>michael barr <michael.barr@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>>What what will happen to this once great railway system now that it is
>>wide open to competition in the open market?
>One can only anticipate that as there is no longer any restrictions
>upon pricing of haulage, FreightCorp is in a better position to become
>more competetive.
>The freight side of State Rail had been politically hampered for many
>years in being competetive. Pricing structures were set at a level to
>allow for greater ease by road hauliers to win haulage contracts.
>Since these restrictions were removed on July 1, 1996, FreightCorp is
>now in a position to be truly competetive and to set their own
>pricing. They can now submit a coal haulage tender to a colliary for
>example, at fixed or flexible rates negotiated between the two parties
>for any set period of time.
>There has been increased activity within the operation recently such
>as an additional `speed freight' to Blainey, more oil supplies going
>west by rail, and so on. This was not possible previously as past
>governments actively encoured more road transport.
Ideally , for the concept of competition to provide an improvement in rail
services and reduction in cost,Freightcorp should not just be restricted in
competing for traffic in NSW , but anywhere in Australia, even competing
against NR or whoever buys AN.
Effectively th PTC and AN are competing against NR now buy running the SCT &
TNT trains.
Maybe Freightcorp could do a deal with SCT to run its trains from Melb to
Sydney.
True competition wont come about however until the old historical problems of
the State Borders is resolved,as this is where road freight is way ahead of
rail.
MD
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Maurie Daly
Department of Communications Lab.
Canberra
Australia
mauried@commslab.gov.au
ph 6 2791331
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