Re: Good News for Rail Fuel taxes

["Peter Ruxton" <rucko@bigpond.com>]

Maurie Daly wrote in message ...
>
>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



I agee with Maurie Dalys coments re acces fees as they are usally the
largest cost depending on fuel useage. His comments about long heavy trains
V quick ones also are valid depending on the contracts or market segment
serviced.

My concern with the fuel reduction applying to both road and rail is that
road, which I believe uses about 2.5 times the amount of fuel used by rail
to shift a given tonnage a given distance will therefore benift far more
than rail providing a hidden sting in the tail. Could someone post the exact
figures for cents per litter reduction for Road and Rail. Then a comparison
is possible and I hate to admit it but I suspect Road is the bigger winner.



P. Ruxton