Improving Freight and Passenger
Obstacles between the Western Suburbs and Port Botany
The State Government has not published its plans for making rail the preferred mode of container movement between these zones. They are backing the conversion of Wonderland into some kind of giant break bulk and consolidation depot at the intersection of the F4 and the Western Orbital, but no rail links have been announced.
The short rail link would be from the Western line south along the new freeway. The junction would be another disaster unless grade separated from the start. Even then freights would face curfews between the new junction and Flemington Goods Junction where they would join the existing freight lines to the port.
The Clearways program
In late August 2003 the State Government announced it will give priority to disentangling the various suburban services by eliminating conflicting movements. They are calling this the Clearways program.
By mid 2004 the only published detail is of turnbacks, but the large expenditure promised suggests quite a few grade separations.
At the bottom of this column I show one example of removing conflicts for both freight and passengers with a single flyover .
The first really difficult case will be Sefton Park Junctions (diagram at right). There are signs that the State Government hopes to handle this by eliminating the Bankstown-Lidcombe passenger service to reduce conflicts the cheap way.
Delays at junctions are the reason this service is erratic at present and patronage may well have been dropping. What will happen around the system if poor performance requires capital expenditure for rectification but the politicians routinely decide to drop the service instead?
Trapped in the Median
If a freight track is ever placed in the median of a motorway it will be impossible to run sidings to prospective large customers along the way except at the great expense of a dive or flyover of one carriageway. In the case of the Western Sydney Orbital it is not yet too late for the State Government to mandate the locations along the route for container break-bulk/consolidation depots. Rail underpasses could thus be built in at very little cost - perhaps using ARMCO pipe.
Costs would be so low that each location could even have two underpasses, forming a loop on the outside of the tollway. Or the freight line could meander between each side depending upon where the customers had been allocated sites.
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Some contradictions Re freight lines
A start was made running south from Glenfield on the western side of the Main South about ten years ago. Since then an intermodal terminal has opened at Minto on the eastern side of the tracks. Which side is the freight intended to go? What is the use of having a curfew free freight line if movements in and out of terminals have to cross passenger lines to which the curfew applies?
When the Western Sydney Orbital Tollway was first hyped up ,at about the same time, one sweetener was that space would be left for a freight track and perhaps even passenger rail in the median. Now that the road project is underway we hear nothing of rail.
It is likely several loading depots for B-doubles will spring up along the Orbital route even if the State Government tries to make Wonderland a monopoly. There would be merit in having rail concreted in at the start and be able to take a share of the port and interstate traffic that seems destined to go to the big rigs.
The biggest contradiction of all is to have passenger train priority on freight lines. If freight operators have to beg for paths on passenger lines, then surely CityRail, Countrylink or any other passenger operator should have to beg for a path on these supposed dedicated freight lines.
GLENFIELD JUNCTION
 During the 2004 election campaign the Federal Transport Minister said the Army Engineers siding at Moorebank was ready for conversion to an intermodal terminal. This diagram shows that this will greatly increase the investment required to keep the adjacent junction workable. It seems destined to be more complex than Sefton Park Junctions.
 <--Blue track is Lidcombe-Bankstown
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Policy confusion on InterModal sites
The State Government has refused to allow Patrick Corporation to use a site at Ingleburn for Port Botany container trains but will allow the site to handle interstate motor car shipments. There will be easy access to the Southern Sydney Freight Line. The Sydney Morning Herald of 2 October,2004 quotes a member of the Infrastructure and Planning Minister's staff as saying the minister had a long standing position on where such facilities should be located, how big they should be, and how they should operate
Does Wonderland fill the Minister's criteria if it does not have a 24hour a day rail link to Port Botany?
The best link to Wonderland?
A good link to Wonderland would be a single track with loops off the Southern Sydney Freight line all the way along the Orbital median to the Main Western and thence on the southern side to a flyover at St Marys. This last would remove conflicts for movements to and from the west.
Financing the link
The State Government could establish a non-profit making unit trust to build and maintain the line. Wonderland's promoters would have to subscribe all initial capital.Any new parties setting up transport depots
along the route would have to buy units from existing holders regardless of whether they were intending to have a rail connection or not.
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A way to assist Yennora traffic
The diagram at right shows how the Old South "Down" and a Yennora freight track could be carried over the existing Cabramatta Junction.
A split flyover to carry Port Botany traffic direct would be much more expensive and have a very tight radius. The switchback shown here could accomodate the existing push-pull P sets. It would be ideal for twin CargoSprinters, one for each Port Botany stevedore terminal.
Two desires of rail operator managements might be in conflict with this:-
(1) The distance from the present junction to the end of the platform is probably about 700 metres, so there would be no prospect of longer push-pull trains. This restriction might also apply if a single island platform is created, but not if both freight tracks were laid in a covered cutting.
(2) If there was only one crewman he would have to walk to the other end.
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A letter sent by myself to Action for Public Transport members, January 2005
I feel there is no need for new or expanded roads to service Port
Botany. There are predictions that within three to five years the two
terminals there could be handling two million twenty foot equivalent
units per year (TEU's). I take it this means one million in by land and
one million out by land. The newly duplicated railway could easily
handle this.
Since containerisation began about 40 years ago, the politicians and
terminal operators have been promising to increase rail haulage to the
western suburbs. It is only in the last few years that any improvement
has occurred and this is likely to be reversed by the opening of the
Orbital (M7) and the establishment of consolidation/break bulk depots
along it without rail connection.
Much of the poor rail performance is probably due to the stevedore
terminal operators giving trucks priority in loading. Some has been due
to rail operators shunting rakes of wagons into sidings instead of
using either push-pull (a loco at each end) or diesel multiple units
(DMU's) with a cab at each end.
Here is how to do it by rail alone.
(1) Convert the terminals to rail loading only.
(2) Run push-pull or DMU trains in pairs, one 40TEU section going in to
each stevedore terminal.
(3) Run up to three trains per hour, twenty hours per day, six days per
week.
This gives an annual capacity of 1.5 million TEU's in each direction.
At an average fill of two thirds of slots in and out, this would carry
two million.
There would need to be an extension at Cook's River so that some trains
would make only a short trip to the port with containers destined for
along the Sydney coast.
The first step in implementing this scheme might be the levy idea, but
only for trucks capable of carrying more than one TEU. This would bring
in cash to buy rail rolling stock and reassure the TWU that its
membership would be maintained by having at least as many trucks in the
western suburbs, only shorter.
The implications of this for public transport would be many and varied
but as my scheme makes the roads more congenial for the private car
there is unlikely to be any net benefit.
I shall develop this scheme in more detail during 2005
Note. There is now a Botany Rail Steering Group led by Dr Fred Affleck. This seems to be an attempt to get the Intermodal Terminals, the stevedores and the rail operators to work better together.
Re Maunsell's Supplementary Transport and Traffic Assessment, April 2004,
prepared for the Sydney Ports Corporation. This seems to have rail capacity projections based on trains
serving one stevedore only, and allowing two hour tunaround at the port. We need to get much better. If a train is not unloaded or loaded when due for departure, the loss from departing on time should fall on the stevedore. At least they allow for 54 trains per day each way.
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Hunter Valley Improvements
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Epping - Freight and Passenger
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