THE scale of the disruption that climate change is causing to freight operations in New South Wales (NSW), the state with largest rail network in Australia, is now so evident that the NSW government says it will be one of the key drivers of change for the freight sector in the years to come.

“Flooding at levels never experienced, along with catastrophic and widespread fires, has raised the issue of freight supply chain resilience to a high level of importance,” it says in a consultation paper issued as part of the state government’s ongoing Freight Policy Reform Program. Indeed, the poor resilience of the rail network is believed to have contributed to rail losing modal share in the freight market.

The economic impact of this disruption has been quantified by the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) in its response to the consultation paper. ARA estimates the economic impact of major disruption in NSW alone to be as high as $A 392m ($US 262.4m), causing significant damage to the economy through cancelled or delayed services, supplies running short and repairs.

ARA says that when critical rail links are disrupted, the knock-on effects to other modes and the broader supply chain can be severe.

“Australian manufacturing facilities experienced significant challenges as a result of supplies being delayed due to rail line outages, with economic impacts felt by both Australian and international customers,” it says.

ARA points out that much of Australia’s rail freight infrastructure was built over 100 years ago and not to modern design standards capable of withstanding the effects of climate change.

“Unfortunately, severe weather-related events are increasing in frequency, highlighting the need to improve the national freight rail network through a greater understanding of network vulnerabilities and planning for resilience improvements,” ARA says. “Future-proofing rail supply chains will require concerted effort to identify, fund and deliver a programme of rail infrastructure upgrades across the country which improve network redundancy, reliability and resistance, particularly in response to climate risk. The emphasis needs to be on reducing whole-life costs, even where the upfront ask is higher.”

“Australian manufacturing facilities experienced significant challenges as a result of supplies being delayed.”

In its submission to the NSW Freight Policy Reform Program, Australia’s largest private freight operator, Pacific National (PN), highlighted that between November 2021 and January 2023 there were no less than eight major incidents that closed inter-state rail corridors for a week or more. PN is putting its weight behind a wider industry call for action to address infrastructure resilience alongside the challenges of decarbonisation, interoperability and skill shortages that face the Australian rail freight sector. It says it is keen to support the development of “a resilient and efficient freight network that will reduce double-handling, increase resilience between networks and deliver productivity and environmental benefits within NSW and across inter-state supply chains.”

The Australian government partially pre-empted such calls for a greater focus on network resilience by committing $A 540m in its 2024-25 budget to improving the reliability of the federally-owned inter-state network that is managed by Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC). When factoring in ARTC’s own commitment of $A 500m under its network investment programme, total budgeted investment rises to $A1 bn.

While such federal funding and the projects it will pay for (see panel) is both welcome and considerably more than has been forthcoming in recent years, this tranche will not go far in resolving the issues of climate change, given the scale of some of the recent disruption caused by flooding.

Major ARTC spending on resilience

• $A 140m for culvert upgrades to increase flood resilience from 1:13 years to 1:100 years between Tarcoola and Crystal Brook in South Australia, Tarcoola and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, and between Albury and Sydney in New South Wales
• $A 100m to replace 47kg/m rail with 60kg/m to reduce the risk of broken rails and accommodate heavier trains between Tarcoola and Kalgoorlie
• $A 150m for track rehabilitation and operational upgrades between Albury and Sydney, and
• $A 150m for upgrading the 172km Maroona - Portland line in Victoria for higher speeds and axleloads. Source: ARTC

“Since 2021, the ARTC network and its freight and passenger customers have experienced significant disruption because of extreme weather events leading to severe flooding and damage to railway infrastructure,” says ARTC CEO and managing director, Mr Wayne Johnson. “Targeted and strategic investment along key sections of ARTC’s 8500km network will have a measurable impact on the ability of the national supply chain to withstand and recover faster to the challenges of extreme and intense weather events. The commitment by the Australian government, coupled with ARTC’s investment, will deliver outcomes that will improve the network’s resilience, reliability, and therefore overall operational performance.”

Safety concerns

Concerns over Australia’s ageing railway infrastructure are shared by the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR), which has called on operators to work closely with it to find appropriate solutions. The deterioration of signalling and supporting infrastructure in some parts of the country is of particular concern to ONRSR, which says that the loss of effectiveness as they age and degrade undermines network resilience and increases the risk to safety. ONRSR cannot sit idly by as the situation worsens, according to its chief executive, Dr Natalie Pelham.

“There is a tipping point approaching in some parts of Australia where the age of the infrastructure is starting to have a real impact on the risk profile for both rolling stock operators and rail infrastructure managers,” she says. “Signalling is the most concerning one for us because it is such a fundamental safety system for any form of railway operations. Some of the signalling infrastructure is reaching the end of its operational life and needs to be replaced. If that does not happen, then we will need to look at using the powers at our disposal under the national law to make sure the risks to safety are addressed.”

ONRSR acknowledges that upgrading signalling infrastructure is not a cheap or simple exercise, but it says it is also encouraging industry to think laterally when it comes to modernising rail operations.

“There is a tipping point approaching in some parts of Australia.”

Dr Natalie Pelham, chief executive at ONRSR

“Rail is full of lower-cost technologies that can be applied to address what have traditionally been very expensive problems, and with the collective expertise from operators and our regulatory team, I am sure we can find a few more,” Pelham says.

To date there has been little public response to ONRSR’s concerns, while signalling failures across the defined inter-state network remain a daily occurrence, where poor infrastructure condition is compounded by vandalism, in particular the frequent theft of copper wire.

Poor infrastructure condition is not just an issue for Australia’s rail freight sector. In addition to the inter-state corridors, frequent disruption is now being experienced on NSW’s own rail network.

A December 2023 review of Sydney Trains commuter operations found that around 50% of delays and train cancellations were due to infrastructure failure. Poor infrastructure performance was the single highest cause of incidents delaying services over the period from 2014 to 2023, with 2022-23 seeing the highest rate of incidents since 2015-16.

One of the findings of the report was that effective asset management is hindered by a complex and diffuse operating structure, involving the state government’s Transport Asset Holding Entity, which owns the rail infrastructure, public transport authority Transport for NSW, and operator Sydney Trains. Many parties have overlapping and unclear roles, with the result that medium and long-term planning is spread across many divisions and entities. The review recommended a new operating model for asset ownership and management to reduce complexity and minimise duplication of functions.

When faced with the burning issue of infrastructure funding, the review could only deliver the vague recommendation that “Sydney Trains should be provided with sufficient opex funding by government to adequately maintain all existing assets and the new assets delivered under the current pipeline of major projects.”

Unfortunately, no recommendations are included for any specific timeframe or funding indicators to resolve these urgent infrastructure issues.

Impact of flooding on rail services in 2022

• flooding in rural NSW in March led to a total of 200 days of track outages at an estimated cost of $A 35m
• flooding in the Parkes region from October to December resulted in multiple track washouts and three months of line closure ($A 37m)
• in South Australia the East-West Main Line was flooded and closed for a total of 24 days ($A 320m)
• in March, for around a week, Sydney was isolated from access to all inter-state rail corridors following heavy rainfall that resulted in landslides and washaways on routes through the Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands, and on the North Coast line to Brisbane. At the same time the major regional centre and port of Wollongong, 85km south of Sydney, was effectively isolated from both the inter-state and suburban rail networks, and
• a washout on the ARTC-managed Unanderra to Moss Vale line closed the route for seven months delaying and disrupting international grain exports shipped from regional NSW.