Transport - getting trucks off the roads http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201005/s2896638.htm
Tuesday, 11/05/2010
Getting trucks off country roads is a Budget priority, with nearly a billion dollars allocated to improving interstate rail freight routes.
And the rails and sleepers that will do the job will be made in regional factories, at Whyalla, Grafton, Geelong, Mittagong and Wagga Wagga.
The package includes:
* $170 to straighten the line between Maitland, NSW, and the Queensland border, cutting travel time on the route by an hour. * $565 to replace the rails and sleepers between Whyalla, SA, and Parkes, NSW, allowing heavier trains to travel via Broken Hill. * $110 million to re-rail the Albury-Melbourne-Geelong line. * $95 million to upgrade the WA line between Koolyanobbing and Kalgoorlie.
The Federal Government says the new projects will create 1500 jobs, mostly in regional areas, and help save some 280,000 tonnes of carbon emissions over 30 years. The Budget also provides $71 million for planning of the Moorebank Intermodal Freight Terminal in south-western Sydney, which, when built, will take a million trucks a year off the road.
With the focus on upgrading rail, there appears to be little new spending on regional roads, beyond that previously foreshadowed $5.9 billion Nation Building Agenda in the 2009 stimulus package. But Queensland's Gladstone Airport, which has become busier with the coal mining boom, will get an upgrade of its terminal.
But the inspectors will be out in force, with $8 million provided to expand national safety regulators for heavy vehicle, rail and maritime, and for safety investigatory function.
The state and territory governments will also contribute under a COAG agreement
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