Re: Alice Springs to Darwin line, but wait, there is more.!

["Bill Miller" <backtran@optusnet.com.au>]

What do you mean by "anything"? If you mean the current level of traffic
then OK, but surely not for the development of the iron ore or coal
deposits. If it were cheaper to do all this by truck the the Pilbara would
be running trucks (a lot of them) instead of trains, all the traffic on the
Nullabor would be on trucks.

It can come down to the chicken and egg thing, ie do you wait for the
traffic to warrant the railway or build the railway to encourage the
traffic. It may be this railway will not be built until a mining company
wants it done and then everyone else will benefit.

Another issue is the level of cost recovery of these road trains. A lot of
studies have shown the bigger trucks get the poorer the cost recovery is.
Did the road train operators commit capital to the upgrade of the Stuart? Of
course not, this is paid for (and risked) by the tax payer. The proposed
operator has to risk his AUD800m against 20 year or so payback with little
knowledge of what the economy could be like over this time.  They have
directly contributed to it being financially inviable and need to fix it.

< Tell > wrote in message <3805b5c4.2273479@news.ozemail.com.au>...
>"John Wayman" <trecker@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> The strategic importance of a rail link to Darwin may get a boost, rail
>> could have made it cheaper to transport vital war materiel to Darwin for
>> shipping to East Timor,
>
>
>Not so John.  The Northern Territory road trains can
>move vast quantities of anything, faster and cheaper
>than any 'proposed' rail link.
>
>The road trains and the upgraded Stuart Highway are all
>ready in place and grossly *underutilised*.
>
>The Tarcoola to Alice Springs line is also grossly
>underutilised.  NRC now only run 5 days per week.!
>
>----Terry Burton
>Alice Springs NT
><< remove OZ for Email reply.>>