Doubling For Coal On Track

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 26, 2005

By IAN KIRKWOOD

COAL trains could run into Newcastle every 10 minutes under Federal Government plans to nearly double the Hunter rail system's capacity within three years.

But the plans by the federally owned Australian Rail Track Corporation are likely to cause controversy in the coal industry, because sections of the track that are too slow and steep near Singleton would not be flattened as previously promised.

The corporation leased the lines for 60 years from the NSW Government last year, and is reviewing longstanding plans to improve sections of the track because of heavy demand and high prices for Hunter coal.

Its draft five-year plan, the Hunter Valley Corridor Strategy, proposes lifting rail capacity from 85 million tonnes a year to 140 million tonnes by June 2008.

But it would do so without flattening Singleton's notorious Minimbah and Nundah banks, which have been at the centre of coal industry complaints for many years.

The corporation's first big job is the $40 million flyover at Sandgate, which it hopes to start this year once planning approval is given.

The paper says coal trains should be able to run every 10 minutes, but Nundah and Minimbah are such slow sections that a train travelling over either one would be caught by a train starting 10 minutes after it.

Instead of flattening, or deviating, the tracks on the hills, the corporation proposes to increase speed limits and install new signals..

"Track deviations would have a high capital cost, require several years to complete, would unable to be staged, and would still need carefully designed signalling to resolve the headway [10-minute spacing] issue," the paper says.

"For these reasons deviations are not attractive as a capacity option."

Similar reasoning went against the case for extra tracks.

In the years before last year's lease to the corporation, the State Government had developed a $150 million works program for the rail lines, which included $20 million to flatten Nundah Bank and $17 million to flatten Minimbah Bank.

But the corporation now says that new signals and higher speeds would "lift the line capacity from around 70 million tonnes per annum at Nundah and 80 at Minimbah, to 140 million tonnes per annum at both".

A corporation spokesman said the paper had been circulated to the industry, but he could not comment on the response.

© 2005 Newcastle Herald

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