Re: GSR's First Overland Arrives
Kim Hazelgrove (azltech@opera.iinet.net.au)
Wed, 05 Nov 1997 22:27:23 +0800
Maurie Daly wrote:
>
>
> Over the same period revenue from country passenger services was $22 million
> in 1989 dropping to $15 million in 1994.
> Costs of running the passenger services was $37 million in 1989 dropping to
> $28 million in 1994, so loss in running the pass services was $13 million
> dropping to $9 million .(losses take into account concessions.)
> This works out at approx 18 cents per net pass/km which is 2nd best with the
> SRA beating it at approx 16 cents per net pass/km. (XPTs are winners.)
>
Maurie, you must remember that MOST of Westrail's passenger services are
BUS lines, not rail lines. The only passenger you could quote on are:
the local suburban services - which is run by the bus lines, so they
don't count; the Australind - a commuter service between Perth and
Bunbury (occaisional tourist traffic), which is mostly empty; Avon Link
- Northam Perth one coach commuter service; Prospector - Kalgoorlie to
Perth. The rest are Mercedes buses thoughout the SW and wheat belt. I
hardly think they compare to XPTs. The only fair comparison is one
Prospector service to all the XPT services and 5 million people vs 1
million people in each state (within train areas). My understanding was
that the grain (to Kwinana) turned a profit, the bauxite was close (if
not over) and the iron ore (to Esp) was a reasonable return. The biggest
problems were with loco maintenance. All in all not too bad - the system
is based on unit trains.