Australia – Land of Opportunity

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Written by Nigel Wordsworth for the rail engineer

Readers who have recently browsed through the Appointments pages of our sister publication RailStaff, the online job-board RailwayPeople.com, or even the back pages of this magazine, will have noticed a number of advertisements from Australian railway companies seeking British railway engineers.

Everyone knows that British engineers are amongst the best in the world, but why suddenly are they in such demand on the other side of the world?

The rail engineer has been to find out…

History of confusion

Australia is a big place, but with only a few centres of population. They started as British colonies, so the first instructions were to ensue that all railways were built to the British standard gauge of 4’ 8½” (or 1435 new-fangled millimetres).

However, politics and an Irish engineer intervened, so by the time that the various colonial networks started to take shape they were a mixture of gauges.

Railways in Victoria and South Australia were built to Irish Broad Gauge (5’ 3” or 1600mm) while New South Wales, after opening one line in Broad Gauge in 1855, then built the rest of their network in Standard Gauge.

Queensland decided to use Narrow (Cape) Gauge of 3’ 6” (1067mm) for their network, as did Western Australia around Perth. Tasmania built one line in Broad Gauge, then standardised on Narrow Gauge.

All this wasn’t a problem while the individual networks didn’t connect. However, once the railways started to grow, and freight movements became important, this became more of a problem.

Various reports suggested standardising the network, but to no avail. By the outbreak of World War II there were 12 breaks of gauge on the network, and some interesting multi-gauge trackwork in several yards.

Today, the individual city metro services still retain their original gauges. However, the long-distance inter-state routes, used primarily for freight and tourist passenger trains, are now all standard gauge.

So are the privately-owned, heavy-haul railways built by the iron ore mines in the Pilbara in Western Australia.

The other heavy freight routes, out of the coal mines in Queensland and New South Wales, use the regular state-owned lines. Perhaps the best way to break down current activity is by state.

Queensland

Passenger services are run by the state-owned Queensland Rail. The Narrow Gauge network covers 7000 kilometres and the company employs 7000 people to run 260,000 scheduled services a year.

Annual revenue is over A$1.8 billion (£1.1 billion) and the network services the main population centres around Brisbane as well as reaching as far north as Cairns along the coast.

The Brisbane-Cairns service is operated by a diesel-powered Tilt Train built by Downer Rail. The 1050 mile service runs twice weekly and takes 23 hours 55 minutes. A more leisurely service, The Sunlander, is loco hauled and takes 31 hours, three times a week.

The more conventional suburban and short-haul services are run by a fleet of around 150 EMUs. Two new classes are currently being built by Downer / Bombardier.

Freight operations were split from passenger services in 2009, with the formation of QRNational. This is the largest rail freight operation in Australia, in terms of weight hauled, with 9,000 employees, 746 locomotives and 16,330 wagons hauling 243 million tonnes each year.

QRNational also operates and maintains 2,300km of largely dedicated and purpose built, heavy haul, narrow-gauge rail infrastructure, known as the Central Queensland Coal Network (CQCN).

The Queensland Government announced plans to float Queensland Rail on the stock market this month, after a A$5.1 billion (£3.1 billion) bid for the coal-freight network by a consortium of coal companies fell through.

New South Wales

Passenger services are operated by Rail Corporation New South Wales (RailCorp) under two brands – CityRail for metropolitan services and CountryLink for long-distance services.

RailCorp employs 15,000 people and owns and operates the 1595 kilometre standard gauge Sydney area rail network as well as providing access to that network for freight operators.

Passenger stock is a mixture of electric and diesel-powered multiple units. The latest EMUs are the A sets (or Waratah – named after the flower which is the emblem of New South Wales) being built by a joint venture between Downer Rail and Hitachi.

The order for 626 carriages was the largest passenger rolling stock order in Australia’s history. Deliveries commenced in July 2011 and will run through until 2014.

Also currently in production are the H sets (or OSCAR – Outer Suburban Car). 122 carriages have already been delivered by United Group Rail and a second order for 74 cars in underway.

British visitors will recognise CountryLink’s XPT as it is based on the British Rail High Speed Train! The power cars are shorter, with derated diesel engines, and the train has Budd carriages as the Mark 3s were thought to be unsuitable for Australia’s conditions. But the shape is very similar.

WaratahGarethEdwards
NSW - A-set Waratah EMU at Central Station. Photo: Gareth Edwards.

Victoria

Melbourne’s broad gauge suburban network is operated by the franchise Metro Trains Melbourne, a joint venture of MTR Corporation (Hong Kong), John Holland and United Group Rail. It is currently two years into an eight year franchise contract. 331 trains are operated over 830 kilometres of track and 211 stations.

Rolling stock is primarily EMUs which in 2009 were taken over from predecessor Connex, although an order for a second tranche of 38 six-car Alstom X’Trapolis units were in the process of being delivered.

The first 19 were built in Italy, the balance assembled at United Group’s Ballarat plant to meet the requirement for a 40% local content.

In contrast, the diesel-powered trains in regional Victoria are operated by V/Line, which is owned by the state government.

It operates 82 railway stations and also operates a large number of coach services. The fleet is a mixture of DMUs and locomotive-hauled trains, the most recent being Bombardier’s VLocity 160 DMUs that were first delivered in 2005.

V/Line also maintains all the non-urban lines, including those that are freight-only, but not including the interstate main lines.

South Australia

There is a small broad-gauge metro system around Adelaide operated by Adelaide Metro. It is the only one of Australia’s suburban rail networks that operates solely on DMUs, although there are plans to electrify it from 2013.

The 600km of the narrow-gauge Eyre Peninsular Railway is total separated from the rest of Australia’s railways. It carries freight only, mainly gypsum, salt and grain.

Western Australia

Perth’s urban services are operated by Transperth Trains, a division of the Public Transport Authority of Western Australia. The 173km system consists of five lines and 69 stations and is operated by a fleet of 94 EMUs.

Services outside of Perth are operated by another Public Transport Division, Transwa, which links 275 stations within Western Australia.

There is also a standard gauge line from the port of Esperance to Leonora, which crosses the main interstate railway at Kalgoorlie.

The Pilbara region, on the northern coast of Western Australia, is the centre of the country’s iron ore mining. Privately-owned heavy-haul railways, all standard gauge and with axle loads as high as 40 tonnes, run inland from the ports of Dampier, Cape Lambert and Port Headland.

The newest such railway, opened in 2008 by Fortescue, is 260 kilometres long and regularly carries 220-wagon trains up to 2.5 kilometres long and with a gross weight of 35,200 tonnes at a 40 tonne axleload.

Northern Territory

Darwin has no suburban rail network at all. In fact there is only one railway in the whole territory, and that is one end of the standard gauge interstate railway from Adelaide.

Interstate railways

The capital cities of all six states are linked by standard gauge main lines that are used for both passenger and freight services. There is a costal route from Brisbane down through Sydney and then on to Melbourne. Another line goes from Melbourne through Adelaide to Perth.

And partway between Adelaide and Perth, at Tarcoola, a track splits off north through Alice Springs to Darwin.

Most of this network is owned by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), although Tarcoola to Darwin is owned/leased by AustralAsia Rail Corporation.

In Western Australia the operator is another non-profit government organisation WestNet Rail. Some other stretches are owned by the local operators.

The Great Southern Railway, which is owned by Serco Asia Pacific, operates three named passenger trains, The Indian Pacific (Sydney-Adelaide-Perth), The Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin) and The Overland (Melbourne-Adelaide).

Freight operations

Freight traffic falls into two categories. There are dedicated services, such as those on the private iron-ore railways in Pilbara or the coal trains running in Queensland and New South Wales. There are also long-distance general freight trains which tend to run on the interstate main lines.

Pacific National is one of the largest private freight operations. With over 600 locomotives and 14,000 wagons, it operates on the interstate main lines and also rural lines in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania (which has a small freight-only narrow-gauge system).

QRNational also operates in other states than Queensland. It took over that part of the Australian Railroad Group which runs in Western Australia and South Australia, the balance, including the line up to Darwin, is owned by Genesee & Wyoming.

Elsewhere, a subsidiary of Freightliner operates in New South Wales, and there are half a dozen other significant freight operators.

QR National freight
QR National coal train (Dawson Mine). Photo: QR National.

Current developments

With such a complex railway system, there is always something happening. New projects are being run at both national and state levels. These include some big-money projects, several of which are on hold pending federal government funding, and some more conventional ones.

Queensland projects

The Queensland government is looking at expanding the Acacia Ridge freight terminal so that it can handle 1500 metre long trains and have a capacity of 750,000 containers a year. Five new intermodal freight terminals are also on the shopping list.

Work is already underway to extend the region’s rail network from Darra to Richlands. The second phase, taking the line out to Springfields, should be complete by 2013 for a total cost of A$646 million.

The Gold Coast Rapid Transit System is a new tram network being built over 13 km from Griffin University to Broadbeach. This first phase will include 16 stations and is expected to be finished by 2014.

The trams will be Bombardier’s Flexity 2 – longer versions of the ones recently launched in Blackpool (The Rail Engineer issue 84, October 2011). Work started in 2010 and the total project has a budget of just under A$1 billion.

Construction will start in 2012 on a rail link from the Bowen Basin coal region to a new export terminal at Gladstone.

The A$900 million project includes construction of a 15km balloon loop near Gladstone, upgrades to sections of the North Coast Line, the Moura System and the Bauhinia branch line as well as dualling sections of the Blackwater System. First trains should run on the new link in 2014.

The Environmental Impact Statement has been released for an A$8 billion project to move 120,000 people in the two-hour morning peak. 18km of track, 10km of it in tunnels, and six new stations are included in the project which will run from Salisbury to Bowen Hills.

QR National is laying railway track on the Northern Missing Link in Central Queensland as part of the A$1.1 billion Goonyella to Abbot Point (GAP) expansion project.

The A$385 million Northern Missing Link rail corridor is the cornerstone of the GAP expansion, which is one of the largest rail infrastructure projects in Queensland’s 145-year rail history.

The GAP project includes 69 kilometres of new track across the ‘Missing Link’ to join the existing Goonyella and Newlands systems as well as the expansion and upgrading of existing track and 15 new bridges along the Newlands rail system, including associated rail unloading infrastructure at the Abbot Point Coal Terminal.

New South Wales projects

ARTC will duplicate existing track to remove a bottleneck caused by a steep grade over the Liverpool Ranges as part of an A$284 million upgrade to the Main Northern line. Coal exports through the Port of Newcastle are expected to increase from the current 6 million tonnes a year to about 50 million tonnes by 2020.

An A$8 billion project to provide 23km of new track between the Sydney suburbs of Epping and Rouse Hill, which has been postponed once before, is now back on the agenda. Concept designs are being prepared and AUS314 million allocated from this year’s budget for preliminary work and land purchase.

Also in Sydney, a 5.6 km extension to the exiting light rail network, from Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill, will be built along the disused Rozelle goods line corridor.

The new route will include nine new stops and cost around A$70 million. And in 2010 the NSW government invited tenders for a detailed study into a A$500 million light rail link to serve Sydney’s central business district.

RailCorp is installing a digital communications system on its electrified network. UGL won the A$255 millin contract n December 2009. Meanwhile, Alstom is installing Automatic Train Protection (ATP) on the CityRail network in a A$65 million contract with the first 50 trains due to be in service in 2013.

Victoria projects

The 50km Western Rail Link in Melbourne, complete with 2 new stations, has been estimated to cost A$4.3 billion. It will be dual track with a river crossing and will improve reliability across the network.

Western Australia

Perth is developing plans to build a light rail network with three routes, out from the central business district, to Mirrabooka and Balga, to the University of Western Australia via the QEII hospital complex, and to Curtin University via Victoria Park.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore is spending money on its private railway and port facility in the Pilbara. Ansaldo STS has been given an A$467 million contract over 5 years to install railway signalling, train control and communications systems.

At the same time Abigroup, in a JV with Geraldton Linehaul, has an A$83 million contract for the construction of rail formation earthworks.

High Speed Rail

The first of two studies into proposals for a high speed line between Brisbane and Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne was published on 4 August by AECOM Australia. It is looking at a double-track electrified line limited to 350 kph (200kph in urban areas).

Journey times from Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane would be around 3 hours. A more detailed analysis will be ready by mid-2012 and the budget is estimated to be in the range of AUS£61-108 billion

And more…

Then of course there is the usual mix of railway engineering. In NSW, O’Donnell Griffin is installing track balises as part of an 11 month project by RailCorp to introduce Automatic Train Protection (ATP) across its Network.

Siemens is supplying nine narrow gauge 25kV heavy haul class 7100 locomotives to Pacific National for their coal contracts in Queensland.

WestNet Rail is resleepering 370 kilometres of narrow gauge track north of Albany in Western Australia and at the same time replacing 185 kilometres of rail on the Eastern Goldfields Railway at a cost of A$95 million.

The list is nearly endless. Australia has a busy programme, so look out for more reports from “down under.”

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