Rail freight is essential to our modern supply chain. When you look at those long trains rolling across the country, you’re witnessing one of the most efficient ways we move goods across continents. You can think of rail freight as the backbone of our logistics network – it’s how we transport everything from raw materials like coal and grain to finished products such as cars and containers filled with consumer goods.
What makes rail freight particularly special is its incredible efficiency. When we compare it to other transportation methods, you’ll find that a single freight train can carry the equivalent of hundreds of trucks while using significantly less fuel per tonne. This not only gives you a cost advantage, but also makes rail freight one of our most environmentally friendly shipping options.
However, rail freight usage is predicted to stagnate for the immediate future, and to decline over the next decade.
Why Aren’t We Using More Rail Freight in Australia?
According to logistics theory, rail freight comes into its own over greater geographical distances. We seem to recall learning back in our Cranfield days that 600 km was the magic number above which rail freight made economic sense.
OK, so we have vast distances here in Australia. And yet rail freight popularity seems to be focused mainly on the long-distance East to West Coast routes and on medium-haul bulk freight such as coal, rice, wheat, sugar and the like.
Given the increasing congestion on our main roads and the rising cost of fuel, shouldn’t we be starting to use rail freight more? So what’s stopping us? These are the common reasons we hear:
- The rail services are not reliable.
- The double handling at each end (at the terminals) just increases cost and causes damage.
- Rail services are not available where we need them.
We first wrote and published this post back in 2013, and since then, the situation in Australia hasn’t changed much. But elsewhere in the world, logistics and transportation experts are recognising the need to shift freight from road to rail, and hence to provide solutions that support that shift.
With that in mind, we thought we’d update this post with brief details of some interesting developments in rail freight transportation. One such development is taking place here in Australia, and another overseas in the United States (but this second solution offers exciting possibilities for rail freight anywhere in the world).
Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail
The federal government announced investment of $8.4 billion in the planned Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail, a dedicated freight transport project which will address the lack of rail infrastructure in South-Eastern Australia.
Once complete, the new rail line will offer a number of advantages for companies involved in logistics, including:
- A reduction in highway congestion across South-Eastern Australia
- Improved freight access to the ports of Melbourne and Brisbane
- New opportunities to establish strategically located freight hubs
- Faster freight transit times between locations in the vicinity of the line
- Supply chain cost reductions of up to $10 per tonne
Of course, we’ll have to wait a while for our industry to realise these benefits, as the line is not expected to be operational until 2024/2025, by which time the South-Eastern transport infrastructure will surely be fit to burst at the seams. Still, progress, as they say, is progress.
Autonomous Freight Shuttle System
While the Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail will at last provide some relief for the problem of rail service availability, developments in the United States could offer a solution to the double-handling issue, and perhaps even initiate worldwide adoption of an entirely new type of transport system.
In what may prove to be one of the most exciting supply chain innovations for decades, we may find a workable answer to congestion along major road freight corridors.
Designed to follow the routes of major highways, an autonomous electric shuttle system recently unveiled in Texas will run on rails elevated by pylons in the median strip. Each individual shuttle can carry one shipping container or road trailer.
The shuttles are driverless and fast, but extremely economical to run, since they are powered by highly efficient linear induction motors. Trailers can be rolled on and off the shuttles at a terminal, making for an almost seamless interchange between road and rail.
Is It Time for the Train to Take More Strain?
Clearly there are moves afoot to make rail freight a more appealing and viable mode of transportation, but will rail really be able to take a bigger share of the freight market in the future, or is Australia (and the rest of the world) doomed to endure increasingly choked highways?
Or perhaps developments in trucking, like autonomous vehicles and clean fuel breakthroughs, will obviate the need for rail freight as an alternative? What do you think, and what are your reasons for not using rail more?
From our perspective, one thing is certain. If we don’t start diversifying our use of freight modes, we may well grind to a standstill on our roads.
The excuses you hear for not using rail services for freight are fairly easily pulled apart when you look at the economics as a whole. And surely this becomes more obvious, necessary with each passing year.
What am I getting at? :
-trucks add to congestion on our roads (economics)
-trucks drastically reduce the life of a road (economics)
-trucks are inefficient unless over short distances, however, you still fall back to congestion (economics)
-trucks greatly increase pollution within metropolitan areas, which will eventually need to be addressed (economics)
-trucks that crash often cause significant collateral damage to infrastructure and private property such as other motorists (economics)
These are just some obvious issues and I have not mentioned the cost to human health via pollution and road safety- not to mention the environmental costs of trucking freight.
To me its seems it’s more about politics and an infantile mindset protecting vested interests.
Smart societies have a mix of what works best and effectively. That is not what we have now.
I tend to agree Jonny. In other countries rail makes sense for longer distances, but we seem to struggle with it here in Australia.
The additional ‘costs’ of using trucks that you highlight are on the community not the carrier, so things don’t change.
Maybe it needs legislation and Government support to make rail more commercially viable, for more products, not just bulk.
We should let the free market find the answer.
New Zealand is much smaller yet makes much much better use of rail for freight transport.
Agree it’s all politics and vested interests…aka BS and greed.