Goulburn Valley freight funding
Fri 11 March 2011
A $550,000 Government grant to temporarily reopen the Toolamba (near Shepparton) to Kyabram and Echuca line is keeping export freight from Shepparton, Cobram and the NSW Riverina on the rails thus ensuring country freight lines where demand existed.
The last revenue freight train on the Echuca to Toolamba line was on 11 July 2007. V/Line is undertaking essential major maintenance on the Seymour to Toolamba section of the Shepparton line and400 metres of track near Toolamba will be reconstructed during the next month because sinkholes had appeared in an embankment.
While V/Line will provide passengers with replacement buses until at least 7 April 2011, freight from the Tocumwal (NSW) and Mooroopna container terminals would have been forced onto trucks at an extra cost of up to $400 a container.
The first train to use the re-opened Echuca to Toolamba line should arrive at Mooroopna on Sunday night of 13 March and at its Tocumwal destination on Monday morning of 14 March. On Wednesday 16 March, the container freight train should depart Tocumwal and Mooroopna bound for Melbourne’s Appleton Dock via Kyabram, Echuca and Bendigo.
Victorian and southern New South Wales exporters such as Murray Goulburn and Swift’s Meats (JBS Australia) at Cobram, and Wilson’s Stockfeeds, Campbells and HW Greenham at Shepparton will benefit because the cost of sending containers on rail is up to $400 a box cheaper than by road.
There is 300,000 tonnes of wheat at Tocumwal this year, along with an annual 13,000 tonnes of potatoes and many containers of hay, cheese, fruit and meat exported each year worldwide that begin the trip by rail from Tocumwal or Mooroopna.
Gray’s Container Terminal operator Mr Barry Gray said that he was delighted at the Government’s fast-tracked support to re-open the Echuca to Toolamba line.
“Our exporting clients and Grays believe it is incredibly important to keep the three days a week, up to 1200 metre long freight train running despite its usual route through Nagambie being unavailable for much of March and some of April,” Mr Gray said.
