Driver only trials begun 2/6/10 with the first 20 days the co driver travelling in the cars. Driver only was not done on the Warrnambool line due to West Coast running the service when other long distance lines became DOO.

Cheers Gomer

Thanks for that update on Warrnambool DOO Gomer. It's certainly taken a while to implement, I think the delay was track/signalling infrastructure and radio coverage?

Just out of curiosity, if you know, how far do the big wheel drivers at pass take the XPT? Junee?

Matt,

Their was  a whole list of issues regarding the Warrnambool line which should now be implemented on the other lines.
The XPT drivers run to Junee sharing 50/50 with Junee drivers.

Cheers Gomer

I find it interesting that most if not all of the freight possibilities mentioned in this thread are longhaul. That is understandable, and until a few days ago that would have been my reaction as well.

However, I attended a meeting of the Metropolitain Transport Forum (MTF) on Wednesday night, and the guest speaker was Andrew Stephens, from the Department of Transport's Freight, Logistics and Marine Division.

The gist of his presentation was that the DoT is looking at intrastate, broad gauge freight. Specifically, they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west" - between which they would run maximum 400m long trains up to twice per hour, to and from each other and Port Melbourne. These would be used as part of a door-to-door service for freight customers, with the government owning everything but leasing out operations. The goal is to have 50% of all freight spending half its time on rail.

Specifically, they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west"

Its a pity then that the excellent hard stand area that was Laverton Airbase runways, etc., was allowed to be sold off for housing.

Being rail orientated I push rail. It should never have gone on the highways. The main reason Kennett sold the State Railways, and subsequent Governments have allowed it transfer to the Road Transport Industry was that it was generally believed that they would have to shift to rail, because Economy of operation over road would force their hand.
It really has not happened.

I asked a number of questions of a senior transport manager (many years of experience across multiple areas of freight) for a road haul company whilst at a birthday party last night.

His comments on the status of rail in this country (i am just sharing them) included the following:

1. Asciano were not well liked and heavily unionised. They are not a trusted contractor. Privatising Freightcorp has not lead to improved efficiencies
2. Linehaul trucking companies are well aware of the subsidises the taxpayer is providing them but are becoming increasingly concerned abou the lack of investment in rail.
3. The trucking industry is highly inefficient in terms of carbon and only profitable due to current price of oil.
4. Warehousing investment needs to be "on rail" not in industrial parks without rail access.
5. Those operators without an investment in rail will struggle over the next 10 years.
6. Rail is now the preferred way to move freight from a customers perspective as they are now aware of environmental issues surrounding road freight.
7. There are many hidden costs in road freight which are being paid by the taxpayer without their knowledge.
8. When the price of oil was higher 2 years ago, many operators of longhhaul trucks were going to the wall.
9. Once the price of oil moves about US$150 a barrel and it stays there which many are predicting, it will be curtains for longhaul trucking.
10. QRN was viewed as a very positive provider of services across the company and particularly in Queensland. They are a trusted contractor. They should consider moving into LCL and LTL movement.
11. There is room for the transfer of LTL or LCL to rail and profitably.

Regards
Brian

they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west" - between which they would run maximum 400m long trains up to twice per hour, to and from each other and Port Melbourne.

Would these be running during the morning or evening peak? Even if they ran only in a counter-peak direction, they still have to get into the city in a peak direction.

I can see merits in a separate freight network but I wouldn't expect that to be broad-gauge.

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west" - between which they would run maximum 400m long trains up to twice per hour, to and from each other and Port Melbourne.

Would these be running during the morning or evening peak? Even if they ran only in a counter-peak direction, they still have to get into the city in a peak direction.

No, peak hours would be passenger-only, much like Sydney.

I can see merits in a separate freight network but I wouldn't expect that to be broad-gauge.

It is not designed as a separate freight network - they intend to use already-existing capacity on the broad gauge network.

In the long term the presenter agreed that a separate freight network would be nice, but in the short term it isn't possible so they're doing the above instead.

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

A private firm built and operates that road, charging a price for use which reflects the costs of construction and upkeep. If anything, you should be in favour of toll roads, since it frees up public money from trickier road projects for use in trickier rail projects.

If as comtrain says there will be $1.5 billion put on the table what is everyone's expectations/wish list of how this money is best spent?

A private firm built and operates that road, charging a price for use which reflects the costs of construction and upkeep. If anything, you should be in favour of toll roads, since it frees up public money from trickier road projects for use in trickier rail projects.

Thats fine, except when the Governments give such large tax concessions that taxpayers end up paying most of the cost of the road, as well as being tolled.

The gist of his presentation was that the DoT is looking at intrastate, broad gauge freight. Specifically, they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west" - between which they would run maximum 400m long trains up to twice per hour, to and from each other and Port Melbourne. These would be used as part of a door-to-door service for freight customers, with the government owning everything but leasing out operations. The goal is to have 50% of all freight spending half its time on rail.

Not having a go at your post SteamtoStay, but they must have plans to have extra tracks put in. The system is just about busting at the seams now, Metro and V/Line want to put more services on and with all these freight trains thrown in the mix, i fail to see how everything will gell together.

Im assuming the rail freight terminal - Dandenong is the unused area near Hallam that's been in all the local papers of recent about an Inland Port.

Somerton - Austrac?

Steel Terminal is also moving out to Somerton soon.

Wonder how the Hastings - Pakenham/Hallam/Dandenong line is coming along? That would be one way to bypass Melbourne, use Western Port Bay.

Thats fine, except when the Governments give such large tax concessions that taxpayers end up paying most of the cost of the road, as well as being tolled.

A tax concession simply means the government didn't and won't earn revenue from Transurban's activity in building and maintaining the road. To my knowledge, the government did not bear any costs involved in the actual construction and operation of CityLink. If you have proof that the government in fact subsidised the construction of the road rather than granting tax concessions , bring it.

If as comtrain says there will be $1.5 billion put on the table what is everyone's expectations/wish list of how this money is best spent?

The biggest hurdle for rail is the gauge problem, it needs to be fixed now. It's a huge inefficiency.

The longer they leave it the more the it will cost.

With out throwing things off topic Nth QLD, Vic and SA need access to the national standard gauge. Vic and SA are getting there slowly.

With the congestion on the network around Melbourne, maybe they should look at Portland as a ship to shore container terminal

The gist of his presentation was that the DoT is looking at intrastate, broad gauge freight. Specifically, they plan to have, within eight years from starting time, three rail freight terminals - Dandenong, Somerton and "one in the west" - between which they would run maximum 400m long trains up to twice per hour, to and from each other and Port Melbourne. These would be used as part of a door-to-door service for freight customers, with the government owning everything but leasing out operations. The goal is to have 50% of all freight spending half its time on rail.

Not having a go at your post SteamtoStay, but they must have plans to have extra tracks put in. The system is just about busting at the seams now, Metro and V/Line want to put more services on and with all these freight trains thrown in the mix, i fail to see how everything will gell together.

Nah, all this is before they put in extra capacity. Yes, the BG network is bursting at the seams during peak hours - but for the rest of the week, it has ample capacity to run freight trains.

The example that Andrew cited was, if there were 6tph Pass to Dandenong, that would leave room for 2tph freight, translating to 1,000,000 containers per year. I haven't tested the train pathing theory myself, but below is my guesstimation of the yearly number of containers.

The maximum train length they were considering was 400m, mainly because of level crossings and headways. And that's all single stack. If we assume that the figure isn't including locos we have 20 wagons per train, each holding one 40ft container. If half the yearly 1 million containers spend half their travel time on a train, that will require an average of 240 trains from Port Melbourne to Dandenong per week.

We know that peak hour consumes 4*5 hours out of 168, and that there are 4*7 hours when no trains run, from 1am to 5am.

That cuts us down to 240 trains in 120 hours, or around 2 trains per hour.

Wonder how the Hastings - Pakenham/Hallam/Dandenong line is coming along? That would be one way to bypass Melbourne, use Western Port Bay.

Apparently Hastings has now been shifted to 2035 - after Port Melbourne, "One In The West", Somerton and Dandenong have all reached capacity. I was told that by then, the number of containers being transported around Melbourne will have quadrupled.

Incidentally, that implies that the current number of containers from Port Melbourne to the Dandenong region is around 250,000 per year or nearly 700 per day.

If as comtrain says there will be $1.5 billion put on the table what is everyone's expectations/wish list of how this money is best spent?

Comtrain "Hopes"

be careful here, because I have yet to see this touted by Brumby, it is likely but definitely not a done deal, I'm afraid.
Cheers
Rod

Excellent stuff you gathered, Brian

Of course we hear similar things for the last 25 years, but Politics is a dirty rotten greedy business. The Rich man always has the advantage and the people that don't give a rat's rear end, just look the other way, have another can and nothing ever seems to get done,sadly.
Rod

Being rail orientated I push rail. It should never have gone on the highways. The main reason Kennett sold the State Railways, and subsequent Governments have allowed it transfer to the Road Transport Industry was that it was generally believed that they would have to shift to rail, because Economy of operation over road would force their hand.
It really has not happened.

I asked a number of questions of a senior transport manager (many years of experience across multiple areas of freight) for a road haul company whilst at a birthday party last night.

His comments on the status of rail in this country (i am just sharing them) included the following:

1. Asciano were not well liked and heavily unionised. They are not a trusted contractor. Privatising Freightcorp has not lead to improved efficiencies
2. Linehaul trucking companies are well aware of the subsidises the taxpayer is providing them but are becoming increasingly concerned abou the lack of investment in rail.
3. The trucking industry is highly inefficient in terms of carbon and only profitable due to current price of oil.
4. Warehousing investment needs to be "on rail" not in industrial parks without rail access.
5. Those operators without an investment in rail will struggle over the next 10 years.
6. Rail is now the preferred way to move freight from a customers perspective as they are now aware of environmental issues surrounding road freight.
7. There are many hidden costs in road freight which are being paid by the taxpayer without their knowledge.
8. When the price of oil was higher 2 years ago, many operators of longhhaul trucks were going to the wall.
9. Once the price of oil moves about US$150 a barrel and it stays there which many are predicting, it will be curtains for longhaul trucking.
10. QRN was viewed as a very positive provider of services across the company and particularly in Queensland. They are a trusted contractor. They should consider moving into LCL and LTL movement.
11. There is room for the transfer of LTL or LCL to rail and profitably.

Regards
Brian

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

A private firm built and operates that road, charging a price for use which reflects the costs of construction and upkeep. If anything, you should be in favour of toll roads, since it frees up public money from trickier road projects for use in trickier rail projects.

Only partially. The current $1.3b upgrade is funded by the State (presumably paid back over a number of years). The State also paid for the upgrades on the Tulla at Essendon airport and that feeds Citylink. Jeff also allowed Citylink to take over the Tullamarine Fwy between Bulla Rd and Flemington. The Citylink builders did upgrade this section though.

As well, there are caveats on new public road and rail competing with Citylink.

Overall, I think the State has contributed to this road substantially in real dollars

EDIT: I'm fine with it being a toll road though.

Linfox employs a lot more people, or supports owner drivers and so employment is the only possible advantage of having fuel on the roads.

Interestingly, Linfox (LFX) avoids owner drivers (subbies) as much as possible. The subbies don't always follow the tight safety regs that are imposed by mgmt and customers don't really like them either.

What happens is that LFX takes over someone's transport arm. All their trucks and equipment come into LFX. Their employees become all LFX employees. The latest one that this has happened to is BOC Gases.

Reducing long distance trucking by cutting out the Interstate long hauls is best practice. However tell that to the thousands of Truckers that earn their living running the big routes.

Linehaul trucking is an extremely marginal financial proposition. Subbie A will undercut Subbie B who has just undercut Subbie C. It's a whore's business. No wonder young blokes avoid it.

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

That's a toll road, try again.

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

That's a toll road, try again.

Geelong Bypass.  
Deer Park Bypass. Princes Highway from about Laverton to the aforementioned Geelong Bypass widening from 2 to 3 lanes.  
Ringwood Bypass from Ringwood St to Eastlink (or was that part of Eastlink?)
Canterbury Road widening from Bayswater Rd to Dorset Rd.  
Monash Freeway widening east of Warrigal Rd.  
Dandenong Bypass.  
The proposed bypass of part of Sale.
The extension of the Princes Freeway from just north of Dandenong Rd through past Pakenham.

More if I think about it...

Only partially. The current $1.3b upgrade is funded by the State (presumably paid back over a number of years).

I believe CityLink kicked in about $133 million for that, which I suspect would cover the widening of the tolled roadway east of the tunnels and the new lane signal gantries.

A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads

Name the roads.

Citylink for starters....

That's a toll road, try again.

Geelong Bypass.  
Deer Park Bypass. Princes Highway from about Laverton to the aforementioned Geelong Bypass widening from 2 to 3 lanes.  
Ringwood Bypass from Ringwood St to Eastlink (or was that part of Eastlink?)
Canterbury Road widening from Bayswater Rd to Dorset Rd.  
Monash Freeway widening east of Warrigal Rd.  
Dandenong Bypass.  
The proposed bypass of part of Sale.
The extension of the Princes Freeway from just north of Dandenong Rd through past Pakenham.

More if I think about it...

My fault for not properly quoting, but I was after road projects from the Kennett Government.

I made particular relation to the Kennett Government, which from my research was in power from 1992 to 1999. Let's take a look at his track record with relation to transport:
...
     A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads (Which are fine to a degree but not at the compromise of rail which he did.)

What I'm trying to elaborate on is that it wasn't only rail spending that was downgraded during the Kennett years, the cuts were across the board.  Some of the other posters on this board are ignoring the economic basis of history and are simply looking at the total level of rail spending, rather than the proportional spending, which is not a good indicator of government interest in rail.

Rail spending has of course increased since the Kennett days, but so has road spending (to a large degree).  To be convinced that Labor has actually been better for rail you would need to show that the split between rail and road has been tilted further towards rail's favour.  The plethora of major road projects that have been completed in Labor's name makes me doubt the ratios have changed all that much, and that Labor is hardly the friend (and the Liberals the villain) to rail that some would believe.

I made particular relation to the Kennett Government, which from my research was in power from 1992 to 1999. Let's take a look at his track record with relation to transport:
...
     A lack of investment in the public transport system - more money put into other projects such as the roads (Which are fine to a degree but not at the compromise of rail which he did.)

What I'm trying to elaborate on is that it wasn't only rail spending that was downgraded during the Kennett years, the cuts were across the board.

Well that I can agree with you on