipped with rail balloon loops because it might annoy someone who moved in next to an operating rail line that has been there since the 1880s?

If you don't run 'em in peak there's plenty of track capacity to put them around via Exhibition. I might add that the Pinkeba line could use some traffic to secure its future.

If the day has come when people, even on this board, think running a gazillion trucks is a better solution than p%ssing of a couple of NIMBYs in Ascot then we're doomed.

FYI we are talking about a couple of trains a day, max.  The Doomben line used to receive far more than that in a day in the form of grain & oil trains, without the inner city system melting downs.  How quickly people forget.

If all else fails, run them at 3AM.  If anyone objects they can bite my a**.

[#Metro]

I am curious to know why a resources company would choose to truck its coal given the huge inefficiences and higher labour PLUS gateway tolling that this would involve.

Was the rail option not considered or considered too expensive or not possible?

[ozbob]

A proper unloading facility would have to be built at Pinkenba ... but that would be a lot more cost effective I would expect than the trucks.

Just wait till the first road coal truck wipes out a family ....   "why were the coal trucks allowed on the roads?"  "Why aren't we using the rail system?"

Cause, you are in Queensland dumb dillies ...

[HappyTrainGuy]

Normanby has plenty of capacity even with the current arrangment with multiple tracks offline.

Basically what bob said. There are no current rail unloading facilities for coal at Pinkenba. Then there would be transportation form the unloading site to the stockpile for shipping etc. I don't know the location of the mine they want to output more from to the loading facilities at Ebezner but if its away from the current loading facilities that too could play a part in the total cost.

So before jumping to conclusions it would be nice to know all the facts first.

[andrew.ling]

I work at Ebenezer from time to time and can say that one or two trains a day (when I've been there there's generally a train across the road from around 4 - 7pmish) is a lot easier to put up with than 10 - 20 B-Doubles a day. It's only a short 50 - 100 metre walk across to the railway too.

[SurfRail]

It should be absolutely elementary that they be required to build their own facility at Pinkenba and use the rail network.  Those are the only acceptable outcomes and they should be legally required to do so.

[#Metro]

State health and environmental officials said emissions were monitored and within accepted standards

This is not good enough.

It is not good enough to say 'coal dust is within acceptable standards'. Standards change as new information becomes available, and really is more a measure of how acceptable society is of a particular risk given the information known at the time (which may be poor). Which standard are we talking about? How was it determined? When was it last reviewed? On what basis did they decide that x level is OK?

What amount of smoking is 'within acceptable standards'? We have to remember that once Asbestos was considered perfectly safe - and the standard would have reflected that in the 1960s or wherever. And then the standard changed.

What should happen is that the premier should call up Queensland Institute of Medical Research at Herston or similar organisation such as one of the Asbestos research institutes and say 'Hey, we need to test this on mice or lung models of some kind to see what happens'.

[#Metro]

For example, and to demonstrate my point, did you know that long term exposure to microwave popcorn aromas can cause lung damage? Yes really. Only discovered in 2000...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchiolitis_obliterans#Popcorn_workers_lung

[huddo45]

Don't be daft!

What?  You are saying that because there is a high tonnage to carry, it has to go by road because the rail won't cope and the NIMBYs in Ascot won't like it?  What kind of perverted Queenslander logic is this?  Are we really going to use road freight between to locations equipped with rail balloon loops because it might annoy someone who moved in next to an operating rail line that has been there since the 1880s?

If you don't run 'em in peak there's plenty of track capacity to put them around via Exhibition. I might add that the Pinkeba line could use some traffic to secure its future.

If the day has come when people, even on this board, think running a gazillion trucks is a better solution than p%ssing of a couple of NIMBYs in Ascot then we're doomed.

FYI we are talking about a couple of trains a day, max.  The Doomben line used to receive far more than that in a day in the form of grain & oil trains, without the inner city system melting downs.  How quickly people forget.

If all else fails, run them at 3AM.  If anyone objects they can bite my a**.

I did work out the number of trucks, tens of thousands of them per year. No way I'd be in favour of that. Didn't realise that only a few trains a day would be needed. Many people in regional areas where coal is mined and stockpiled have concerns for their health and welfare. The idea of another man made mountain of coal, this time within 10 k's of the CBD of a capital city and close to houses is what I'd call daft.

Ed: quote fixed

[Golliwog]

State health and environmental officials said emissions were monitored and within accepted standards

This is not good enough.

It is not good enough to say 'coal dust is within acceptable standards'. Standards change as new information becomes available, and really is more a measure of how acceptable society is of a particular risk given the information known at the time (which may be poor). Which standard are we talking about? How was it determined? When was it last reviewed? On what basis did they decide that x level is OK?

What amount of smoking is 'within acceptable standards'? We have to remember that once Asbestos was considered perfectly safe - and the standard would have reflected that in the 1960s or wherever. And then the standard changed.

What should happen is that the premier should call up Queensland Institute of Medical Research at Herston or similar organisation such as one of the Asbestos research institutes and say 'Hey, we need to test this on mice or lung models of some kind to see what happens'.

I'd also point out that standards get revised the other way as well. The concrete code is revised with more accurate versions of equations ad limits as more is understood about how concrete behaves. The new engineering building almost completed at UQ has a big massive strong wall that they intend on applying massive loads to repeatedly to see how it behaves over the years (talking decades here) so that the part of the code that applies to high strength concrete can be revised to be more accurate.

What I'm getting at is there's no needs to go about scaremongering about what may or may not be a problem. I'll agree that proper use of the precautionary principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle) is important, but I don't think freaking out over coal dust is going to achieve much, particularly seeing as the impacts of coal dust are already known: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker%27s_pneumoconiosis