Re: Mt Gambier network - thoughts

[Eddie Oliver <eoliver@efs.mq.edu.au>]

Maurie Daly wrote:


> There is a major wheat silo at Frances ,.the first station south of Wolseley
> on the old line and obviously the traffic must have been lost to road .
> Guage conversion to the silo at least would cost around $1 - $2 M , not a
> great deal

Why SHOULD it cost so much?

One of the biggest problems with rail in Australia is the utterly absurd
costings which are imposed on relatively simple projects, usually
because someone starts with an exaggerated estimate of the real costs
and they then get inflated (successively) by 400% overheads, 200%
contingencies and 100% accounting rounding. 

ASR as a private organisation should surely be practical enough to
overcome these typically government-railway traditions - provided that
it is resisting the pressures to be overrun with bureaucrats as well.

Most if not all of the Mount Gambier line was relaid with gauge
conversion in mind. Logically, why should it cost large amounts of money
to move one rail from one location on the sleepers to another a few
inches away?

Eddie Oliver