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Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend. Today's was written by North West Star editor Derek Barry. The flooding that has closed the Stuart Highway and caused food shortages in the Northern Territory has prompted renewed calls for a rail link to Queensland. The Ghan rail line goes from Adelaide to Darwin and has been cut off by flood waters in northern South Australia. Freight has started to flow through the flooded section of Stuart Highway but the opening is a staged one under restricted conditions. Meanwhile there is also a rail link from Townsville to Mount Isa, known as the Inlander - though the passenger service on that line has been run down over the years and has also been suspended due to COVID. However there is a tantalising missing link between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek that could have linked the the two states and territories. The food shortage in Katherine has become so dire due to flooding in Central Australia local chamber of commerce manager Colin Abbott told the ABC this week he wanted to see a continuation of the line between Mount Isa and Territory. He is not the first person to suggest this though Mr Abbott mentioned Alice Springs as a possible terminus when Tennant Creek would be a more direct route to Mount Isa, such as that taken by the Barkly Hwy between Queensland and NT and the 620km-long Northern Gas Pipeline that links Northern Territory gas projects with the eastern seaboard. The Ghan has been around (at least from Adelaide to Alice Springs) since the 1880s while Mount Isa has been linked to the eastern seaboard by rail since 1929 though it has gone no further west since then. Indeed there was no road worthy of the name between Queensland and the Territory until the 1940s when Australian governments finally had to look seriously at the problem of getting soldiers, equipment and supplies to Darwin, with the threat of Japanese was all too real. It still needed the arrival of the United States into the war after Pearl Harbor to make the road a reality (though they may have not felt the gratitude with 70 Black American soldiers believed to have died of cyanide poisoning in Mount Isa after drinking a home brew made in disused mining cyanide drums). A railway was a transport option too far for the industrious Americans but it keeps coming up from time to time. Feasibilities studies after the 2015 Northern Australian White Paper found it was not economically viable unless funded by the mining industry just as the Townsville to Mount Isa railway was a century ago. Yet there remains appetite for rail extension such as the Ghan to Darwin in 2004 while the Inland Rail project between Melbourne and Brisbane seems to be still happening, although delayed to 2023. The Queensland-NT rail line missing link was one of the projects pushed by the Tennant Creek-Mount Isa Cross-Border Commission representing cross-border Councils but the Commission has been moribund since COVID. There was talk of another feasibility study in 2017 but the plan attracted criticism from Townsville business leaders who feared the line extension might negatively affect its economy. Ross Muir, an economic development specialist with Nexidel Consulting said at the time it was a nation building exercise that deserved support. "The connection would enable new mining and agricultural ventures, including potential mining of huge phosphate deposits in the Barkly region. It also would foster tourism links through northwestern Queensland," Mr Muir said. In 2020 there was an audacious plan for a so-called "Iron Boomerang" line, proposed to link Queensland's Bowen Basin coal resources with WA's Pilbara region and its store of iron ore by a whopping 3300km of rail across northern Australia. Though with a proposed price tag of $100 billion, it may not come to rescue the empty shelves of Katherine supermarkets any time soon. In case you are interested in filtering all the latest down to just one late afternoon read, why not sign up for The Informer newsletter?
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REAL AUSTRALIA
February 7 2022 - 12:30PM
Damage to the Ghan rail line has prompted renewed calls for a rail link between Northern Territory and Queensland.
The flooding that has closed the Stuart Highway and caused food shortages in the Northern Territory has prompted renewed calls for a rail link to Queensland.
However there is a tantalising missing link between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek that could have linked the the two states and territories.
The food shortage in Katherine has become so dire due to flooding in Central Australia local chamber of commerce manager Colin Abbott told the ABC this week he wanted to see a continuation of the line between Mount Isa and Territory.
He is not the first person to suggest this though Mr Abbott mentioned Alice Springs as a possible terminus when Tennant Creek would be a more direct route to Mount Isa, such as that taken by the Barkly Hwy between Queensland and NT and the 620km-long Northern Gas Pipeline that links Northern Territory gas projects with the eastern seaboard.
Indeed there was no road worthy of the name between Queensland and the Territory until the 1940s when Australian governments finally had to look seriously at the problem of getting soldiers, equipment and supplies to Darwin, with the threat of Japanese was all too real.
A railway was a transport option too far for the industrious Americans but it keeps coming up from time to time.
Feasibilities studies after the 2015 Northern Australian White Paper found it was not economically viable unless funded by the mining industry just as the Townsville to Mount Isa railway was a century ago.
Yet there remains appetite for rail extension such as the Ghan to Darwin in 2004 while the Inland Rail project between Melbourne and Brisbane seems to be still happening, although delayed to 2023.
There was talk of another feasibility study in 2017 but the plan attracted criticism from Townsville business leaders who feared the line extension might negatively affect its economy.
Ross Muir, an economic development specialist with Nexidel Consulting said at the time it was a nation building exercise that deserved support.
"The connection would enable new mining and agricultural ventures, including potential mining of huge phosphate deposits in the Barkly region. It also would foster tourism links through northwestern Queensland," Mr Muir said.
In 2020 there was an audacious plan for a so-called "Iron Boomerang" line, proposed to link Queensland's Bowen Basin coal resources with WA's Pilbara region and its store of iron ore by a whopping 3300km of rail across northern Australia.
Though with a proposed price tag of $100 billion, it may not come to rescue the empty shelves of Katherine supermarkets any time soon.
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Read the original post:
The trouble with rail when the wide brown land floods - Daily Liberal
