Get commercial or die, mayor tells QR
THE Great Northern Railway line will fall into disuse and disappear under grass if the State Government does not act to increase freight volumes along the 900km corridor, says Richmond Mayor John Wharton.
Cr Wharton said the rail line was operating well below its potential due to red tape and over- regulation.
He told the Bulletin that he believes the Government views the Great Northern Railway as a monopoly and had placed it under so many restrictions and regulations it couldn’t operate at its full potential.
“If someone comes along and says they want to put freight on the line it would take anywhere between 12 months to two years to get a contract together,” he said. “All the regulations and conditions that have been placed on this line should be thrown out. It is not a free market.”
Cr Wharton said the Great Northern rail line had become so tied up with regulatory guidelines it could no longer compete with road transport.
“The Queensland Government needs to make the line a commercial entity. We need to have a system up and running where someone can say ‘ I’ve got ore to cart from Cloncurry for six months’ and the Government says, ‘ OK, let’s go’. But it is not happening like that,” he said.
“What’s happening is that by the time they get to sort out ore prices, the price for that ore has dropped and the company has lost interest in putting it on a train.”
Cr Wharton said flexibility needed to be built into the management of the line so commercial decisions could be made quickly.
“They need to give freight companies the flexibility to cut a deal quickly. They need to be able to get the diesels and rolling stock on the line and say ‘ let’s go’. This is what the trucking industry does,” he said.
“Someone, has to step up and do something. There is no flexibility or commercialism in QR. The regulators are stopping this line from expanding.”
Cr Wharton said his community and others along the line did not want to see the rails unused and cov-