Rail Freight Expansion
We have many road transport issues that will continueto get worse and we need to move from Road Freight back to Rail Freight Transport. So why are we facing increasing road freight and we have capacity to use our rial lines?
The Wran Government saw a way to raise revenue by raising the charges for rail freight; as these prices were steadly rising those in the various industries invested in fleets of prime movers and took their freight off the rail and chose to use road transport. Rail transport ought to be more effecient than road transport and safer for the traveling public, but the governments since the Wran Government have continued this excess charge of rail transport, so that the decision to use road transport over rail transport continues, and will continue until someone says, “Enough is enough!”
I am calling that out and I will continue to agitate to get the the trucks off the major highways between our cities where ever there is an efficient rail alternative. Will you support me in this campaign by voting for me in collumn “T” on the Legislative Council ballot paper.
How it would work as I see it. Containers would be transported to their destinations via rail as happens now, when rail is used and available. Mixed heavy freight can be loaded on the trailer component of the semi-trailer and then put on a flat bed rail wagon and taken to the closest rail depot to the delivery area and off loaded. A local prime mover operator would then complete the delivery beyond the rail network.
Imagine a future where at our harbours freight being transported to and from a distribution area by rail; this would take the trucks off our suburban roads around our harbours. Port Botany is a place where we must get those huge trucks of the roads. Of course there will be a need for smaller trucks to carry some frieght to and from our harbours and there can be a size and weight limit on the vehicles doing this, and that would be up for some debate before the final position is agreed to.
The potential establishment of a Newcastle container import/export terminal can be slated as a rail only access location. After all there is a coal rail line near the area of the proposed terminal that could be expanded and linked to the proposed Newcastle Rail Bypass, that is currently under consideration. I recognise that the consideration has already taken more years than it ought to take; but that is normal for Newcastle as we have the incomplete highway 123 (Newcastle City Western Bypass) that was gazetted to be done in 1935 and yet sill not completed.