Article: Echuca to Toolamba line reopens

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Echuca to Toolamba line reopens

Echuca to Toolamba line reopens
by Rail Express — last modified Oct 09, 2013 02:38 PM
— filed under: Weekly Top Stories, Rail

The state government has reopened the Echuca to Toolamba rail line in Victoria, reconnecting the line with the Port of Melbourne.

The Echuca to Toolamba line offers an alternative route to V/Line's Bendigo to Southern Cross line, which is busy due to competing freight and passenger schedules.

Operator Qube Logistics will now run up to six trains to the Port of Melbourne along the reopened line each week.

Other exporters will also have access to the line, if they are looking to move freight from the Goulburn Valley and southern New South Wales into the port.

After falling into a state of disuse in 2007, the government partnered with SunRice to refurbish the line – a $7.1m project which saw work take place on 67km of track.

V/Line replaced 30,000 timber sleepers throughout the process.

Development along the line also included work at two level crossings and four pedestrian crossings.

Work is ongoing – and should be finished by the end of the year – to increase the height clearance along the line to allow for taller shipping containers, a development the government hopes will improve demand for the rail line.

Victoria's minister for public transport, Terry Mulder, said Echuca to Toolamba was the second country rail line that the government had reopened, and blamed the previous government for the line's decline into disuse.

"After the Coalition Government was elected in 2010, we worked with GrainCorp to reopen the Dimboola to Rainbow line in western Victoria.

"This proved successful in lowering graingrowers' costs, so when the opportunity arose to partner with SunRice in a $7.1m investment to reopen the 67km Echuca to Toolamba line through Tongala, Kyabram and Tongala, the Coalition Government quickly acted."

Mulder joined SunRice chairman Gerry Lawson at Toolamba to meet the first train bound for SunRice's Deniliquin Rice Mill to be loaded with export rice.

"More than 500,000 tonnes of export rice moved through the Port of Melbourne last financial year. It gives me a great sense of pride to see the first freight train on its way to be loaded with more than 1,000 tonnes of export rice," Mulder said.

"Smart, strategic investments like this will enable Victoria to maintain its position as the nation's largest food and fibre exporting state, with annual exports worth $9bn," he added.

[ozbob]

Toolamba–Echuca railway line  --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolamba%E2%80%93Echuca_railway_line

Good territory for the mighty R class!