Re: Wodonga gets boost in railway move deal

[mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly)]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2000 20:55:19 +1100, "Rod[comtrain]"
<freight_man@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Maurie,
>Brack's does not seem to believe F/A has ANY rights to the BG network, apart
>from the right to pay acess charges.
>Freight Australia, thought they had recieved sole access rights from the
>Kennett Government, as part of the purchase price.
>ALP legal advice is that Bracks can let ATN in, without compensating F/A.
>If this still stands, F/A will not want the North East converted at all. B/G
>is the only thing keeping ATN out of most of Victoria. The threat of ATN
>operating a BG train in Victoria, is still keeping charges down. It is
>interesting to note, that converting the BG in NE Victoria, will almost
>certainly mean the rest of the State must follow, quickly. Apart from the
>wharves, a lot of stuff still comes / goes to Geelong.
>Rod
>
>

I must confess that I wondered exactly what FA bought when it paid
$164 M for Vline freight.
The locos and rollingstock wouldnt come anywhere near this value so
there must be something else,but it seems not.
Its no secret that the ALP when in opposition totally opposed the sale
of Vline freight, so now in Govt they are trying as hard as they can
to reverse kennets policies without wanting to give any of the
purchase price back.

Now this is almost exactly the same situation that we now have in WA.
The existing liberal govt is facing a State election this year ,.and
is likely to lose .
The ALP opposition is totally opposed to the privatization of Westrail
so will we see repeat in WA of whats happening in VIC, ie the new Govt
tries to undo the privatization.

At least in the case of NRC and Freightcorp there seems to be
bipartisan support for the sales.

The only outcome of all this is that financiers will be extremely
reluctant to finance rail projects in Australia for a long time to
come,and with the current farce with Speedrail why would anyone want
to get involved with rail in Australia.

The sale prices of NRC and Freightcorp will have to be devalued by the
current state of affairs.

cheers
MD