Brisbane port on board the Inland Rail tunnel proposal

The port of Brisbane expects to triple its shipping capacity by 2025. It says a dedicated freight rail line is essential to remove trucks from crowded suburban streets.

An Inland Rail double stack train near Parkes in central west NSW.

Brisbane’s port operator has backed the proposal to build a 60km tunnel from its river mouth facility to the Inland Rail line, saying a dedicated freight line is a future necessity amid expectations its capacity will expand threefold by 2050.

The National Trunk Rail consortium has revived its pitch to build the tunnel in the wake of the 2023 Schott review that outlined significant concerns about the Inland Rail project and led to an overhaul of the track’s Queensland route.

NTR also proposes to upgrade the existing West Moreton freight line into the resource-rich Surat Basin to boost exports from the port of Brisbane and help cover the costs of the infrastructure project.

Queensland State Development Minister Grace Grace on Tuesday said the government was considering the NTR proposal, which also has the support of Brisbane’s Liberal National Party lord mayor Adrian Schrinner.

“It’s early days with this proposal and government is continuing to engage with proponents,” Ms Grace said.

The consortium plans to run battery-powered, automated ­locomotives down the Toowoomba range, where they can harvest gravity-fed energy, to a proposed Inland Rail intermodal terminal at Ebenezer, near Ipswich.

From there, freight would be moved by an automated, battery-powered shuttle directly to the port via the 60km tunnel.

Port of Brisbane chief executive Neil Stephens said the port had recently signed a memorandum of understanding with NTR to pursue dedicated freight rail access to export terminals. “NTR’s proposal is both exciting and ambitious, and warrants further investigation,” he said. “Any option that incorporates zero emissions technology with broader economic benefits must be considered.

“At some point, Brisbane and southeast Queensland is going to have to tackle the challenge of providing dedicated freight rail access to the port.

“Our modelling suggests Brisbane will handle over five million shipping containers by 2050, more than triple what we handle now, as well as millions of tonnes of bulk agricultural exports.

“We cannot call ourselves a global city when over 98 per cent of those containers are moved by trucks on the road.”

The Queensland government has already spent $4.9m of $20m funded by the federal government, as part of a bilateral agreement, to investigate network constraints and identify upgrades required to “provide sufficient capacity and efficiency between Inland Rail and the port of Brisbane”.

The funding has so far failed to yield an answer as to how to connect the Inland Rail line to the port.

Inland Rail will comprise 1600km of tracks capable of carrying double-stacked container trains from Beveridge, north of Melbourne, to an intermodal terminal at Ebenezer, where freight can be unloaded to trucks or single-stacked trains for transport to port.

Proponents have grappled with concerns about more trucks carrying containers to the Brisbane port through suburban streets or along the existing freight line, which is congested and carries only 2 per cent of freight to the port.

Since the 2023 review of Inland Rail by former government and business executive Kerry Schott, the Albanese government has advocated for a “staged approach” to works based on environmental approvals and land acquisition and has focused on completing works between Melbourne and Narromine in NSW.

The government has agreed in principle that Inland Rail “should extend at least to Ebenezer”, subject to consideration of the Ebenezer intermodal terminal business case.