Angry residents to vent on Inland Rail at Acacia Ridge meeting

A plan to reroute the Inland Rail away from highly populated southside suburbs will be the focus of a weekend forum hosted by two senators.

Angry residents whose properties will be affected by Inland Rail will attend this weekend’s meeting with two senators.

Hundreds of angry southside residents are expected to have their say on the Inland Rail freight line at a community meeting led by two senators on the weekend.

It will be the first time residents from affected suburbs will be able to speak openly to members of the Senate Committee Inquiring into the Inland Rail.

Western Australia’s Senator Glenn Sterle, who chairs the Senate committee into Inland Rail, will field questions, along with Senator Anthony Chisholm and Moreton MP Graham Perrett.

Terminating the inland rail line at Toowoomba with a coal link to Gladstone and diverting rail freight from Logan suburbs including Hillcrest and Forestdale, will be hot-button topics on the agenda.

Building truck tunnels to the Brisbane Port was another issue expected to be raised.

Gladstone advocate and Gladstone Regional Development Australia Central and Western Queensland deputy chair John Abbott will not attend.

He was busy this week explaining his theory on the benefits of extending the track to Gladstone to Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in Canberra.

Mr Abbott has already put his ideas into a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport.

He said his plan could save the federal government $4 billion and prevent Brisbane rail and port congestion.

The Inland Rail track which terminates at Acacia Ridge.

Under Mr Abbot’s design, the Inland rail would not come into Brisbane with the freight line going to Toowoomba and then linking to Gladstone Port for coal exports.

It is unknown whether Logan mayor Darren Power will attend.

Cr Power threatened to sue the federal government and the Inland Rail developer if the freight line caused problems with the city’s roads, bridges, flood plains and residential properties after it was built.

This week, during a trip to Canberra, he said he had made it known that many Logan residents objected to the current project.

Forestdale resident Suz Corbett said allowing 45 double-stacked freight trains with chemical containers and uncovered coal trains to run through high-density suburbs to Acacia Ridge was a recipe for disaster.

Mrs Corbett said there was confusion over the facts about the alternate route to Gladstone, and some groups were asking for federal funding for tunnels to the Port of Brisbane.

“If this route was terminated at Toowoomba and linked to Gladstone, all of these issues would disappear as domestic freight would be unloaded at a hub in Toowoomba and all coal exports would continue to Gladstone,” she said.

“About 70 per cent of the containers on Inland Rail will be carrying domestic freight and will not go to Brisbane Port so there will be no need for more trucks from Acacia Ridge.

“The remaining 30 per cent of Inland Rail freight includes 2.5 per cent export freight and the balance is existing coal and grain which could go to Gladstone Port for export.

“The big difference with our proposal is that Toowoomba will not have the truck and traffic congestion of Acacia Ridge.”

The meeting will be at the Acacia Ridge State School, Nyngam St, on Saturday, March 27 at 2pm.