Talks begin over hub

AUSTRALIA’S largest rail freight company has started talks with Wagner Corporation around developing a major logistics hub in Wellcamp Business Park, west of Toowoomba.

Pacific National CEO Dean Dalla Valle said the Wellcamp Business Park was the perfect place to develop a logistics hub in south east Queensland.

“The Darling Downs is one of the most productive agricultural regions in Australia, while Toowoomba is an incredibly progressive and vibrant regional city,” he said.

“The proposed 250-hectare hub also has frontage to the future Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, allowing extensive future intermodal operations for freight to be transferred between trains, planes and trucks.”

Mr Dalla Valle said the future multi-modal transport hub would have 2.7 kilometres of frontage to the future Inland

Rail and be able to process up to 350,000 containers by 2030.

He said the hub would also include a fully licensed international air cargo terminal and daily cargo jet operations.

Wagner Corporation chairman John Wagner said the Australian Government’s construction of Inland Rail had sparked the interest of private companies to consider investing in major intermodal freight hubs along the future rail corridor between Melbourne and

Brisbane.

“When Wagner Corporation attended the October 2019 opening of Pacific National’s logistics terminal in Parkes – also located on the Inland Rail alignment – it gave us an exciting picture of what could be achieved with future rail freight services at Wellcamp,” he said.

Mr Dalla Valle said intermodal freight hubs offered governments and communities the added safety and environmental benefits of shifting more freight volumes from trucks to trains.

“Integrated with Inland Rail, a future Wellcamp Logistics Hub would help reduce road accidents and fatalities, traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, and road wear and tear,” he said.

“At a minimum, an 1800m freight train hauling shipping containers is equivalent to removing 140 B-double return truck trips from our roads.”