Tunnel vision an Olympic win

The real infrastructure game changer in the lead up to the 2032 Olympics will be a 52km tunnel from a planned inland freight terminus from Ipwich to the Port of Brisbane.

Forget Cross River Rail. The real infrastructure game changer in the lead up to the 2032 Olympics will be a 52km tunnel from a planned inland freight terminus near Ipswich to the Port of Brisbane, complete with a battery-powered driverless train shuttle.

Leading the charge for the $6bn project is National Trunk Rail’s PortConnex, chaired by veteran engineer Martin Albrecht who says the planned tunnel will form the last leg of the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail.

Its major advantage will be to take thousands of trucks off local roads each day as well as paving the way for a huge export boost from Brisbane to Asia and beyond.

Albrecht, a former boss of Thiess, tells your diarist the political ducks are lining up for the project including the support of the powerful Council of Mayors South East Queensland (CoMSEQ), which sees the tunnel as essential in reducing pollution and road congestion. Albrecht (illustrated) says that currently less than 1 percent of goods travel to the port on rail because freight trains have to share capacity with the suburban network.

“Within a decade, an extra 116 daily train services will be required during peak periods for passenger movements alone,” says Albrecht. “This highlights the critical importance of separating freight and passenger services with a dedicated freight connection to the port.”

He says crucial to the success of PortConnex will be the development of an inland freight terminal at Ebenezer where the State Government owns several square kilometres of vacant land. Ideally, the terminal will include a huge solar farm that will capture and store the energy needs to operate the facility and the rail shuttle.

Martin Albrecht

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, who chairs the CoMSEQ, told a Federal Government inquiry into inland rail last month that the PortConnex project was a “game changer”. “It will connect the Port of Brisbane using intermodal driverless, autonomous and fully battery-powered trains,” Schrinner says. “This means freight can be transported from the port without any carbon emissions. This supports the nation’s sustainability targets ahead of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, including delivering carbon positive games.”

Another powerful organisation throwing its weight behind a dedicated rail connection is the Port of Brisbane under new chief executive Neil Stephens. Stephens says the inland rail as currently planned without a dedicate connection to the port will do nothing to make the movement of freight in south-east Queensland more efficient.

“Rather termination of the route short of the port without a dedicated freight rail connection will simply lead to millions more truck movements on already congested local roads,” says Stephens. Stephens says that while both federal and state governments have pitched in a combined $40m to develop a business case for the connection, those funds have yet to be spent. Stephens says that if the component of rail freight to the port grew to 30 per cent it would mean 2.4 million less truck movements a year, $195m in reduced congestion costs to the economy and $215m in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

It’s a no-brainer for Albrecht, who as a young man worked on the Snowy Mountain Hydro Scheme. The only thing missing so far is the political will but Albrecht is slowly cracking that nut. “Just as the federal, state and local governments came together to realise the vision of the 2032 Olympics, PortConnex offers a unique opportunity to optimise Australia’s freight infrastructure,” Albrecht says. “The focus in 2032 will be on technological innovation and best practice rather than congestion and poor planning.”

Shipping containers at Port of Brisbane.