Re: Declining oil traffic

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

In article <3786FDA0.A29E70C1@omni.com.au> David Bromage <dbromage@omni.com.au> writes:
>Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 19:01:14 +1100
>From: David Bromage <dbromage@omni.com.au>
>Subject: Re: Declining oil traffic

>Ben Staples wrote:
>> And I wonder who will pay the increased cost of road maintenance and
>> construction to meet the standards required of these new vehicles??

>The taxpayer, of course. But when governments put money into roads it's
>an investment. When they put money into rail it's a subsidy.

>Cheers
>David

One of the problems that Govts are faced with , particularily the Feds is even 
if they do pour millions or billions or whatever into rail there is no 
guarantee whatsover that it will move one truck off the roads onto rail.
The current reason why road wins over rail is not so much the conditions of 
the infrastructure ,but the conditions that must be met in order to run trains 
over it , in fact one outcome of improving rail alignments, speed limits etc 
in order to make it more competitive with road could easily be that the Rail 
owners then increased the Track access charges arguing that better rail 
infrastructure means you should pay more for it .

Certainly before 1992 and One Nation the feds didnt give a stuff about Rail 
but since then they have tried , fairly hard in fact to try and achieve rail 
reform and have gotten nowwhere thanks to intransigant State Govts who are in 
my view the real culprits for the demise of rail.
A good example is the situation that has arisen with the Darwin to AP Railway 
if its ever built , where the Govts of SA and NT have dreamed up yet another 
access regime ,totally differant to all the others for trains which run over 
this line , exactly the opposite of what the Feds have been trying to achieve.

When State Govts concede that Rails opposition is Road and start cooperating 
with each other then you will see Rail funding flowing again.

MD