Derailed or back on track? Inland Rail and the new government now at the throttle

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Derailed or back on track? Inland Rail and the new government now at the throttle
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In Opposition, Labor promised transparency and fixes to get the $15 billion-and-counting Inland Rail project “back on track”. It has also committed to serious budget repair. What happens now?

AdvertisementThe Inland Rail dream, cheered most fervently by the Nationals,with a mix of new tracks and upgrades. Intermodal terminals, essentially places where freight from one type of transport could be loaded to another, would dot the route.

From Toowoomba, where the wealthy Wagner family will build an intermodal hub, the rail would notionally pass through a new 6.4 kilometre tunnel under the mountains and terminate south of Brisbane at Acacia Ridge, where trucks would pick up freight for urban warehouses and supermarkets. It is expensive and divisive work.

Trucks could do it. So could a multibillion-dollar freight line, complete with tunnels and a years-long lead time. The present proposal involves moving the colossal trains through southern Brisbane neighbourhoods on existing rail infrastructure. Despite all the planning, reports and feasibility studies, nothing in the south-east Queensland plan is certain. The inquiry even found the Infrastructure department and the ARTC were not in lockstep about a terminus at Acacia Ridge at all.In 2018, a government study examined such questions. It has never been released. Another was commissioned in 2019. King would not answer questions about its status.

He put forward $10 million and declared in the first line of his press release: “Connecting Inland Rail to Gladstone is a step closer to reality”.

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