We used to have a great freight rail service, as well as a passenger one. Then came the great finger pointing, they are such bludgers and grafters and sure there is a lot of that goes on in public service depts but you know what we still had a great freight service. I used to get boxes of Christmas decorations delivered from Sydney to the Gold Coast for a lot less than it became by road transport. Mainly that was because cost assessment by rail was by weight and road was by size. As you say transport of freight by rail has to be the better option, then as now. I also had a job at a trucking company around that time. Not been able to get the sight out of my mind of the mountains of truck tyres I drove past, just think of one of them big trucks lumbering by, what is it around 28 huge tyres, and they got changed every 2 weeks.
That was a small country operation, the lobbyists for the Lindsay Fox Trucking company was what you saw on the news. The rail service was discontinued and the public purse got spent on the roads. You can imagine the amount of real estate winners and losers that created, fortunes were made.
Is all this mayhem enough, no here comes the next round. Again the public purse is spent building a rail line. Where the old one was? of course not, it wouldn't fit for a start. No a new line, and now they are in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. It just makes me want to cry.
