Re: How about some facts about the NR class?

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

In article <363e6f64.448987@news.netconnect.com.au> krel4203@netconnect.com.au (Krel ) writes:
>From: krel4203@netconnect.com.au (Krel )
>Subject: Re: How about some facts about the NR class?
>Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 03:06:05 GMT

>On 2 Nov 1998 22:29:23 GMT, markbau1@aol.comnospam (MarkBau1) wrote:

>>Aren't the NR's a "power by the hour" arrangement or did NR actually buy 120
>>loco's?
>>
>NR bought them.

>>On the subject of NR, I hear that NR is looking to get rid of 50 drivers
>>nationwide due to one man operation.
>>
>50 asap and 200+ by 2002. Due to DOOM and fewer, longer trains.  Is
>there any large rail freight organisation in Australia looking for
>freight that is NEW TO RAIL rather than just shifting to pieces of a
>very small pie?

>Cheers

>Krel



Its all part of a philosophy , historical problem that has beset Govt Railways 
in this country since federation , possibly before, in that Govt Railways were 
never seen as a Transport Business first and a Railway second , but the other 
way around, ie we ran trains simply for the sake of running trains rather than 
we run trains to shift commodities around in an economic manner.
In the 1960s and 1970s some Govt railways , and the then Vline and NSWGR were 
the worst , had real costs of as high as 11 cents per ntk to move freight, 
when road was achieving around 4 , US railways were achieving 2.5 and the Iron 
Ore railways in the Pilbara were getting 1.
But no-one gave a stuff because Railways were then all about running trains 
rather than running a professional transport business.
This I suspect was / is due to the fact that the senior executives of the 
various Railway administrations had never had to even remotely look at the 
cost effectiveness of their Railway , profitability  just wasnt an issue.
Today , profitability is becoming an issue , but the historical problems still 
remain , as the same people are in the top jobs as have been there for the 
last 20 years.
Ask youself this question , how many people currently working in Govt railways 
in the senior positions , including NRC , have had any background at all in 
running a Railway for profit.
I cant think of any .
Its quite likely that Govt railways simply dont know what to do , or how to 
change to meet the new direction, and as a result are simply fighting amongst 
themselves,by doing what they have always done .
Its no secret that State railway administrations have historically always had  
a policy of minimum or no cooperation at all with their counterparts on either 
sides of the borders,and now that we have private operators as well , they are 
also seem as the enemy.
 

NRC have finally got the right idea in running longer trains, but DOO is a 
totally retrograde step and is just a cost cutting issue.
One approach that would be worth looking at , and is total heresy from the way 
that trains have historically been run is to run trains as required , ie junk 
the timetables.
When a train has a full load , it simply leaves and heads for its destination.
You get much better utilization out of your infrastructure .
You need though cooperation between the various competing railway operators 
so that one operator can take freight for another operator and drop it off at 
points along the way for the other operator to pick up.
For example Freightcorp could ask NRC to pick up full grain wagons from the 
silos between Albury and Junee on one of its empty Pt Kembla steel  trains to 
save a freightcorp train having to run empty from Sydney to bring the wagons 
back
.It also requires a bit of additional flexibility in your operation , ie 
no loco or crew quarantining , which means that crews would have to know quite 
a few more roads than they historically have had to , ie Melb crews to 
Adelaide or Sydney, Sydney crews to Melb or Brisbane etc.
We are slowly just starting to see this sort of thing with freightcorp and 
vline freight starting to actually run trains between Capital cities and 
not arbitrary places that happen to be borders.

Also means a new breed of Train 
Controllers are needed, a bit like the sort of people why work as air traffic 
controllers.  ie the sort of question that a train crew out of Dynon might ask 
of control at any time is "We are ready to go , when is the next free path to 
Sydney available?"Given the incredibly low utilization rate of most of the 
interstate lines in this country paths shouldnt be a problem .

Maybe I am dreaming.
cheers
MD