Declining oil traffic

["Thommo" <mjthom@hdc.com.au>]

The trend for the oil majors today is to utilise road transport as their
prime source of cartage at the expense of rail, an example of this was a
recent trip to Goulburn whereby rakes of retired oil wagons await their
fate.This scene no doubt repeats itself at other major railway centres
around Australia.
As I am employed at a country fuel distributorship I can best explain why
this trend is continuing on an upward spiral.  The infrastructure,
environmental and  O.H and S costs associated with inland storage facilities
today is alarming impacting on the overall profit margin for a small rural
distributorship.  Unfortunately for rail, new competitors entering the
deregulated market  importing cheaper blends of fuel having no fixed
infrastructure costs, the majors had to compete with these new players. Five
years ago our company employed 5 14.000 kl trucks for rural deliverys this
necessitated 5 drivers 1 dispatcher 2 storeman and various admin staff, we
had our own rail siding with 2 rail tank cars serving this 500.000 kl
storage facility daily . Today however our depot along with many others have
been decommissioned and/or abandoned employing only a hand full of staff,
with fuel being delivered to the primary producer direct from the Melbourne
terminal utilising a B- double. Back in the early eighties the majors
invested heavily in establishing dedicated inland storage facilities running
large consignments of block oil trains to service these, however all to be
in vain.  Shell in Shepparton is the only user of rail and given its
competitors have abandoned this source of transport one wonders it's only a
matter of time when it too disassociates it's self from rail transport .

signalling off
Thommo