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Australia approves $2 billion, 300-kilometer railway to serve Queensland coal mine
At Jeffries, the article mentions India and Australia, what possible bias statements are you talking about? Australians called themselves Aussies and Indians are from, well India. Don’t be so touchy feely and don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill.
Wow!!! 2 Billion for 186 miles? Dam we should hire Aussies or Indians to do work here, that is “cheap”, CTA is gonna pay 2.3 Billion for just 5.3 miles of track, dam!!!
Mr. Reid, first I would seriously doubt that the entire line ROW can be purchased, the line graded and built, and fully equiped for only $2 billion. Second, it is a significantly different matter to build a single purpose industrial railroad such as this through agricultural and wilderness country and through a cityscape such as Chicago. Last, please keep your racially and culturally biased comments to yourself.
Mr Reid. There is a big difference in building a freight railroad in open country for freight and passenger rail in dense urban area. A single track railroad is a lot cheaper then a double track electric subway.
If one looks at Abbot Point on GoogleMaps, one sees a salt evaporation facility served by a classic loop for railcars. It looks like desert or semi-desert in the image. 'Can’t tell about topography, though. The “port” consists of a long causeway out into the ocean, with what look like facilities for loading salt; awkward for coal.
Beg to differ, but this will not be the first standard gauge line in Queensland. The standard gauge North Coast Main from Sydney, NSW was completed to Brisbane in 1930. A ferry was used to cross the Clarence River until completion of a bridge at Grafton, NSW in 1932. I believe at least part of the line is dual gauge in the Brisbane area.
Britt Reid, I see nothing wrong with what you said, I know many people from both India and Australia, as you said, The Australians call themselves Aussies.
Just to fill in the blanks - Abbot Point is currently a 50-million tonne coal export facility - primarily for metallurgical coal. Australia’s largest rail company, Aurizon owns and operates the exisiting narrow gauge 3ft 6in Newlands line to the port. Pacific National all uses the line through an Open Access agreement. Trains to Abbot Point run with three AC traction EMD/Dower EDI GT42CU-ACe operating in DP grossing at 8800-tonnes, elsewhere on Aurizon’s 200-million tonne Queensland coal network, trains gross up to 13,000-tonnes with four GT42CU-ACe or three 5340hp AC traction E40 AG-V1 electrics from Siemens. The region around Abbot Point is in North Queensland’s Dry Tropics with annual rainfalls of 53-inches occurring mostly during the summer monsoon.
There are currently three separate rail proposals to tap undeveloped coal mines in the Galilee Basin. Two are proposed as standard gauge, one - Aurizon’s - as narrow gauge to reduce the length of new track required. While approvals have been given, there remains no guarantee any of the proposed lines will be built while international thermal coal prices and demand continue to fall.
India’s building more coal fired plants while we shut ours down for more expensive types of generation. I guess we could sell the rail from the abandoned lines to our closed coal mines and shuttered power plants to help build this new line.
Just what the world needs. Another 100 million tons of coal being exported every year. To be burned in power plants in India where there is little environmental regulation.
China has announced plans to cut back on coal power plants because of the awful quality of the air. But this kind of stuff forges ahead.
Great.
I don’t see anything wrong with what Britt posted, in fact I agree with him 100%. It’s our BIG government driving up the price of everything In this country. You got to have a study for this and a study for that. In fact you got to have a study for a study. It’s just ridiculous what has to happen to get things done anymore. And as far as the PC mentioned by Dennis not sure what that’s about.
Queensland’s railways are largely 3’ 6" ( or 2’ if you include the large sugar cane systems)
There are two existing standard gauge operations.
1.The standard and dual gauge from the NSW border goes to the passenger hub at Roma Street Station and down to the Port of Brisbane (freight only, largely containers).
2. An isolated standard gauge operation at Weipa hauls bauxite to the port.
The salt pan at Abbott Point is natural. No salt is produced there. There is a small salt evaporation works nearby at Bowen for comparison. The coke ovens just to the north of it are served by rail.
Australian workers do NOT come cheap. It is cheap to build because it’s a geenfield site.
This may be a quibble but strictly speaking “Australia” did not approve the new line. Queensland did.