Thread: why dont they use rail?

Not sure what difference a dual carriageway will make as there are already too many accidents on the existing dual carriageway around Yass.

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...and if you put to much stuff on a flat bed this happens


... but I dunno what happens to a b-triple in similar circumstances

Rail should be used more, but as most of the general rail network infrastructure is owned by the govt and leased to private enterprise, govts do not want to invest in infrastructure upgrades and most private companies can not afford to with general freight rates. Others that are private owned like mining rail infrastructure are not keen to allow private freight or trains on their networks.
You think B doubles are bad, get on the Great Northern Hwy where it is just a constant stream of heavy triple road trains, longer than triple B doubles. Also certain areas of WA are now allowed to run quad road trains at 50 metres long. Try passing one of these in a tdi 300 When these were introduced and trialed about 8 years ago, public submission was called for and I made a submission regarding use in the Goldfields of WA outlining my concerns. It was only one of 6 submissions made, yet was widely advertised and also I told everyone I could. Yet people complained after it was introduced but did not have their say when they should have. My main issues where these 50 metre long quads being used between Norseman, Kambalda, Kalgoorlie and Kalgoorlie where there were limited overtaking areas for average low powered cars, these quads being hauled by under powered prime movers that were only designed to haul singles or doubles, Cars travelling at 100 - 110 kmph coming over hills and around bends to find these trucks struggling with road speed and travelling from as low as 20 - 60 kmph. Was just a matter of time for further incidents and fatalities (and yes these did occur). Also there was a tendency to overload. The roads were also damaged badly during hot weather.
It is all driven by profit margins, not by public safety.
If you have a chance to have a say and lodge a submission, do so, even though they will probably ignore it. At least then you cannot be accused of apathy.
CraigE

Yep, stuff like that happens, but how many truck accidents happen a day? Far more than rail, though have seen some significant rail incidents. Even though I only worked rail for a short time, saw a few in this time and still see a lot as have many friends that work rail. These type of incidents rarely happen on mining networks as the rail infrastructure is looked after a lot better than the public network. The biggest issue is erosion (subsidence) or tracks walking due to heat or cold. Not against trucks at all, but lets limit the length on our roads and have companies show some intelligence on freight times and penalties. Coles and Woolworths are the worst for imposing penalties for late arrivals.

Originally Posted by 87County

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...and if you put to much stuff on a flat bed this happens


... but I dunno what happens to a b-triple in similar circumstances

Originally Posted by CraigE

Coles and Woolworths are the worst for imposing penalties for late arrivals.

Truckies have never been backward in demonstrating and blockading to make their point hence I am surprised that the trucking industry has not taken Coles and Woollies to task on this practice - eg if penalised the goods are not delivered. I think they would actually have Government support on this one but they do not have the courage to take on Woolies and Coles by themselves.

Garry

There are several problems with using rail - probably the most intractable is that everything that goes on rail has to be (usually) transhipped twice - from origin to rail, from rail to destination, and that there are several sections of the rail network that are operating close to saturation, especially in the Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan areas. Upgrading the tracks in these areas is almost prohibitively expensive due to the cost of real estate.

Road transport is more fault tolerant - failure of any part of the infrastructure or industrial action anywhere can usually be routed round, unlike rail.

As for B-triples on the Hume - seems to me to be less of a problem than B-doubles on two lane undivided roads with few overtaking lanes and heavy traffic, such as the Newell Highway.

John

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.

Originally Posted by incisor

why dont they use rail?

Hume Highway could see B-triple trucks - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Plain and simple , , , , Sir Peter Able had it all worked out , , , train leaves Sydney with a1,000 ton and arrives Melbourne 3 hours later, , , turn around was 3 hours, , , train leaves Melbourne with a thiousand ton and arrives Sydney 3 hours later, , , , WHY DIDN'T IT GET UP, , , , the green'ies said it was ENVIROMENTALLY damaging, , , . would cause to much disruption along the rail corridor and scare the wild life away, , , , the greenies wanted a 1.6 to 3 kilometre "SAFE" zone each side of the rail line, , , , does this sound familiar !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!