A new minerals mine is opening near the end of the Kulwin line, in the Mallee region of Victoria. Yet the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used? Particularly as this mine will be active till 2023.

A new minerals mine is opening near the end of the Kulwin line, in the Mallee region of Victoria. Yet the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used? Particularly as this mine will be active till 2023.

Have a look at the railway gauges between these two locations, Kulwin line Is broad gauge 1600 mm and the Hamilton Is on the Portland line that Is 1435 mm.
The use of two trains (one of each gauge) and transhipping the load at say Dunolly just won't happen due to costs, plus the minerals will still have to be recovered from the mine site via road truck and taken to any rail head. (It would be triple handling than)

A rail head a Hopetoun may work with minimal Investment

Welcome Lisa1 to Railpage, I see you are a beginner.

Ignore the previous poster, he is one of hundreds who post on this board but will not challenge his own thinking.

In fact, your comment is spot on. Why aren't they railing product from Kulwin to the Portland line?

The current disaster of a government at state level, the Australian Labor Party, in fact lied to the population of Victoria that they would enable exactly that.

And while they have tried to remove the evidence from websites they control, some they don't.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020831033853/www.linkingvictoria.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/transport.nsf/headingpagesdisplay/transport+projectsrail+gauge+standardisation?opendocument

http://web.archive.org/web/20050719183717/www.budget.vic.gov.au/domino/web_notes/budgets/budget01.nsf/77a4bf9f4e5005c64a2567600023b4a3/eebe1e842690f0ff4a256a4d0018c363?OpenDocument

In fact, according to the last link the lines would be converted to SG as follows:

North Western
North Geelong to Mildura and Yelta (to provide a standard gauge link between Mildura and Portland) (late 2002)
Ouyen to Pinnaroo (late 2002)
Dunolly to Korong Vale and Robinvale (late 2004)
Korong Vale to Kulwin (late 2004)

So once again, thanks for your welcome post. Please make more like it, and lift the standard of this board.

where exactly is the mine being built?

what direction is it from Kulwin?

would it make sense to truck to Ouyen or somewhere on that line because that railway line is in reasonable condition.
compared to Kulwin line.

because i live near the line and have followed the line from Sea Lake north to Kulwin and it is in very bad condition with baulks between Mittyack  and Kulwin.

it is only 30 kilometers to Ouyen from Kulwin and could in theory combined transport with Mildura freight to at least Dunolly.

Manangatang is not far to the east either and in better railway condition

The whole retarded broad gauge issue again.  


You have to wonder if the Kulwin line should not be closed and torn up.  Close the Mildura line at St. Arnaud or Birchip.  Extend Hopetoun line to intersect between Ouyen and Woomelang.  Standardize of couse.

Stage 2 Standardize the short leg to Birchip.  Standardise Gelong to the end of the Robinval line, Wherever that needs to terminate, Ultima or wherever.

Close little used lines down, And make used lines useful.

http://www.vline.com.au/pdf/rna/map.pdf

......the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used?.....

Road trucks to Hopetoun then rail to Hamilton on the standard gauge..........?

Riccardo, what happened to those plans??
I remember them when they first came out that Bracksy was doing what no Govt had done for 100 years. Standardising!!!
Was it the Blame Game between state and feds??
To then make matters worse they built RFR on non convertable Broad Gauge!!!!
The last lines for conversion in this plan were due for completion in 2005.
Talk about set rail back another 20 years!!

it will be loaded at Hopetoun and carted by rail to hamilton and the left overs after they refine it will be returned. all this will probly start to happen once iluka get there siding built next to the plant im hamilton

A new minerals mine is opening near the end of the Kulwin line, in the Mallee region of Victoria. Yet the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used? Particularly as this mine will be active till 2023.

Welcome to RP, the answers and many wild statements will be found using the search function.
In brief, the processing plant at Hamilton does not have rail facilities (ie rail siding). All mineral sands are trucked to Hamilton, at which they are processed, bagged, then containerised.
From Hamilton they are trucked to Portland, where their rail journey begins, to Melbourne Ports for overseas transhipment, possibly India or China.
It isn't economically viable at this stage to convert the Mildura line to SG, this has been argued to the end in various threads.
For me to quote exact figures would require many hours of re-reading threads, something that you can do for yourself if you would like to get up to speed. The basic's are that approx 90% of traffic on the Mildura line is one way traffic towards the Melbourne Ports, SG'ing the line would provide no viable economic advantage. There might be reasons for SG'ing at some point in the future (50+years, if a Broken Hill connection is made, but until that time, forget it)
Anyway, welcome , search using the keywords Mildura, Maryborough, authors, The Vinelander, PClark amougst some that have been most vocal.

A new minerals mine is opening near the end of the Kulwin line, in the Mallee region of Victoria. Yet the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used? Particularly as this mine will be active till 2023.

Welcome to RP, the answers and many wild statements will be found using the search function.
In brief, the processing plant at Hamilton does not have rail facilities (ie rail siding). All mineral sands are trucked to Hamilton, at which they are processed, bagged, then containerised.
From Hamilton they are trucked to Portland

Processed mineral sand Is stock piled and exported In bulk through the Port of Portland with overflow and small export orders railed to the Port of Melbourne by El Zorro on an as required basis.
[bigimg]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3432/3220667009_cf86b2571c_b.jpg[/bigimg]
The mineral sand storage facility at the wharf area at Portland, this facility Is compleat with conveyor belt ship loader.

Hi Lisa,
I suggest typing RFNR  (Regional Freight Network Review) into Google.
There you will find a 76 page document on what should/could happen to increase Freight Rail productivity in the Sate of Victoria.

Here are a few quotes i have grabbed from RFNR

"GrainCorp has indicated that the Kulwin to Sea Lake line could be truncated at Sea Lake.
Halfway along this section and underneath it is a major deposit of mineral sands that Iluka wants to mine.
This would involve removing a section of the railway line, mining the mineral sands seam and restoring the railway line at Iluka’s cost.  
RFNR supports Iluka’s request to gain access to the mineral sands deposit underneath the Kulwin line which is consistent with its bronze designation."

“The upgrading of the Quambatook to Robinvale line section will also be subject to Iluka agreement to transport mineral sands by rail from the Euston mines.
These sands could also be transported on other lines such as a standardised Mildura line."

"On commitment by Iluka of sufficient tonnages of mineral sands to their major separation plant at Hamilton standardisation of the north-west lines should be undertaken as required."

"Depending upon the source of the mineral sands, this could involve standardisation of the Mildura line and the two parallel grain lines to the east.  
In the case of upgrading and reopening the Maryborough to Ararat line on the basis of the mineral sands traffic, the upgrade should include the completion of the standard gauge ‘triangle’ at Ararat to facilitate direct train movements between Maroona and Maryborough without the need for costly shunting in Ararat yard.
The land for this has already been purchased."

A new minerals mine is opening near the end of the Kulwin line, in the Mallee region of Victoria. Yet the raw product is to be trucked to Hamilton. Why isnt rail being used? Particularly as this mine will be active till 2023.

Have a look at the railway gauges between these two locations, Kulwin line Is broad gauge 1600 mm and the Hamilton Is on the Portland line that Is 1435 mm.
The use of two trains (one of each gauge) and transhipping the load at say Dunolly just won't happen due to costs, plus the minerals will still have to be recovered from the mine site via road truck and taken to any rail head. (It would be triple handling than)

A rail head a Hopetoun may work with minimal Investment

Has anyone considered Variable Gauge Axles (VGA) as a way on running a train on both SG and BG? Such a system seems to be working on almost the same gauges between Poland (SG) and say Lithuania (RG). Albeit, it suffers from NIH (Not Invented Here).

Here are a few quotes i have grabbed from RFNR

"GrainCorp has indicated that the Kulwin to Sea Lake line could be truncated at Sea Lake.
Halfway along this section and underneath it is a major deposit of mineral sands that Iluka wants to mine.
This would involve removing a section of the railway line, mining the mineral sands seam and restoring the railway line at Iluka’s cost.  
RFNR supports Iluka’s request to gain access to the mineral sands deposit underneath the Kulwin line which is consistent with its bronze designation."

Doesn't this mean that in theory mineral sands could be loaded directly from mine to rail hopper ? I mean if that track is that close, why bother with trucks ?

Welcome Lisa1 to Railpage Australia™, I see you are a beginner.

Ignore the previous poster, he is one of hundreds who post on this board but will not challenge his own thinking.

In fact, your comment is spot on. Why aren't they railing product from Kulwin to the Portland line?

The current disaster of a government at state level, the Australian Labor Party, in fact lied to the population of Victoria that they would enable exactly that.

And while they have tried to remove the evidence from websites they control, some they don't.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020831033853/www.linkingvictoria.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/transport.nsf/headingpagesdisplay/transport+projectsrail+gauge+standardisation?opendocument

http://web.archive.org/web/20050719183717/www.budget.vic.gov.au/domino/web_notes/budgets/budget01.nsf/77a4bf9f4e5005c64a2567600023b4a3/eebe1e842690f0ff4a256a4d0018c363?OpenDocument

In fact, according to the last link the lines would be converted to SG as follows:

North Western
North Geelong to Mildura and Yelta (to provide a standard gauge link between Mildura and Portland) (late 2002)
Ouyen to Pinnaroo (late 2002)
Dunolly to Korong Vale and Robinvale (late 2004)
Korong Vale to Kulwin (late 2004)

So once again, thanks for your welcome post. Please make more like it, and lift the standard of this board.

Thx Riccardo, lots of useful tid bits in there. Politicians are not worth their salt.

A common phrase that one often sees in this forum is
"This freight should be going by rail."

Firstly, freight doesnt have a mind of its own, they way its sent is because of how the customer chooses to send it , note the word CHOICE here.
99% of the time its because of COST.
Rail is mostly more expensive as the freight has to be double handled, and thats what kills it on cost.

A common phrase that one often sees in this forum is
"This freight should be going by rail."

Firstly, freight doesnt have a mind of its own, they way its sent is because of how the customer chooses to send it , note the word CHOICE here.
99% of the time its because of COST.
Rail is mostly more expensive as the freight has to be double handled, and thats what kills it on cost.

From a background in selling railfreight, I can tell you that the challenge for rail is not cost. It is reliability (deliver freight when you say you will) first, timeliness second. Cost is a component but it isn't hard to quote underneath road.

the sand that is moved by rail is not loaded into containers in hamilton is is trucked to the kalari depo in portland loaded into containers then placed on the train

Good On you Parkshub.

What you say is totally true.   ARTC recently published a comparison of rail haulage rates on its network compared to road.  In just about all cases the rail rates were cheaper.   The real issues are about service, reliability and the highly complex regulatory environment that imposes hurge obstacles for getting new players into the market and more particularly makes it well nigh impossible for anyone to operate on secondary lines.

Look at aviation sector.  One set of rules, one regulator.

Those operators that are operating or trying to operate in regional areas are evidencing there is plenty of traffic available to be hauled even with droughts and an economic dowturn.

Only difference with airlines is that they use high yield routes to subsidise poorly returning regional routes. Rail doesn't really have a range of routes with varying costs - pretty much only running the trunk lines.

Its high time we nationalise the Railways again, similar to what we had before very small nasty man!!
Trucks are not the priority on our public roads!

Its high time we nationalise the Railways again, similar to what we had before very small nasty man!!
Trucks are not the priority on our public roads!

Nationalising is not the answer. Removing road freight subsidies for operators would be a start. Taxation another, in that removing depreciable costs on particular operations might make the difference.

The bigger and most overwhelming problem is the missing 38 Glts of water a week no longer traveling down the Murray Darling and Lachlan Rivers.

20 liters = $1.10 in food and goods.
55,000 liters represents 1 human job position.
2 gig represents a train full of Rice.
Sydney spews 12 gig a week out to sea.
Brisbane 8
Melbourne 11
and Adelaide 6.

Go figure. Do the Math and tell me what you think about water recycling and how exactly it defines our rail freight prospects. The onflow jobs (freight, services) and the impact on our GDP. (Imports versus exports)..

It will also give you an idea why our Government are a pack of Idiots!

The Above sums only represent the major cities. There are another 78 in between. There is also ample space to desal water in the north using Wind and Solar thermal only as the power source. The cost to build all this is about 12 billion. The first year makes a profit. nuts!

Off topic I know; meanwhile in Nth Queensland some towns, Ingham, Nerada, Innisfail have had over 1 meter of rain this week, the worst in over 30 years and its still precipitating

Combine this with Victoria's forecast extreme heat and I defy the climate change sceptics to make their case once more  

Back to the thread........

Mike.

Looking In the Stock & Land newspaper there was a mining permit application for public Information and It shows mining sites to The West (around the Mallee Highway) and North West of Kulwin