A century-old pipedream took a giant leap towards reality last year, when the Federal Government committed more than $9 billion to the Inland Rail project to link Brisbane and Melbourne ports with a fast, heavy gauge freight line.
Farmers and freighters pushed hard in the lead up to the federal budget for government to fund it.
They shone a spotlight on the economic uplift from new freight efficiencies and export opportunities, as well as the strategic benefit of investing in rail freight capacity to reduce the pressure off the increasingly inadequate road freight network.
A common-gauge railway to the deepwater export terminals in Brisbane, Melbourne and in NSW offers clear benefits to farmers, regional industry and clogged metropolitan transport systems in a centralised east coast freight market.
But the initial wave of support has fragmented into local concerns, centering on the rail route and the selection process, community consultation, and potential impacts to farmland as well as its owners.
Nevertheless, the ambitious project remains our best, and perhaps only, chance of achieving a goal that has been with us since Federation.
So why have local issues overcome the big picture potential of the Inland Rail?
Typically, rail projects get funded to service an obvious need - like a new mine.
“Modern rail projects are almost always built with a specific customer in mind,” explained independent rail consultant and analyst Max Michel.
“Freight pretty much has to be promised to the project before it goes ahead.
“The obvious need for new rail capacity saw that conundrum overridden in the Inland Rail,” Mr Michel said.
Inland Rail is expected to create its own demand, spurring new infrastructure investment.
It could generate intermodal freight hubs, rail sidings, container freight facilities and, as falling costs make new export opportunities viable, even big exporters building trunk railways or trucking routes.
The Inland Rail will enable trains to carry double stacked containers, reducing freight costs and making new export opportunities for non-bulk niche produce such as grains, horticulture and red meat.
While there is optimism in the bush about the Inland Rail’s potential, no one is missing what they do not already have. There remains a range of unanswered questions clouding the issue, including concerns over the potential privatisation of parts of the project and cost blowouts.
Ups and downs for fast, heavy freight
As the Inland Rail chugs along with plans for completion by 2025, prominent hotspots have emerged with angry farmers in Coonamble, NSW and on the Darling Downs, Queensland.
But the whistle is also sounding on several other significant issues.
Australian Logistics Council chief executive Michael Kilgariff is a strong supporter of Inland Rail, including in Victoria, which can be forgotten in the debate.
Mr Kilgariff said the Inland Rail would “absolutely” benefit the state’s producers with faster, cheaper links between port, Albury and interstate.
But the Victorian government needs to select a location for the Western Interstate Freight Terminal before the rail route to port can be set.
Mr Kilgariff said expectations of new freight hubs for local communities across the eastern states may need revision.
“The aim of Inland Rail is fast and efficient freight. It won’t call into every country town. Private industry is free to support new development, but government funding will have to fit with the overall objective,” he said.
NSW Farmers policy director Robert Hardie said the major issue was route selection.
Farmers are worried about their land, and the confusion has made it “very difficult for above rail operators to consider how they can invest in new infrastructure,” he said.
But Mr Hardie supports the project, and the potential to lower freight rates.
“Farmers are price takers, and 30 to 40 per cent of their costs go to transportation,” he said.
“It could lower freight costs and drive competition for NSW farmers, who are farther from port than anywhere else in Australia.”
Among several issues in Queensland is the missing rail link from Brisbane’s Acacia Ridge freight hub to port.
If the Inland Rail is built without an export connection, northern growers could be stuck without options, while southern growers tap the Qld feedlot market for low quality feed grain.
Inland Rail in Fairfax Ag spotlight
In the coming weeks our masthead will cover a wide range of issues impacting Inland Rail and the regional freight issues it is designed to address.
We campaigned for the Federal Government to back the ambitious project in last year’s budget. Here is why.
The Inland Rail can reduce road traffic, replacing the trucks needed to carry consumer and agricultural goods to east coast ports. It will also address freight rail bottlenecks in the current Brisbane to Melbourne route by bypassing Sydney’s congested network.
It can reduce reduce freight inefficiencies which can cost grain growers more than $50 a tonne and create competition across the entire east coast freight market.
