John Fullerton, NRC Chief Operating Officer at Rail 2000 AGM

[arthur marsh <marsh@ties.itu.int>]

Due to the recent resignation of John Finnin from Great Southern Railway,
John Fullerton, Chief Operating Officer of National Rail Corporation was
called in as a replacement guest speaker at the Rail 2000 Annual Genral
Meeting held on 12 November 1998 in Adelaide.

Whilst I missed part of John's presentation, it was clear that NRC are
growing their market, with the return of Australia Post as a railway
customer, fresh fruit being transported from Rockhampton to Sydney and
Melbourne in conjunction with QR, and with more new customers on the way.

Maximum train lengths will be increased with the lengthening and addition
of new crossing loops, to as much as 1800 metres for the Adelaide to Perth
route. It is now possible to have freight moved from Sydney to Perth in
60 hours, and contrary to many messages posted in this newsgroup, the
Broken Hill route is important for NRC traffic between Sydney and Brisbane
to Perth.

The NR locomotives have proven successful - after "teething" problems
lasting up to two years from delivery and fixing of slipped
pinions, the defect rate of the locomotives is one per 100,000 km.

In order of priority, NRC are seeking to have the following track issues
fixed:

Safeworking between Geelong and Pura Pura and on the Nullaboor;

improving track quality between Melbourne and Albury, Melbourne and
Dimboola and Kalgoorlie and Koolyanobbing;

being able to run double-stacked trains between Melbourne and Adelaide
(expensive, however it's done);

and reducing the congestion in getting trains through Sydney.

John Fullerton borrowed from Mitsubishi's advertising in quoting NRC's
philosophy "Please Consider - using rail more", and mentioned how NRC has
improved on-time running and reliability and provided innovations in
information technology so that NRC and their customers can know where
their freight and trains are at any given moment.

For more information on Rail 2000 please check
http://www.users.on.net/rail2000/ email rail2000@adelaide.on.net,
telephone +61 8 8410 0024, fax +61 8 8212 4441 or snail mail PO Box 8229
Adelaide Station Arcade SA 5000, Australia.