OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
‘Historic day’: PN opens Parkes Logistics Terminal Pacific National has opened its new Parkes Logistics Terminal in a landmark commitment to Inland Rail and the freight rail sector.
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N A SUNNY DAY IN OCTOBER, more than 100 government, private sector and local representatives gathered for the opening of Pacific National’s Parkes Logistics Terminal. Just a few years earlier, the land where they stood was a sheep paddock. But after 12 months of construction, more than 16,000 cubic metres of soil moved, over 300 cubic metres of concrete poured, and 253 tonnes of aggregate laid, the paddock had been transformed into regional Australia’s largest logistics terminal. A $35 million rail hub complete with two 1800 metre rail sidings, and a third of 540 metres, Pacific National’s Parkes Logistics Terminal sits at the intersection of Australia’s east-west railway, and the federal government’s $9.3 billion Inland Rail project, which will link Brisbane and Melbourne via regional Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. The terminal has the capacity to break down double-stacked, 1.8-kilometre container trains – the kind which will run along the Inland Rail route from about 2025. But Pacific National isn’t going to wait that long – the first 1.8-kilometre train departed from the Parkes site on October 10 for a three-day trip to Perth, something Pacific National CEO, Dean Dalla Valle told the gathering would soon become “a regular occurrence”. “The hub will allow long regional freight trains from Parkes to be broken into smaller metroshuttles to more efficiently access stevedoring terminals at Port Botany,” Dalla Valle said. “And once the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project is complete, regional enterprises can use Parkes as a launching pad to haul goods and commodities by rail more efficiently to the ports of Melbourne, Brisbane, Botany and Fremantle.”
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The importance of Parkes as a future intersection of two of Australia’s most significant railways is not just understood by Pacific National. All three levels of government have recognised the same thing. Parkes Shire Council leapt on the opportunity in February 2018 and established the Parkes National Logistics Hub campaign, to encourage investment by logistics operators and customers. A year later, the NSW state government declared the area a special activation precinct, enabling
(L to R) National Heavy Vehicle Regulator chairman Duncan Gay, NSW minister for regional transport and roads Paul Toole, Australian Rail Track Corporation chairman Warren Truss, and Parkes mayor Ken Keith. The site is built to handle doublestacked, 1.8-kilometre-long freight trains.
RAIL EXPRESS | ISSUE 9 2019
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