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Track and signal upgrades by Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) on the four kilometre stretch of line between Maitland and Telarah mean real and positive impacts for both local passengers and Sydney-Brisbane freight services.
ARTC Chief Executive Officer, David Marchant, said the $2.5 million Maitland-Telarah upgrade may not have been as visual or as expensive as other multi million projects ARTC has underway on the Hunter Valley and North Coast rail lines but it was just as important.
“ARTC is spending hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading and improving efficiency on the Hunter Valley and the North Coast rail lines, which not only improves the rail infrastructure but also reduces transit times for interstate freight traffic and export coal.
“But not all the projects that create real rail benefits are in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars bracket,” Mr Marchant said.
“Between Maitland and Telarah, ARTC allocated just over $2.5 million for track upgrades and new signalling and the benefits for Sydney-Brisbane freight services and local passengers are real and positive.
“ARTC reconfigured the track and upgraded the signals to free up movement of the long trains, which, in the past, used to have to idle near Telarah.
“This added to the time they took to run between Sydney and Brisbane as well as adding slight delays to local passenger services.
“The Telarah project, which ARTC has now completed, along with the soon to be completed massive concrete sleeper program and construction of new passing loops will allow ARTC to achieve transit times as low as 15 hours 35 minutes between Sydney and Brisbane.
“This will make rail more competitive with road transport and as each 1500 metre lone train can take the cargo of 100 semi trailers we could see fewer trucks on our major roads,” Mr Marchant said.
David Marchant
0419 733 201
Brian Dale
0418 204 198