Australian Railroads

[Anonymous]

Is there anyone intrested in australian railroad, if so what type of information.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Two good places to start:
http://www.railpage.org.au
http://locopage.railpage.org.au

I'm sure that Peter and David can add to this list.

Paul

[Anonymous]

I model South Australian Railways and Victorian Railways broad gauge, though on standard gauge track. My ambition is to build a layout based on Cockburn (SAR narrow gauge). Then, I used to live in Broken Hill, just up the track !

Allan Lees

[tatans]

Isn't Vienna the capitol of Australia??? No?? I would like to see more photos of Australian rolling stock which has some "strange" but nice looking old steam engines, thankfully, a lot have been preserved, Now I'd like to see some photos of
"Australian" Railway model layouts, -------I'm waiting.

[Hugh Jampton]

Useless Australian RR fact # 12:
Rollingstock is what railways use to carry stuff. Rolling stock is what round sheep are.

[Kozzie]

Here's another good web site which is info about the narrow gauge network that covers the state of Queensland which is where I live. Although 3 foot six inch gauge, it's still 60 kg (120 lb) rail. There are standard gauge rail links to the southern states, from the state capital of Brisbane, which is in the south east corner of the state, relatively near the state boundary with New South Wales.

www.qr.com.au

There are other links on that web site as well.

Dave

[M636C]

Also on the Railpage

http://www.railpage.org.au

is the "Commonwealth Railways Page" which covers the complete history to date of the Trans-Australian Railway and the locomotives and cars that have run on it. It isn't that user friendly but with persistence, you can find what you want.

There is a good photo site at

www.railgallery.hk.st

which covers current (very current!) pictures of passenger trains in Australia, with some material from Hong Kong and China, and Japan.

Peter

[andrewjonathon]

How important is intermodal traffic on Australian railways? Is there much transcontinental intermodal traffic to and from Perth?

[M636C]

Australian railway traffic is heavily based on export coal and iron ore traffic, but this is mainly in Queensland and the Hunter Valley (New South Wales) for coal and Western Australia for iron ore. Apart from that Grain traffic is important in the southern half of the country. Most of these bulk trains run relatively short trips of 100 to 400 miles.

Intermodal traffic makes up about half of what's left, and there are regular trains between Perth and Melbourne or Sydney consisting mainly of containers, double stacked west of Adelaide, South Australia. These trains often have three units, 4000HP GEs or sometimes 3000 or 3500HP EMDs and are often more than a mile long. There are a few Roadrailer trains but these are expected to be replaced by container trains fairly soon as the Roadrailer vans wear out.

There is extensive traffic in steel products. Most of Australia's steel is made in Whyalla in South Australia, where a continuous casting process is used. Slabs are shipped to Newcastle (NSW) in specially built wagons where wire and rod products are made. Structural beams and rail are made in Whyalla and are shipped on the same trains around the country. Steel and flat plate is made in Port Kembla (NSW) and distributed on the same trains. So trains often have loaded beam and slab wagons and empty plate and wire wagons when North and Eastbound and the reverse when South and Westbound. Trains in both directions are often built up with container traffic. Steel trains usually have two or three 4000HP GE units. Steel traffic is almost exclusively handled by Pacific National.

Intermodal traffic is shared by Pacific National, SCT, Australian Railroad Group and QR National.

Remember that Australia is about the same size as the continental USA but has less than one tenth of the population, and the rail traffic is smaller in proportion to the population. There are daily Intermodal trains run by Pacific National both East-West and North South on the East Coast. The Adelaide Darwin line is run exclusively by FreightLink, associated with ARG but they do not yet run even daily trains on this new line.

I hope this helps!

Peter

[edblysard]

http://www.aarc.com.au/

My former "boss" help build this...

Ed

[tatans]

Edbly: What a great site , plenty of photos, never knew anyone was still building railways anymore, the one photo around Alice, just how long and straight is that section?? and I thought Saskatchewan was flat., Just what type of locomotive is that?

[edblysard]

I have no idea....maybe some of the Down Under crowd could enlighten us...
I do know that some of the landscape thistravels through makes most American desert look like a choice vacation destination...

Ed

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The locomotive in question is a GT46C, basically an export version of an SD60. Notice the bulldog nose on the third unit, which is an AT26C, sort of an SDP40F with a bulldog nose. It is on the roster of Australian Railway Group, which is owned in part by Genesee & Wyoming.

[martin.knoepfel]

Is it true Australia has open-access on railroads? If so, how does it work?

If a container-trains travels east-west or vice-versa, to the reload the containers at Adelaide (from single to double-stack in the western direction)?

[M636C]

The GT46C is a current production unit, with radial trucks and the 710 engines have electronic fuel injection. The engine power is limited to 3830 HP by the use of the AR11 alternator which is required to keep the total weight down to 132 metric tons. These units have integrated cab electronic displays and other current features.

Adelaide is a major city and is a centre for automobile manufacturing. Enough traffic is generated there that allows an additional level of containers to be added to double stack wagons Westbound. Eastbound, more of the containers are empty, and some will be removed in Adelaide for reloading to be sent back West or East as required. Only a minority of loaded containers will be removed in Adelaide to be loaded on different wagons for shipment further East. Not all cars are suitable for double stack operation, and many vehicles leave Perth single stacked and may run through to Brisbane (via Broken Hill and Cootamundra) without any change.

Does this answer the question?

Peter

[Anonymous]

For tatans request for a Aussie model layout - I like this one. Make sure you scroll down the page to gain entry.

http://www.cia.com.au/bullack/

[Anonymous]

Well said, Peter!

For a gallery of over 17,000 photos, mostly of Australian trains, go to

http://www.railpage.com.au/g.htm

Check out the shared album first...

Allan Lees

[Anonymous]

Well Peter the last time I check and when maunfactured the GT46C was producing 4000hp. When you do all the corrections but I will check it out next week and let you know

[csxns]

What about the road trains do they haul more goods than the Austrailan railroads.

[andrewjonathon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M636C

Australian railway traffic is heavily based on export coal and iron ore traffic, but this is mainly in Queensland and the Hunter Valley (New South Wales) for coal and Western Australia for iron ore. Apart from that Grain traffic is important in the southern half of the country. Most of these bulk trains run relatively short trips of 100 to 400 miles....

Peter, thank-you for the interesting information. I have relatives living in the Sydney area. When my father, who is not a railfan, comes back from visiting them, he is always telling me good things about the Australian passenger trains. I am not sure what it is but he really likes them so they must be doing something right.

By the way, do you know how busy is the transcontinental line west of Adelaide?

[M636C]

The power I quoted for the GT46C was my conversion of the figure quoted in the EDI brochure, which was 2862 kW. This is the normal US figure of power input to the generator. The gross power of the engine, as quoted in Furope is about 4000 HP or a little more.

I last travelled on the Indian Pacific in 1998, and during daylight hours I recall crossing three freight trains on the "Desert" section from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie. There may have been as many crosses while I was asleep. As well as through trains there are limestone trains from Rawlinna to Parkeston, near Kalgoorlie. Iron Ore trains run from Koolyanobbing, west of Kalgoorlie to Kalgoorlie where they then run south to Esperance where the ore is exported. Trains to Darwin use the section from Port Augusta west to Tarcoola. There is a lot of grain traffic on the line west of Merriden to Perth.

Rail has about 20% of the total freight task in Australia. Between the two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne this falls to about 10%. Partly this is due to the high quality of the main road and the fact that the rail line was last realigned in 1915 (to a less direct route to improve the grades).

Peter

[coborn35]

I like the way they work their locomotives so hard. Ive seen a pic of the aussie version of a GE-9 smoking a black cloud so thick that when I first saw it, i thought it was a night pic.