Re: Mt Gambier network - thoughts

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

In article <37BAAE4F.29B42B9E@efs.mq.edu.au> Eddie Oliver <eoliver@efs.mq.edu.au> writes:
>From: Eddie Oliver <eoliver@efs.mq.edu.au>
>Subject: Re: Mt Gambier network - thoughts
>Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:59:59 +1000

>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


I tend to agree that rail construction costs seem to be amazingly high.
Part of the problem is that in most cases the Govt is paying and therefore the 
estimates rocket.
I see this sort of thing every day where I work in Canberra in that when 
something needs to be ordered as soon as it is known that the customer is the 
Govt ,then the price gets jacked up dramatically.

Previous estimates of guage conversion range from $100K per km where wooden 
sleepers are involved and have to be redrilled,down to 20-50K per km where 
guage convertible concrete sleepers already exist.
I also tend to beleive that Govt Railways are being ripped off blind in some 
major projects.
In the Robe River vs Hamersley Iron competition case estimates were made by 
Consultants on the cost of a completely new line for Robe which averaged 
around the $500K per km mark up to a worst case of $1M per km mark for
68kg/m rail on concrete ballasted to withstand 35 tonne axle loads.
As a good comparison the most recent major rail construction project the Govt 
has been involved in was the new SG line from Newport to Nth Geelong C.
This line cost $1M per km , is only 60 kg/M rail on concrete,is only 
designed with  25 tonne axle loads in mind and still has only 100 
km/h speed limits on it due apparantly to the lack of adequate ballasting.
Someone got ripped off.

MD