Supplementary submission to the Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport and Cities Inquiry into the 's role in the development of cities

from Philip Laird, University of , November 2017

At the hearing held 13 November at , questions were asked about rail corridor protection. Some comment follows.

Queensland Rail Corridors

After studies and extensive community consultation going back to 1996 by Rail, a route between Grandchester and Gowrie was protected by Queensland Transport in 2004. This included a tunnel of length six kilometres, and this corridor is likely to be used for a future Inland Railway linking and via Parkes.

Between Beerburrum to Landsborough a rail corridor is essentially protected.

Between Landsborough to Nambour, only limited land acquisition to date, information is at https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Projects/Name/L/Landsborough-to- Nambour-Rail-Corridor-Study

Between Beerwah to Maroochydore, the corridor is not fully protected, In addition, there is some support for Beerwah to Caloundra to be heavy rail, then light rail to Maroochydore. see https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Projects/Name/C/Caboolture- to-Maroochydore-Corridor-Study

As noted in 2005 (Track and Signal, Oct-Nov-Dec, page 77) by Queensland Transport Minister, Hon Paul Lucas MP, there is a need to “…reserve rail corridor land before it becomes a costly issue.”

The Queensland government appears to have acted on this advice. It is understood that a rail corridor has also been protected between Varsity Lakes on the Gold Coast to the Gold Coast airport; including a part in NSW adjacent to the Pacific where this highway crosses the NSW Queensland Border.

NSW Rail Corridors

With the exception of the partly completed 35 km Maldon to Dombarton rail link, the record of the NSW Government in rail corridor protection for new lines or the upgrading of existing lines is not a good one.

From a February 2006 submission of this writer to this Committee, an internal State Rail study in the 1980s describes a 39km route with a ruling grade of 1 in 80 between St Marys and Glenlee. In summary: Take off point is between Werrington and St Mary’s station Traverse the South Creek Flood Plain Cross the Kingsway, and the F4 Follows Mamre Road Cross Warragamba Prospect Water Pipes Lane Overbridge Elizabeth Drive at 14km Overbridge Highway at 31km Underbridge Camden Road Bridge Narellan Creek at 36km Join Glenlee Rail siding at 37km Join Main Southern Line at 39km

At that time, land use along the route was mainly rural. Due to the easy terrain, the earthworks would be limited. The then estimated land acquisition cost was $14 million and the total cost estimate in 1980 was $68 million. This included electrification and land purchase.

The St Mary’s Glenlee proposal along with completing Maldon Port Kembla was investigated during the mid 1990s for Wollongong City Council by Kinhill Engineers with funding provided by the Federal Department of Local Government. The consultants were less than positive for early completion of either projects, but did recommend, inter alia, requiring of road coal freight vehicles to pay their full external costs and use of planning instruments to maintain the St Marys Glenlee and Maldon Dombarton rail corridors.

Future NSW rail deviation sites - on NSW track held by NSW government

As part of a policy of a ruling grade of 1 in 75 for up trains, a number of deviations were built in the early 20 th century. They included Fassifern to Teralba which eased a 1 in 40 grade, with a 2m 20c deviation replacing a 1m 17c section placed into use 1 February 1903. This resulted in an extra mile of permanent way. At one stage, serious consideration was given to reverting to the original route by lowering this to supply filling for Broadmeadow Marshalling Yard. The summit and deepest cutting on the original Fassifern - Teralba line which could easily be widened and deepened with modern machinery.

Further information is given in a paper THINKING OUTSIDE THE FENCE LINE - TO BRISBANE by Max Michell and this writer given at the 2016 Conference on Railway Excellence).

Clearly, this corridor should be protected, and without delay.

A proposal for a line between Fassifern and Hexham as a freight bypass has been around for over 20 years and was noted in a 2007 House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport report The Great Freight Task: Is Australia’s transport network up to the challenge?

This proposal was also mentioned in the recent NSW Draft regional service and infrastructure plan to 2056. However, the corridor should be quickly protected.

2 Future NSW rail deviation sites - on NSW track leased to ARTC

As part of a policy of a ruling grade of 1 in 75 for up trains, a number of deviations were constructed on the Main South line to assist steam train operations. However, these deviations (unlike the Tawa deviation north of Wellington in New Zealand) added length and many more tight radius curves. Such track alignment whilst suited to steam trains now slows down the more powerful diesel trains. The extra length between Picton and Goulburn was 16.5 km, and the extra length between Goulburn and Yass was 8.5 km.

In the early 1990s, Bill Wentworth (former MHR who in the 1950s successfully advocated mainline gauge standardization) urged consideration of a new route between and to run near the (modern section opened c1980). This would reduce the route length and save trains an average (in both directions) of 20 minutes.

The Wentworth deviation would also allow for quicker trains between Sydney and . The need for a better trains service has been subject of ongoing comment, (see for example.:http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/the-slow- slow-work-to-speed-up-the-canberrasydney-heavy-rail-line-20170302-guorv3.html

These options have been often investigated by the authorities. The studies include those by the ARTC in its 2001 Track Audit. However, since taking up in 2004 the NSW long term lease of the Main South line and other track, the ARTC has shown little inclination to construct deviations on the Main South line, despite the gains to Sydney Melbourne and Sydney Perth rail freight operations.

The NSW Government via TfNSW should be prepared to work with the ARTC to see an upgrade of the Main South track and other mainline track in NSW.

This includes acquiring land “outside the fence line” (see the above cited paper THINKING OUTSIDE THE FENCE LINE - SYDNEY TO BRISBANE).

The NSW north coast line from Maitland to Casino is basically branch lines strung together and has excessive curvature imposing severe speed restrictions on train operation. It also has undue excess length of about 90km, as follows. Fassifern - Hexham 10 ± km Hexham - Stroud Road 30 km Taree - Bonville (6 sites) 50 ± km

By way of example, the Sydney - Coffs Harbour 608 km current rail distance would be reduced to 518 km. Along with faster passenger trains, there would also be faster and heavier freight trains.

Shared road - rail corridors are land corridors used for both road and rail. They are used extensively in Perth and throughout Queensland. There was scope for shared road and rail corridors when the Pacific Highway upgrades were under way at Moorland to Herons Creek; and, Kempsey to Eungai.

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The General Purpose Standing Committee No 4 of the NSW Legislative Council in its 2006 Pacific Highway Upgrades report [p 109] noted a view re shared corridors that: "... if you are going in there with roads, look at it for rail because it is only very marginal to acquire a bit more land while at the same time doing a road, or while you are doing the bulk earth works for the road you can do the bulk earth works for the rail, and the marginal costs to complete the rail line are insignificant… Surely in the concept stage we could look at the combined rail – road corridor from an environmental and social point of view.”

Infrastructure Australia views on corridors

In July 2017, Infrastructure Australia, released a new policy paper Corridor Protection: Planning and investing for the long term. This paper outlined how protection and early acquisition of just seven corridors identified as national priorities on the Infrastructure Priority List could save Australian taxpayers close to $11 billion in land purchase and construction costs.

These strategic corridors are: East Coast High Speed Rail, , Outer Melbourne Ring, Western Rail Line, Western Sydney Freight Line, Hunter Valley Freight Line, and Port of Brisbane Freight Line.

The report notes how early protection of a Perth to Mandurah rail corridor assisted the construction of this railway.

Opened in December 2007, using Australian made rolling stock (electric multiple units made in Maryborough Queensland) the Perth to Mandurah 72 killometre railway line with frequent and fast trains now carries more than 20 million passengers per year.

Parramatta City Council views on corridors

The following views of the Mayor of Parramatta, Cr Wilson, stated at the hearing held 13 November at Parramatta are of note. To quote from the transcript “So, to move in early and to get the corridors, to get the investment in there, is going to pay you a tremendous dividend, and this I think is where the federal government particularly has a role, that the state government is balancing so many issues at the moment. And you can see that they're trying their best, but they really need that overview of how the whole nation works that only the federal government can bring.”

A Victorian shared road and rail corridor

At the 3rd International Conference on Transportation and Logistics (T-LOG 2010) held at Kyushu University in Fukuoka City, Japan, VicRoads Planning Manager Mr Clive Mottram presented a paper "An Alternative Approach to Transport Corridor Planning in Melbourne, Australia."

The Abstract is of note and follows: The ability to construct new transportation

4 corridors around urban areas without major social and economic disruption and without going to much greater cost to construct tunnels or viaducts often requires transportation corridor planning to be undertaken many years before construction. With a projected continuing rapid population growth and continued economic development, the need to plan for new population growth areas and for new intermodal freight terminals on Melbourne’s outskirts, together with the need to plan major new transport corridors to serve these areas has become quite urgent. This paper describes the planning process which was adopted to locate a major new road and rail corridor, the Outer Metropolitan Ring/E6 Transport Corridor. The paper describes a number of innovations in the planning process and community consultation approaches that were adopted to assist in achieving tight deadlines.

In regards to provision for rail for the Outer Metropolitan Ring (OMR), this "includes a minimum curve radius of 2600m to allow for 160 km/h conventional passenger trains or 250 km/h tilt trains. The rail provision also includes 7.1 m clearance at all bridge structures to allow for future double stacking of container trains. The corridor has been designed to allow for a 1% maximum grade to enable passage by long freight trains (up to 2 km in length). The provision for freight will enable a more direct rail bypass of the Melbourne urban area for interstate freight trains travelling between and the future Donnybrook-Beveridge rail terminal and interstate to Sydney. The design concept also includes provision for rail connections between the OMR rail corridor and the existing Melbourne-Adelaide and Melbourne-Sydney interstate railways and the existing Melbourne-Ballarat railway (this latter connection being designed for freight rail movements only). "

Other comment

The securing of the entire Alice Springs to Darwin rail corridor during the 1980s after extensive consultation was a major reason why the project, once contractual arrangements were made, could be constructed in the relatively short time of 29 months.

Assoc Prof Philip Laird, Ph D, FCILT, Comp IE Aust Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences University of Wollongong NSW 2522 24 November 2017

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