Its about time they took action on the cowboy trucking companies.

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Originally Posted by zulu Delta 534

Back off the tracks for a second with a silly point.
Anyone living near a heavy freight line lately may have noticed that the locos have changed their paint jobs a while back. A new paint job usually means a new owner.
Look up Pacific National, a name you will see on a lot of heavy haul locos on the eastern states and lo and behold..... Owned by Toll-Patricks, a combination of a truck company and a port handling company, and that is only one example. You might be quite surprised at who actually owns what in the rail industry!
Sort of makes one wonder about rail replacing road transport doesn't it.
Regards
Glen

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Hundreds of millions of $$ are being spent on the railway line up through the Hunter and over the range onto the Liverpool Plains to access the Gunnedah basin coal.

The size and frequency of trains supposedly being considered is nuts as it will cut towns in half for ten to fifteen minutes at a time constantly throughout the day and night.
There are very few overbridges here, they are all level crossings right in the middle of towns and villages.

An entire new line would make more sense further west and come back in through Sandy Hollow, but hell, if emergency services can't get to people in need and we lose a few lives or ten, tough, the coal must get through......

funny how one little word lights up the truck drivers...

gold......

Just to point out one little thing -

When people complain about trucks "speeding" past them, do they know how accurate their speedo is? I often drive by my GPS speed reading and at 100-110kph it is usually 8-10kph below my indicated speed on the speedo. So as a result I find myself consistently passing motorists who are probably sure that I'm speeding.

To take this one step further - If I was a trucking company, and I was doing regular maintenance on my fleet, I would want those speedos as accurate as hell so when I'm limited to 100kph, I'm damn well travelling at 100kph not 90.

Just to get back on track for the thread (and get off the rails so to speak ;) ) Lennons the company at the centre of the rogue truckies hysteria is back in the news Truckie abandons rig as probe continues - ABC News with modified rigs being abandoned in oposition company yards and truck stops.

As for the GPS Vs speedo - Inc is correct my mates previous Astra's speedo was about 4Km over reading at 80KPH, so even at that speed everything was passing him. Personally I frequently use my GPS (and have checked it against the speed detection devices in Victoria) and at 80KPH my speedo reads slow speedo 80KPH GPS 83KPH but at both 100KPH and 110 KPH they correspond to each other.

Back to the tangent:

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Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

...I don't know if things have improved since those days but it was not unusual for rail consignments to the far flung reaches of Queensland to take weeks to make a journey that was only a few days by road transport.

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One year a header machine, spent the entire harvest season on a wagon at Bomaderry rail yard and none of the local farm machinery dealers would take delivery because that equipment is not used on the coast. After the harvest season NSWGR realised that the wagon should have been sent to Cowra and not Nowra-Bomaderry. So much for the farmer who went without a header for an entire season.

However now that freight rail is in private hands, it is likely more efficient but the tripple handling will remain a problem for freight rail.

Diana

This is just my view, having a HC Licence myself and driven all sorts of heavy vehicle over a 35yr period, when they moved to limit heavy vehicles to 100kph I just adjusted to that, I don't see why it's a problem, it's the way it is, it's no differant to any job, your told what to do and how to do it.

The drivers that fiddle the limiter and drive faster are just going to wear themselves out, get fatiuged and make a mistake, TROUBLE IS that mistake in such a big vehicle, normally has a very horrific outcome.

Baz.

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Originally Posted by digger

no offence to use UHF just a telephone! :)
(although you often hear "hold on mate just gotta put you down so I can answer the phone..." come over the radio... wonder why when Im sure theyd be using a hands free? :angel:)

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Thanks Digger, thanks to your reply I have reviewed the current In-force NSW Road Rules, to find that it specifically relates to telephones.

Back in 1989 I was charged with using a radio telephone whilst driving, the regulations at that time included both mobile telephones and two way radios. The only reason the charge was dismissed was that the Reg gave an exception to "taxi drivers" and while I wasn't driving a taxi at the time I was a licenced taxi driver.

The main reason the coal and other industries on the south coast have not used rail is a little thing called the maldon dombarton link,part finished over the last 30 years:mad:, which would cut thousands of truck movements out but no govt wants to pay for it, fed or state, labour or liberal. The illawarra now imports most of the cars for nsw which are then trucked to western syd. holding yards for distribution, and you have a number of north coast miners looking to port Kembla to export more coal as newcastle is at a logjam. This is if the train lines are built to handle it and the port is dredged to handle full size cape ships.
To compare trucking in germany or even the U.S is pointless as their roads are far better, over smaller distances with a larger pop. spread. We have a much higher centralisation compared to those countries so a well designed rail freight system would work, not the current one which mixes public transport and freight with stupid budgeting and poor maintenance.

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Originally Posted by solmanic

Just to point out one little thing -

When people complain about trucks "speeding" past them, do they know how accurate their speedo is? I often drive by my GPS speed reading and at 100-110kph it is usually 8-10kph below my indicated speed on the speedo. So as a result I find myself consistently passing motorists who are probably sure that I'm speeding.

To take this one step further - If I was a trucking company, and I was doing regular maintenance on my fleet, I would want those speedos as accurate as hell so when I'm limited to 100kph, I'm damn well travelling at 100kph not 90.

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I was going to bring this up. Its a major source of frustration for truck drivers and I suspect a big reason for tailgating or self righteous complaints about being overtaken. Not that it justifies tailgating by heavy vehicles, which IMO is completely unprofessional, dangerous, bullying behaviour and far worse than being a few k's over a limit.

Just goes to show you all these tick logos aren't worth the pixels used to display them!

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...012/02/460.jpghttps://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...012/02/461.jpg

Source: http://www.lennons.com.au/

In another press bulletin one of Lennons units has been found abandoned besides a highway in Victoria and it's log book dumped in a refuse bin nearby.

"Eight trucks from Lennons Transport Services were allegedly tampered with; seven had their speed limiting devices altered to allow them to travel at more than 100km/h"

They are looking to inspect 35 trucks with 10 believed to be in Victoria. So I guess if someone has parked a lennons truck in some out of the way place a call to Digger or his colleagues may be in order!

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/random-checks-on-trucks-to-stop-tampering-minister-20120222-1tmnj.html#ixzz1nAPTpuGN

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Originally Posted by Tank

What a load of ****, the roads were built to move commerce between cities, not for bumbling motorists to wander along at what ever speed suits them. Build a second frieght rail line, what a joke, why? so as we can have twice as much frieght stranded in containers all over the country.
If all the trucks stopped right now the country would starve, run out of fuel and go bust in a week. get the trucks off the road, what a joke, you have no idea, Regards Frank.

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I disagree that "I have no idea".

I catch the train from the Central Coast to work everyday.

The rail line between Newcastle and Sydney is at capacity. It can not carry any more freight.

City rail would be able to run more services, and rail freight would be more reliable. At the moment when a freight train breaks down the whole network shuts down.