News

Australia’s largest rail freight company has lent its strong support to recent announcements to progress the planning and delivery of the inland rail freight project, including a dedicated freight corridor to the Port of Brisbane.

Mr Hockridge said Aurizon was particularly interested in the proposed rail freight corridor that would run between Rosewood, west of Ipswich via Acacia Ridge, to the Port of Brisbane.

Aurizon has a large interstate intermodal freight terminal at Acacia Ridge which co-ordinates movements in and out of Queensland, and to the port. The company also provides haulage services for a range of coal and agricultural customers in Queensland who would potentially benefit from this new corridor. As a dedicated freight corridor it would eliminate the conflict with urban passenger movements in Brisbane.

“Aurizon has been a long term supporter of targeted, strategic investment in infrastructure that lifts the efficiency and productivity of freight rail in Australia,” Aurizon Managing Director & CEO Lance Hockridge said today.

“An inland rail route linking Brisbane and Melbourne has been identified for a long time as a key piece of infrastructure we need to meet the nation’s rising freight task. We’re talking about productive transport infrastructure that benefits the economy across 20, 30 and 50 year horizons.

“While it’s vital that further work is done to demonstrate the economic viability and the precise investment case, it makes eminent sense to secure the corridor and allocate funding to kick start the staged, long term delivery of the project.

Aurizon moves around 700,000 tonnes of freight daily across the nation and is a major rail operator on the Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane route that would benefit from an inland freight rail project.

“We know that rail has the ability to genuinely do the heavy-lifting when it comes to moving large volumes of freight safely and efficiently. An average freight train for example can take 110 trucks off the road. Rail is more fuel efficient and has a far smaller carbon footprint than road transport.”