Re: Cost of Alice Springs to Darwin.

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

In article <01bcb48a$246de680$1a1e3bcb@default> "Sam K" <vivandrw@iinet.net.au> writes:
>From: "Sam K" <vivandrw@iinet.net.au>
>Subject: Re: Cost of Alice Springs to Darwin.
>Date: 29 Aug 1997 14:56:22 GMT



>Maurie Daly <mauried@commslab.gov.au> wrote in article
><mauried.91.3400FCE1@commslab.gov.au>...
>> 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.
> 

>Daly
>>  What about signalling,telecoms,rolling stock,transport of materials to
>site,accomadation,project management etc?
>>  Andrew

AN dont use signalling , at least not on the CAR ,which would be the extension 
to Darwin, all safeworking is provided by Radio.
The original project cost of $145 M for Tarcoola to Alice included radio comms 
and all the other contruction projects requirements,ie planning surveying, 
project management etc which amounted to a cost in 1980 terms of $170000 per 
km.
As the new line is longer , 1440 km and costs have increased since 1980 it 
would be reasonable to inflate the 1980 costs somewhat.
If we inflate the costs based solely on inflation then the cost would about 
$300000 per km although some of this cost could be reduced as the surveying of 
the line has already been done and paid for.
So a rough guess would be about $432 million.
This doesnt account for difficult terrain or substantial bridging which would 
have to examined in detail, but to get $900 million is stretching it.
I will be interested to see if the line actually does go ahead how much it 
really does cost.

MD

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Maurie Daly
Department of Communications Lab.
Canberra
Australia
mauried@commslab.gov.au
ph 6 2791331
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