Inland Rail, also known as Inland Railway and previously Australian Inland Railway Expressway, is a 1600-kilometre (990 mi) railway line under construction in Australia. Once complete, it will connect the ports of Melbourne and Brisbane along a new route west of the mountainous Great Dividing Range, bypassing the busy Sydney metropolitan area and allowing for the use of double-stacked freight trains. The route will also connect to the Sydney–Perth rail corridor, reducing journey times between Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Construction of the line is divided into 12 projects, with 600 kilometres (370 mi) of new track to be built and 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) of existing track to be upgraded.[1][2]
History
Early proposals
In 1889, a proposed standard gauge and partly mixed gauge line from Brisbane via Rosewood, Warwick and Wallangarra shortened the distance between Brisbane and Sydney by 55 miles (89 km).[3]
In 1996, the Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE) released a working paper assessing the proposal. It found a new route would save ten hours journey time on the existing coastal route via Sydney, reducing the operating cost for operators from $23.16/tonne to $17.56/tonne,[9] but would facilitate only a small increase in grain production.[10][11]
In September 2005, the federal Department of Transport and Regional Services commissioned a feasibility study into a Brisbane–Melbourne railway link, outlining four possible 'sub-corridors' between Junee and Brisbane.[12] In May 2008, the newly elected Rudd government allocated $15 million to the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to develop a route alignment following the Far Western sub-corridor as detailed in the 2006 study.[13][14] The corporation's preliminary analysis was released in May 2009, which showed that the cheapest version of the inland railway would cost $2.8 billion to build and would allow freight to be moved from Melbourne to Brisbane in just over 27 hours. Despite this, the analysis also found that, if operational by 2020, the project's costs would outweigh any economic benefits by up to $1.1 billion.[15]
The ARTC's final report was released in July 2010. The report recommended a route from Junee to Melbourne via Albury following the North East railway line, with the route from Moree to Brisbane to build along a new corridor through the Toowoomba range.[16] The report forecast a delivery cost of $3.688 billion, with track duplication works between Junee and Melbourne and capacity for double-stacked freight trains between Melbourne and Parkes already budgeted by the ARTC.[17]
The proposed route will connect the rail yard at Tottenham, Victoria with the freight yards at Acacia Ridge and Bromelton in Queensland, using a combination of new and existing standard gauge and dual gauge track. Upgrades to existing track will facilitate the use of double-stacked container trains between the three yards.
Victoria
Albury
Beveridge
Tottenham
Inland Rail project boundaries in Victoria
In Victoria, the Inland Rail route will follow the existing North East railway line and Albion–Jacana railway line alignment. Between Tottenham and Seymour the line is mostly single track with several crossing loops between 870 m (2,850 ft) and 6,800 m (22,300 ft) in length. The line north of Seymour is double track, with a connection to the Oaklands railway line at Benalla.[22]
Initial works on the corridor commenced in May 2020 as part of the $235 million North East Rail Line Upgrade,[23] with John Holland contracted to upgrade the track for line speeds up to 130 km/h (81 mph).[24][25] Additional works in the corridor include:
Replacing or modifying 12 railway bridges between Beveridge and Albury.[26]
Building new track and relocating platform 2 at Wangaratta.[27]
New South Wales
Albury
Illabo
Stockinbingal
Parkes
Narromine
Narrabri
North Star
Yelarbon
Inland Rail project boundaries in New South Wales
From Albury, the route continues along the Main South railway line to Illabo. Initial consultations on this section of the route commenced in 2018, with upgrades planned to 185 km (115 mi) of track.[28] 37 km (23 mi) of new track is planned to be built between Illabo and Stockinbingal, connecting the Main South railway line to the Stockinbingal–Parkes railway line and bypassing Cootamundra and the Bethungra Spiral.[29]
The route continues along the line to Parkes, with upgrades planned to 173 km (107 mi) of track.[30] A further 98.4 km (61.1 mi) of track has been upgraded between Parkes and Narromine, in addition to the construction of a new 5.3 km (3.3 mi) connection with the Broken Hill railway line west of Parkes allowing services to connect to Adelaide and Perth.[31]
Replace or modify nn overbridges between Albury and Junee.[26][32]
300 km (190 mi) of track between Narromine and Narrabri will be built along a new alignment, and is the longest stage of the project. A further 186 km (116 mi) of existing railway between Narrabri and North Star will be upgraded, with a bypass at Camurra to remove a long hairpin.[33]
Queensland
Yelarbon
Acacia Ridge
Bromelton
Inland Rail project boundaries in Queensland
The sections of the route between the New South Wales—Queensland border and the termini at Bromelton and Acacia Ridge total 303 kilometres (188 mi) and will be built as dual gauge, improving services on both the interstate standard gauge and Queensland narrow gauge networks.
South-west of Yelarbon, the Inland Rail route joins the alignment of the South Western railway line where it extends to south of Inglewood, with a new alignment connecting the now-closed Millmerran line north-east of Millmerran.[34] New track will be built between Southbrook and Gowrie Junction, with the route bypassing Toowoomba to Helidon on a new line and then along an upgraded Western line as far east as Calvert and new line 53 km to Kagaru. The existing dual gauge North Coast line of NSW between Acacia Ridge and Bromelton will also be upgraded to allow for double-stacked freight containers.
These tunnels replace the original narrow gauge only tunnels between Grandchester and Toowoomba with a faster and more maintainable alignment.
Construction
Chronology
In October 2018, INLink, a joint-venture between BMD Constructions and Fulton Hogan, was awarded a $310 million contract for stage 1 of the project between Parkes and Narromine.[35][36] Work on the Parkes–Narromine railway line and the new Broken Hill railway line connection commenced in December 2018.[37] More than 1,800 people were employed on the project, with works completed in September 2020.[38]
Landholders and farmers have opposed several sections of the project on environmental grounds. In September 2017, Chester announced the Yelarbon to Gowrie section would be built through the Condamine River floodplain, which reached its highest recorded level in the 2010–11 Queensland floods.[34] As a consequence, the Inland Rail project was referred to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee in 2019,[41] with the committee chair, Senator Glenn Sterle, critical of ARTC for a lack of consultation with communities along the alignment.[42] Although the ARTC reaffirmed the Yelarbon to Gowrie route would remain across the floodplain,[43] in June 2020, Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, ordered a review of the alignment.[44]
In July 2020, the New South Wales branch of the Country Women's Association, along with the NSW Farmers' Association, commenced legal proceedings against ARTC, seeking an independent hydrology review into the Narromine to Narrabri stage of the project.[45]
^"Project". Infrastructure Pipeline. Australia & New Zealand Infrastructure Pipeline. Archived from the original on 3 June 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
^"Inland Rail Alignment". Inland Rail. Australian Rail Track Corporation. Archived from the original on 26 February 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
^"Strategic Railway". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 21, 401. Victoria, Australia. 27 February 1915. p. 9. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
^Schwartz, Dominique; Blucher, Alexandra (10 December 2017). "Tension on the track". ABC News. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
