Re: Wisconcin wants in,still!

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

In article <eIbO2.2836$MB3.4738@newsfeeds.bigpond.com> "Rod" <berlina@bigpond.com> writes:
>From: "Rod" <berlina@bigpond.com>
>Subject: Wisconcin wants in,still!
>Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 09:31:57 +1000

>   Following are parts of yesterdays Age Article.

>Would like Mark  Bau [and others] to comment please!  Is this just sour
>grapes, or could they......


>     Australian Transport Network, the consortium that lost the bid  to buy
>V/line Freight,
>    has signalled a drive to compete for business in Victoria's rail freight
>market........consortium that lost the bid  to buy

Rods comments are interesting in that it brings up an issue that sofar seems 
to have gone unnoticed,in that whilst FV have bought the old VLF they dont 
appear to have bought it as a monopoly, ie anyone else can still compete 
against them in Victoria for the Interstate / Intrastate freight.
This  , to me seems unfair , in that VF have had to pay $160 odd million to 
operate in Victoria but anyone else it seems can operate without having to pay 
sums like this .
This makes it very easy for any other operator to undercut VF ,especially if 
track access charges are arbitrated by some third party , eg Vic DOT in the 
case of dispute.
As I understnd it NRC can now compete for Intrastate freight in Vic but have 
chosen not to do so , one wonders what would happen if this policy was 
reversed.
ie NRC starts hauling wheat over the Vic SG network.
This would seriously affect VFs potential profitability, its going to be hard 
enuf as it is.
Interstate freight isnt all the profitable , at least whilst we have the NSW 
track access regime in place , and there are already many operators on the 
East - West leg out of Melb.
I wonder about the potential of someone buying NRC , after all its an operator 
with no track , no profit , and a huge debt, fairly tall order to turn all 
this around..

MD