Cost of Alice Springs to Darwin.

Maurie Daly (mauried@commslab.gov.au)
Mon, 25 Aug 1997 03:32:50 GMT

No doubt most readers would have heard the cost of this project is approx $900
M or for the distance involved $1 million per km.
Does anyone know what the cost breakup per km is that leads to this total cost.
>From some simple calculations based on 60 kg rail and concrete sleepers laid
by a 20 man team using modern track laying equip , I cant come up with
anything like this cost.
Are there any similar figures available for other similar projects like
Newport - Geelong , or Tarcoola - Alice Springs etc.

The other figure that doesnt make any sense is the time period involved , 4
years.
This equates to a track laying figure of only 0.6 km/day which would have to
be the worst in the world.
Newport - Geelong was laid at an average of 2 km/day , and figures of 4 km /
day are quite achievable.
In then early days of the building of the Mt Newman Line in Nth WA , 7 km /
day was achieved.

A number of other costs normally related to the building of new lines dont
have to be taken into account for this line , namely the route has been
completely already surveyed, the route is easy by any engineering standards ,
ie no significant tunnels or bridges are needed.

In short , I just wonder whether the figure is deliberately high to make the
line appear uneconomic and where did the figure come from in the first place.

cheers
Maurie Daly