Thread: why dont they use rail?

When the Ghan started back up to run from Darwin to Adelaide, the big sell was that it would take majority of the road trains off the road, and most freight companies signed up. Between the delays and the continual price increases I think that there is likely more road trains than ever leaving Darwin now.

Think it more comes down to slack attitude by the rail operators and a unrealistic price structure just making general freight by rail out of reach.

I see even the fuel trucks are back on the road again, running 3.5 trailers so I guess even they think its to expensive.

My 2c worth.

Cheers Ean

why dont they use rail?

Because most consignors want the freight delivered on time, intact; two concepts that rail seem to struggle with.

Originally Posted by Reads90

We use Queensland rail for stuff to go from Brisbane to the north.



BUT very rarely as they are the most useless un professional bunch if idiots I ever have the misfortune to deal with.

In the summer if it looks like it is going to rain in the next few weeks they will not even load it in Brisbane and therefore leave it on the rail side but not tell you until your customer starts shouting as to where it is. Noting is urgent with them and customer serivice is crap. You phone them and asked them where something is and they just almost shrug their shoulds and say calm down it will be there when it gets there.

Only really use then if we have to as a last resort and only them in the winter months.

We use trucks to take it up to Carins and all the towns between here and there and all over Qld.

And you wonder why we don't use rail, well because we want to keep our customers and get stuff delivered. And by the way trucks are cheaper than rail most of the time too.

Yeh mate they need a good kick in the ****.They are only interested in coal,not general freight and most of that going north is handled by Pacific National.QR National or whatever they call themselves now lost that contract years ago.

There should be something smaller than a 20' ISO container, similar to the old 'LCL' (Less than Car Load) containers run by the NSWGR and SAR in the '70s. Small enough for a 3 tonne truck to take from distribution centre to destination without having to handle pallets from a container into the truck.

I traveled to Sydney a few years ago via the XPT "High speed" train....

And I reckon I know why rail freight isnt an option :-)

The rail network has been left to rot and varies from state to state to the point where it would be prohibitive to repair and maintain to any high standard.

With road freight the cost and onus for transport is with the truckies, roads funded by rego levy, state and federal funding.

And even the roads vary once you cross a border and some times very noticeably.

As for accidents and drivers?

Both sides of the fence need a kick in the clacker, and I ran the Hume for 2 years Melb/Syd.

Rail freight is a nice idea but logistically it doesn't work, many companies now run on "Just in time" logistics and that too wont work or even come close with rail freight.

And with political and green agenda's in play it gets very murky both now and in the future.

Years ago too we had major rail freight truck terminals for transfer and these are now gone and the yards sold off and developed for housing etc never to be reclaimed which means new yards and terminals but where do we build them?

The heyday of rail freight was 30 plus years ago and I remember Dynon road Yards covering a huge area between the docks (Now gone and developed), Footscray road (Also developed) through to Dynon road west Melb and this is all gone/dismantled/developed.

Now add the freight centers that are no where near Rail infrastructure and the triple or quadruple handling needed to use rail freight and everything we buy in the shops on a day to day basis would skyrocket in price.

Sure its a nice idea, But its just not feasible.

So Truckies will continue to carry this country of ours.

BTW B triples have been a part of Victorian roads for a while, they tootle past my front door at night delivering milk, Heavy transport is a fact of life where I am and Singles, Doubles or Triples have never posed an issue to me or my safety.

Idiots in Tipper and dogs however are a different story.

Originally Posted by tony66_au

BTW B triples have been a part of Victorian roads for a while, they tootle past my front door at night delivering milk, Heavy transport is a fact of life where I am and Singles, Doubles or Triples have never posed an issue to me or my safety.

Idiots in Tipper and dogs however are a different story.

Spot on mate. Generally speaking, the biggest idiots on the roads drive the smallest trucks - the "wannabe truckies".

Rail freight is now geared almost entirely toward "bulk" commodities with little or no provision for general freight or consumables.

B - triples are small fry and nothing new. We share the roads over here with full size triple road trains in mst areas of the state, and as Craig has already pointed out, full size quad road trains on some roads in the area on a daily basis. I've never had a problem with any of them. Have to admit though, it's sometimes amusing to watch obvious "city" drivers trying to overtake these things. What is needed is an education campaign to educate city drivers on how to handle the type of traffic you encounter when you get away from the traffic lights and roundabouts.

If you reckon B - triples are bad, try driving up the Great Northern Hwy from Perth where there is now a constant flow of large oversize loads on the move (although none just at the moment during the Christmas / New Year curfew). Many of these things take up the full width of the highway and then some. Watching "city" drivers try to overtake these things is amusing to say the least - yet they are very easy to get around if you know how the system works (and it's even easier if you have a radio tuned in to Channel 40).

Never ceases to amaze me the number of muppets driving up the road with instructions to call them up on Channel 10 or 18 or 23 or whatever stuck on the back of their vehicle (especially caravans). Do they honestly think that anyone else is going to change channels just to call them up.

Other than certain roads where alternative (usually clearly signposted) radio channels are used - the highway frequency is Channel 40. If you use something else, don't be surprised when you don't know what's going on around you, or if it takes a bit longer to get around a wide load. Yes I know - the language can be a bit rich there sometimes - but I've found that's usually around the capital cities and major regional centres (including Kalgoorlie sometimes) and is often timed around school holidays, weekends or when the kids get out of school during the week. I always turn the radio off as I go over the hill down into Perth - don't need it down there.

I feel for the road train drivers on the Gt Northern Hwy at the moment, who have to reguarly find a spot, often at short notice because a lot of the front pilots are idiots and sit too close to the load, and pull off the road to allow the fat ones to pass. Easy enough to do in a car - but try doing this in a triple road train which often weighs significantly more all up than the wide load that they are giving way to. And then try doing it t least 20 times a day.

I've sat at Capricorn Roadhouse for a couple of hours waiting to catch a plane from Newman airport just up the road - and the number of oversize loads passing through that place is simply mind-numbing. I've travelled in to Newman on the relatively short (2 hour) drive from Nullagine (not even on the main highway) and passed up to 12 oversize loads in that short distance.

So the fact that they're about to introduce "B - triples" on a couple of major roads over east somewhere doesn't really bother me. Hell, they've even said that they're not going to do it until the entire road is double lane dual carriageway. If you can't handle B - triples on roads like that - then you really should be questioning whether you should be on the roads at all.

Dont much care I guess as long as I'm not trapped behind them if they're dawdling (or they not up my tailpipe if I'm not going quick enough for them lol) so if they wait till its all double lanes then there should not be an issue

At the moment a load on a truck can get from the vendor in Melbourne to the Customer in Sydney overnight while freight rail would only get the same load to somewhere on the rail in southern NSW.

Don't be fooled if it were more efficient to use rail, Toll Holdings who also own freight rail would be running more tonnage on the rails. Only when there are road rail interchanges on the outskirts of every major city (like the one being built at Bringelli and soon to be built on the SME site at Moorebank) and high speed freight rail corridors between them will we see a return of freight to rail and then only when the freight is consigned on large freight companies with intermodal capacity. Smaller operators will continue to use road and be price competitive because of lower overheads.