First meeting of Inland Railway Implementation Group heralds construction, Truss says
Another milestone for the Queensland-Victoria rail link project has been marked with the first meeting of the newly formed Inland Railway Implementation Group in Canberra.
Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss, who formed the group in late November, told the Inland Rail Symposium in Moree that the first meeting of the Inland Railway Implementation Group is a significant precursor to construction.
“The Implementation Group is also considering proposals for early works by the Australian Rail Track Corporation on the project,” Truss says.
“I will consider these proposals with a view to construction activities starting later this year.
“The Melbourne-to-Brisbane Inland Rail is the government’s priority new rail freight project, as well as one of Australia’s most important and ambitious long-term infrastructure projects.”
Chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister John Anderson, the group began focusing on the detailed alignment of the new track, options for staging the project and costs.
It also consists of Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development Secretary Mike Mrdak, Australian Rail Track Corporation CEO John Fullerton, and representatives of the Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian governments.
Australasian Rail Association (ARA) CEO Bryan Nye emphasised the transport and logistics gains the project promises.
“Currently, rail freight is on an uneven playing field when compared to road freight with limited track infrastructure, especially along the east coast, reducing its competitiveness,” he says.
“Having said that, even with this limitation, rail freight is still operating at capacity in terms of the tonnages it carries, moving a whopping 930 million tonnes of freight in the past year alone.
“The opening of the inland rail will open up the Melbourne to Brisbane network taking seven hours off transit between the two cities; removing thousands of trucks from the Pacific, Newell and Hume highways, easing the Sydney bottleneck and boosting regional development along the entire 1,700km route.”
Truss insists the project will be an economic winner for rural areas along its route, a point the ARA is keen to highlight.
“Intermodal hubs created along the Inland Rail route will require specialised skill sets therefore creating new jobs, as well as provide opportunities for regional communities to link up with more efficient export supply chains, profiting from inland rail’s benefits of scale,” Nye says.
“It will also greatly benefit the agriculture industry by providing a direct link between the Port of Brisbane and Port of Melbourne, meaning agricultural products in regional NSW will no longer need to go through the congested Sydney network to be exported.