Re: Good News for Rail Fuel taxes

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

>Several years ago, the Gov. [Keating I think? ] introduced Fuel Excise on
>Rail Companies , and V/Line immediately introduced Fuel saving measures.
>1. Shut locos down if they will idle more than 2 hours at the Fuel Point, or
>at Spencer St.
>2. Check tonnage of train and run excess locos off line More fuel efficient
>when pulling hard!
>3. Buy  lower grade, dirty oil [bunker Fuel ?]

>Did not have a lot of success, the dirty oil, polluted badly, and soon
>increased pricing because of its new popularity killed off any advantage.
>Locomotives failed a lot more often, with damaged engines [glazing], flat
>batteries and plain old wear and tear increased because they were cold
>started, and run at high revs before they had properly warmed up/ And I
>guess many other problems, that maybe one of our fitters might elaborate on?
>So all that has happened is that we have gone back a few years, now we do
>need investment to enable these new players to do it right, and start
>tearing back the tonnages off the road.
>Marinus said that the Hume carries 95% of the Sydney Melbourne
>Traffic....Thats a hell of a way to Go!!
>Rod


Its about 80% currently , and if you exclude the steel traffic which cant be 
practically carried by road , then the rest would be getting close to 90%.
Pretty bad really.
It will get worse too,not better as the Feds slowly duplicate all the Hume and 
more and more B doubles hit the road.
Removing fuel excise on rail wont fix this either,as road has been beating 
rail between Sydney & Melb since the early 1960s when rail didnt pay any fuel 
excise.
Fuel taxes arnt rails biggest problem.
By far today , the differing rail access regimes and track access charges 
and regulatory requirements are the single biggest killer for rail,especially 
in NSW where we have the RAC secret access regime.
Its also worth noting that all these impediments to rail are not of the 
Federal Govts making , but are State Govt imposed restrictions of which there 
seems to be zero progress in getting them removed.
If FV are going to venture into the Melb - Sydney market then they will need a 
 miracle to enable them to compete with the trucking lobby.
A good start would be to run long heavy slow trains , ie not duplicate what 
NRC do,and try and get well under the truckies freight rates.
Id also think twice about changing crews at Junee.
Whilst Junee is historically where crews have always changed ,its a shocking 
place to have to stop trains if you dont really have to,due to the quite 
severe rising grades at  both ends,and the short length of the yard.
Cootas a much better place as the yard is flat and very long.
New locos obviously are very desirable,but to be realistic , very unlikely 
given what FV paid for the business in the first place.
Rebuilding existing ones is a much more likely and cost effective option,even 
the old S class could be rebuilt with the 645-E3 engine (same as the CLPs) and
would make a pretty useful unit.
The Xs would also make a good candidate with the 710-G3 engine, al la the NSW 
82s.
Before you do any of this though,you must have some contracts in place to 
guarantee the income to pay for the rebuilds.

cheers
MD