Inland Rail

Gilgandra Shire is set to benefit from the new 1700km freight Inland Rail connection between Melbourne and Brisbane.

Find out about Council activities regarding Inland Rail in (PDF, 1MB)Council's Community Update(PDF, 700KB) .

Council's Community Update

Keep up to date with Council's action regarding Inland Rail with our Community Update.

Council's Community Update 10 July 2018.(PDF, 700KB)

Outgoing corrrespondence

Correspondence from Council re. Inland Rail(PDF, 581KB) as at May 2018

Incoming correspondence

8 June 2018 Reply Letter from Hon Mark Coulton MP(PDF, 48KB)
29 May 2018 Reply Letter from Hon Mark Coulton MP(PDF, 44KB)
Helen Nugent reply letter(PDF, 50KB)
Mark Coulton reply letter(PDF, 44KB)
Letter from McBurnie's re. Inland Rail(PDF, 97KB)

Keep up to date with the latest information

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Archived information

Council's Community Update 21 May 2018(PDF, 1MB).

 

About Inland Rail

Inland Rail will transverse regional Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland to avoid the congested Sydney network and it will connect our capital cities, farms, mines and ports, creating jobs, reducing supply chain costs and making Australian exports more competitive.

A typical train travelling on Inland Rail will have the capacity of 108 B-Doubles and will complete the journey from Melbourne to Brisbane in less than 24 hours with reliability, availability and pricing competitive with road.

Key Facts

The Narromine to Narrabri project is now in the Project Feasibility phase. During this phase, ARTC will undertake further detailed field investigations in the study area. The investigations are for low impact activities and will include:

  • geotechnical surveys – to check ground conditions
  • ecological surveys – to identify habitats and/or species that exist in the area
  • cultural heritage surveys – investigations for any evidence of Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal artefacts/heritage
  • utility identification surveys – to identify infrastructure water pipelines and communication and electrical cables
  • ·noise, air quality and vibration surveys – to measure background noise, air quality and vibration levels.

The investigations will help determine where in the study area the final 40 – 60 metre wide rail corridor will go.

The results from these assessments will be used for the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The EIS assesses the environmental, social and economic impacts associated with the construction and operation of the Narromine to Narrabri section of Inland Rail and recommends measures to minimise and manage potential impacts.

 

Benefits

  • Inland Rail will deliver a transit time for freight between Melbourne and Brisbane, that is competitive with road – less than 24 hour
  • Inland Rail will provide a competitive freight price with road – reducing intercapital freight costs by AUD10 per tonne
  • The route will be approximately 1,700 km – delivering enhancements to 700km of existing interstate track, major upgrades to a further 400 km of track and constructing 600 km of new track. By utilising 1200km of existing rail corridors we will minimise the impact on the community
  • Inland Rail will be constructed over a 10 year period
  • Inland rail will bypass the busy Sydney network and provide a second link between Queensland and the southern states, ensuring resilience and redundancy for the existing rail network.

Narromine to Narrabri - N2N Section

  • The Inland Rail project is expected to create up to 16,000 new jobs at the peak of construction, and an average of 700 additional jobs per year over the entire period
  • Inland Rail enhances the National Land Transport Network by creating a rail linkage between Parkes in New South Wales and Brisbane, providing a connection between Queensland and the southern and western States
  • Provide better access to and from our regional markets
  • It will make it easier for freight to move from farms, mines and ports to national and overseas markets. Two million tonnes of agricultural freight will switch from road to rail, with a total of 8.9 million tonnes of agricultural freight more efficiently diverted to Inland Rail
  • Reduced costs
  • Improved sustainability and amenity for the community
  • Inland Rail will be a catalyst for complementary private sector investments, such as fleet upgrades, new metropolitan and regional terminals and integrated freight precincts.

Current Status

This is the most significant greenfield project within the Inland Rail Programme and will see 307km of new track constructed between Narromine and Narrabri. The Gilgandra  shire is possibly the greatest impacted community in the entire NSW component of Inland Rail. Using the November 2017 alignment or study corridor, there will be 95km of greenfield construction. That is 25% of the total Greenfield construction for the entire project. Council estimate close to 100 farming properties directly impacted, numerous more indirectly and potentially 65km of Councils road network.

Community Consultation

Overview

ARTC commenced the next stage of consultation with landowners within the final study area in mid-February to discuss potential property matters and other issues. With close to 300 landowners to meet, they will continue meetings throughout the coming months and are anticipating to be completed by mid-2018. Consultation commenced in Narromine and will progress towards Narrabri as per the schedule below:

  • Current – end March: Narromine to Burroway
  • Early – mid April: Burroway to Curban
  • Mid – late April: Curban to Mt Tenandra
  • Late April – early May: Mt Tenandra to Baradine
  • Early May – early June: Baradine to Narrabri.

These meetings are important for landowners as the project team will discuss the project in detail and outline plans for future field investigations for which we may request the agreement of landowners for access to their property. Any landowner is completely free to agree or not agree to grant us access, and agreement can be withdrawn at any time for any reason.

The project team are contacting all landowners to arrange a meeting, however, ARTC can be contacted on 1800 732 761 (toll free) or email inlandrailnsw@artc.com.au.

Community Consultative Committees (CCC)

Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) is establishing community consultative committees (CCC) for the Narromine to Narrabri Inland Rail project. The role of the committees is to gather and disseminate information regarding Inland Rail throughout the community and to bring representative views to the committee.

Three committees will be established, one each for the areas generally around Narromine, Gilgandra and Narrabri, recognising that landowners and communities face different issues for ARTC to address as the project investigations progress.

Calls for nominations for committee members will commence from Wednesday 2 May 2018 and will include advertising in local papers and on local radio, emails and letters to people registered on our database and content on the Inland Rail website.

Community members can either self-nominate or be nominated by another person or organisation and applications will close at 5.00pm on Friday 15 June 2018.

Downloads

Nomination form(PDF, 295KB)
Role CCC Chair(PDF, 152KB)
CCC Interim Charter(PDF, 147KB)
CCC Nominations Advert(PDF, 616KB)

More information including detailed maps can me found on the Inland Rail N2N project website.