Council consideration of a permanent Ring Road closure is set to begin soon, as construction starts on Ballarat’s long-awaited intermodal freight hub.
Ballarat West Employment Zone (BWEZ) is a 400-hectare industrial hub in Mitchell Park, Victoria, designed for logistics, manufacturing, and commercial growth, with over $70 million invested. It features developed industrial land, the Acacia residential estate, and a future freight hub.
The long awaited BWEZ Intermodal Terminal has been promised for almost 3 years meaning it is already 3 years behind schedule. It is not known who the rail operator is likely to be although an open terminal would be a better choice providing more competition.
A major grain handler has been operating from the freight hub for more than 2 years without rail access having to move large tonnages of grain to the port using trucks rather tan efficient rail use.
Possible rail operators could be Pacific National, Qube or SSR. Personally I would like to see SSR get further work over and above grain transport in Victoria.
The $23.5 million Intermodal Freight Hub is being delivered by the Victorian and Australian Governments – with the Victorian Government contributing $14.4 million and the Australian Government $9.1 million.
Strangely knowing the intermodal and grain rail terminal would see daily trains why did V/line remove the second rail line between Wendouree and Ballarat that could have been used for freight?
One can always rely on V/line to remove important infrastructure making it harder to do busiuness on rail.
Who will operate the terminal?
Am I right in that the terminal access for rail will be Broad Gauge which for the Port of Melbourne and Geelong will be fine.
It will be Broad Gauge as that is the line there.
And i agree with the author’s note about the insane decision by V/line to remove the extra line around the area. It would more likely be because V/line is still heavily under State Government control and the current government has no interest in rail, as seen by the numerous issues with train & rollingstock maintenance on their network of late.
The new hub could be inhibited by the new decision by the VLP government to revamp Sunshine station precinct and removal of the ability for freight to connect ballarat directly with Melbourne port precinct, forcing freight traffic via the overused and under-strain Gheringhap and Werribee line sections, which us significantly longer to port for Broad Gauge freight traffic.
Rail should be a shared landscape between freight and passenger, not dominated with one over the other. Most of the freight from the west on broad gauge runs overnight, thus creating lesser interference with passenger services.
Like your thinking Peter the broad gauge line will be fine for traffic from there to the port via Ballan. I did read elsewhere there are plans to rail grain into the location for the grain company are these plans still valid?
V/Line seem to pride themselves on making freight access to the network harder and harder and together with was has been a very weak leadership at Freight Victoria no one has put pressure on them to properly maintain the network.
Why do those projects take so long to deliver? Victoria has one of the largest public service headcount in the country. The Feds have provided money 3 years ago and now we are getting started?
Incompetence?
The grain handler at Ballarat West is developing a major grain terminal at Port of Geelong. This will have rail access available.
The roads are completely stuffed in Victoria why has this taken soooooo long for this to be completed?
We are years in and still not finished.