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Thursday, May 1, 2014
Port Expansion without Maldon Dombarton is flawed
The new owners of Port Kembla have asked the NSW Department of Planning to approve expansion of its Outer Harbour to increase the volume of bulk cargo from 4.25 to 16 million tonnes per annum.
The Department's website
states that "All additional bulk cargo volumes would be transported by rail. "
That is an extra 11.75 million tonnes a year. Yet, only in February 2014, this Department agreed with quarry operator Boral that it could not find extra capacity on the South Coast rail line for just half a million tonnes of quarry products.
Approval was then given for the company to put extra heavy trucks on Mt Ousley and other roads.
In other words, our rail network is supposed to find space on for an extra ten or more million tonnes a year of bulk freight, when it cannot even find enough space for an extra half a million tonnes of freight on rail.
The current application to expand Port Kembla notes three options:
1. more modern freight trains,
2. making more use of the Unanderra to Moss Vale rail line,
3. the option of completing the Maldon Dombarton rail link
However, more modern freight trains will not generate extra paths, and the line to Moss Vale has steep grades and extra distance to Sydney. This is a recipe for more loads on roads.
When earlier Port expansion was under review in 2010, the RTA stated that if the predicted rail mode share could not be achieved, there would be likely, "… unacceptable impacts to road safety and traffic efficiency as well as environmental issues such as amenity, noise and air quality."
The only realistic option is to complete the Maldon Dombarton rail link.
Work was started on this 35 km rail link in 1983 by the Wran Government and stopped in 1988, Since then, there are now a lot more freight and passenger trains on the line. At an expected cost of about $650 million, it is less than the $960 million for the South Sydney Freight Line opened last year.
There is the question of who pays to complete the new link: the State Government that started it, the Federal government who have sponsored ongoing to date studies and or the private sector. Completion of the line, one third built already, is much more likely to proceed if the State Government was to support the new railway.
Given the $790 million paid for the lease of Port Kembla and matching the $340 million committed from the NSW Government to Newcastle for the lease of their port, there is scope for some NSW funding.
Newcastle: the wrong way
In June 1984, the late Premier Wran officially opened rail electrification to Newcastle. This was followed by electrification to Wollongong in February 1986.
The O'Farrell Government had firm plans to use the proceeds of the Newcastle long term port lease to truncate the Newcastle railway line at Wickham, and to replace it by light rail.
WTC suggests that the Baird Government would do a lot better to instead use the funds to improve the Broadmeadow to Wyong track. One simple strategy would be to revert to the alignment in place in the late 19 th century. As part of a policy to ease the ruling grade facing steam trains, a number of deviations were built. Three of them from Morisset via Dora Creek to Fassifern involved nearly 3 km of additional length and many tight radius curves.
The 2012 State Infrastructure Strategy urged cutting back Sydney Newcastle train times to two hours. In 1948, the fastest train took 2hrs 18 minutes, now the fastest takes 2hrs 36 minutes, with the average speed falling to 65 km/h. By way of contrast, Regional Fast Rail in Victoria has slashed times, with the fastest Melbourne to Bendigo train averaging 102 km/h, with even faster trains due on completion by 2015 of the Regional Rail Link project.
A second option for the Baird Government is to share the proceeds of the Newcastle and Port Kembla leases equally - instead of $340m + $100m: $220m for each of Newcastle and Wollongong.
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