Re: Rail privatizations.

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

On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 07:15:05 GMT, dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David
Bromage) wrote:

>Maurie Daly (mauried@tpg.com.au) wrote:
>> ATN in TAS is the only example of rail winning back road freight that
>> I know of and I left it out of the argument as its not mainland.
>
>The best example on the mainland is FA, with NR, Austrac and LVR making
>small contributions. There is also the example of TNT moving car transport
>back to rail of its own accord.
>
>In fact, truck drivers were protesting thet Tasrail was "unfairly" taking
>away their business.


I fully agree that in Tasmania rail is winning back freight from road 
and doing it well,but its not happening on the mainland for a whole
host of reasons , one being that the ATN rail system in Tasmania is 
a verticaly integrated privately owned railway, ie very close to the
US arrangement.
On the mainland its nothing like this .

>> The bottom line is that on the mainland ,rail cant win back much from
>> road whilst road doesnt have to pay mass distance charges and rail
>> does.
>
>On the other hand, freight to Perth is carried overwhelmingly by rail.
>The recent rises in diesel prices are certainly making rail more attractive.
Yes and thanks to AN who pioneered this freight in the first place.
That fact that the Perth - Adelaide traffic is highly assymetrical,
and that truckies dont like the route might have something to do with
it as well.




>NR still has the inflexibility of being a big organisation. It's the
>smaller operators who can easily identify and fill niche markets.

Why should a big organization be inflexible ?
Wyh cant NRC identify and fill niche markets?

>
>> On the main south which is where I live , the number of trains
>> carryung containers and other contestable freight has actually fallen
>> since the creation of NRC, with what used to be all NRC trains now
>> being slowly replaced with FC,FA and Austrac trains , but no net
>> increase in train numbers .
>
>Don't compare the number of trains, compare the net tonnages and number of
>vehicles. NR trains are a lot bigger than when they first started.

Yes and there are a hell of a lot less of then , down from 300 trains
per week to 200 trains per week now.
The differance cant be explained simply by going from 900 to 1500 M
trains on the east coast,as all of their trains arnt 1500 M long.
>
>It's also worth remembering that there are always new customers in a
>growing market, and existing customers are increasing the amount of
>traffic. So while proportions might be relatively stable, the total amount
>of traffic is increasing. The new operators are helping stop this new
>traffic going entirely to road.
>
>Cheers
>David

There is no doubt that in a growing market that rail will get some
share , but its not getting anywhere near enuf of the share.

The following info I got from the BTEs website indicators.
It shows the numbers of new registrations of semi trailers per quarter
over the last 5 years or so.

	Dec 1994	1271	2995
	Mar 1995	 923	2386
	Jun 1995	1464	3082
	Sep 1995	 666	2702
	Dec 1995	 828	2510
	Mar 1996	 595	2003
	Jun 1996	 820	2428
	Sep 1996	 848	2351
	Dec 1996	 837	2461
	Mar 1997	 583	1948
	Jun 1997	 877	2688
	Sep 1997	 969	2794
	Dec 1997	1104	2862
	Mar 1998	 821	2415
	Jun 1998	1112	3316
	Sep 1998	1112	3350
	Dec 1998	1054	3392
	Mar 1999	 764	2777
	Jun 1999	1043	3649
	Sep 1999	 986	3373
	Dec 1999	 971	3612
	 Source  ABS Cat. No. 9301.0		

The first column is articulated vehicles, ie semis.
The 2nd is fixed axle trucks.
If we simply look at the regos for semis we see on average about 800
new semis being registered every quarter for the last 5 years.
A semi has a load carrying capacity of from 24 to 46 tonnes or more
for B doubles.
This represents a net increase of between 20000 and 40000 tonnes every
qusrter for the road freight industry.
If rail is even going to keep up with road ,then we should be also
seeing an equivalent increase in rail carrying capacity per quarter.
This means at a minimum we should be seeing around 10 to 20 additional
3000 HP locos and 250 extra flat wagons entering the rail industry
every quarter.
But what we see is the very reverse, locos are being placed in storage
and so is rolling stock.
Hardly a sign that rail is winning back much of roads share .

MD