Inland Railway

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected public transportation infrastructure in Australia.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the infrastructure approaches, and more information becomes available.

The Australian Inland Railway is a proposed railway extending in a north-south direction across the continent from Melbourne to Cairns along a route in mostly flat terrain west of the mountainous Great Dividing Range. The Inland Railway is the "obvious" way of building a rail network to serve the fertile eastern part of the continent, assuming that either a uniform political control of railway building exists or third party railways are allowed to build unhindered across state borders.

1 Overview
2 Priorities
3 Timeline
- 3.1 2007 June
4 References
5 External links
6 Namesake
7 See also

[edit] Overview

The line would be standard gauge, except where it shares the alignment with the narrow gauge of Queensland, in which case the track would be dual gauge. Isolated section of the line would be built with dual gauge sleepers to facilitate a change of gauge at a later date.

The line would open up coal deposits in southwestern Queensland which need access to heavy duty ports such as at Gladstone.

The line would also be used for general freight, where the flat terrain would provide a high speed alignment.

Several connections are provided across the Great Dividing Range between the inland route and coastal cities and ports, such as Sydney via Goulburn, Newcastle via Ulan or Werris Creek, Brisbane, Gladstone, Rockhampton and Cairns.

[edit] Priorities

The section from Melbourne to Toowoomba almost already exists, with a short missing link from North Star, New South Wales in New South Wales to Goondiwindi in Queensland, with gauge conversion from there to somewhere just west of Toowoomba.

Toowoomba lies at an elevation of 700m (not particularly high in World terms), difficulties in climbing this range at reasonable cost was the prime cause of the choice of a narrow gauge, and the subsequent break of gauge problems that this caused.

A road-rail transhipment hub is proposed west of Toowoomba while studies are carried for building a strategic standard gauge railway from Toowoomba to Brisbane and its port.