CEO says Inland Rail a “transformative project” for regional Australia
Inland Rail Chief Executive Officer, Nick Miller, has told a major infrastructure conference in Sydney that the Inland Rail project is a “transformative project” for regional Australia, adding that it is already delivering real benefits that will only increase as construction matures.
November 12, 2024
Speaking alongside fellow infrastructure leaders Tim Parker, CEO of the High Speed Rail Authority and Peter Regan, Chief Executive of Sydney Metro, at the Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit, Mr. Miller told conference delegates Inland Rail was delivering economic opportunities for regional Australians.
“For regional Australia, this is a particularly transformative project, we are already seeing the benefits of Inland Rail via the Narrabri to North Star section, which has been completed, and the first trains have used that section carrying canola seeds to the Port of Newcastle, so there is that first sign of connectivity in place,” he said.
“There are over 6,000 people that have worked on Inland Rail to date, and the majority of those people have been regional people, we have engaged with over 750 regional businesses that have supplied into Inland Rail, so that’s a really important statistic in terms of how we are engaging with regional Australia.”
Mr. Miller told conference delegates that Inland Rail would also deliver better environmental outcomes for all Australians, by getting trucks off road and onto rail.
“Getting that modal shift from road to rail is critical, if you take the drive north of Narrabri to Moree in the evening, you do not get your headlights on full, it is just a constant stream of freight trucks, but we are going to get some of those off the road and get them onto rail,” he said.
“Australasian Railway Association research found that getting trucks off the road and onto rail was sixteen times more efficient from a sustainability point of view, that’s a very significant finding in addition to the fact that we will also make our roads safer, and they will require less maintenance.”
Mr. Miller also told delegates that Inland Rail was being built to deliver a resilient network that would be able to remain operational during adverse weather conditions, maintaining connectivity for freight operators and keeping supply chains operational.
“There has been an enormous amount of work done through our planning process around hydrological studies, that has had a material impact on the costs of the project, it has meant changing from building on embankments to building on viaduct formations to deliver one in one-hundred-year flood protection in areas.
“Building that resilience into the network is critically important, we saw that last year when the East-West connection was out for twenty-six days due to flooding through the Nullarbor, and supermarket shelves in Perth were getting emptier, so connectivity and resilience are critically important.”
