Momentum is currently hiring casual (not full-time) train crew for Melbourne, Wagga/Junee, Sydney, and Taree reportedly to provide crewing services for 3 years to SCT which is about to start running it's own trains between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Presumably this means the load-sharing agreement between SCT and Interail (Aurizon intermodal) where Interail moves SCT's east coast traffic and SCT conveys any excess Aurizon loading between Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth is about to cease?

The catalyst for this is the SCT contract to haul Woolworths loading into and out of the Logistics centre just south of Wodonga construction of which is moving very rapidly as well as the completion sometime ago of longer acceptance and arrival and departure sidings at Altona to enable SCT to operate north ex their Altona Depot.   It will be interesting to see what the actual operation, frequency of services etc will be, but it is certainly welcome  new business on the East Coast North-South Corridor.

An interesting observation last night when looking back over the video footage.  6MB9 also had aurizon loading on the train.  A first?

6MB7 did not run last night!

An interesting observation last night when looking back over the video footage.  6MB9 also had aurizon loading on the train.  A first?

6MB7 did not run last night!

I noticed when I came past North Dynon last night that there was a lash up of at least 4 Aurizon locos but no super freighter set up for departure.

Back on Wednesday 25th there was a photo put up by Ian Green over at VicSig showing 42206 with


***edit, the above tiny print reads "an Aurizon transfer to SCT Laverton at West Footscray Junction (SG)". Dang cut and paste***

This struck me as very strange at the time and there have been some large Aurizon freighters from North Dynon in recent weeks so I wondered if it was Aurizon having excess loading for the MB route but who knows/

BG

Similarly last night the Aurizon Depot was closed and dead whilst across the road PN dispatched an intermodal, an outbound steel, and inbound steel and an inbound intermodal in around 70 minutes at 10PM.

Very much in run down mode now.

Similarly last night the Aurizon Depot was closed and dead whilst across the road PN dispatched an intermodal, an outbound steel, and inbound steel and an inbound intermodal in around 70 minutes at 10PM.

Very much in run down mode now.

(this probably needs either a new thread or to be moved to the PN to aqucre Aurozon... thread but)

Looks like it. This morning there was still a lot of Aurizon motive power at North Dynon, now all stabled at the loco point, but pretty much zero other activity save for the ongoing construction / yard rebuild at the North extreme of the yard.

BG

Yes, agree.  Tried to find the news thread for this but was unsuccessful.  As Aurizon winds down and more wagons are becoming idle, I've noticed the quite significant numbers of Chicago Freight Car Leasing wagons both idle and still running.   Nothing against CFCLA at all but for Aurizon seeing such numbers of leased wagons on long term hire would be evidence in my mind of Aurizon's high cost structure mentioned on the main thread.

The entire decision to take down a national intermodal business still does not make sense to me at all.  The management of the Aurizon business have the operator in freefall in terms of customer brand.

Still amazed GWA have not decided to take on some intermodal between Melbourne and Adelaide or through to Perth?

As you maybe aware X31, GWA used to operate a 5 to 6 day per week intermodal between Kewdale and Adelaide.  Given the enormous ramp up by SCT and even PN over the years on the E-W Corridor I'm not sure how much loading would be available purely ex Adelaide for GWA and who would be the "anchor" client/clients to provide the base load.   Coupled with that is the down turn in construction and hence consumption in WA so whilst a good thought I wonder how much business there would be that wasn't being picked by SCT and PN already.   Hence the sighting of Aurizon boxes on an SCT service recently!!!

Today's 2BM9 was a single engine load (SCT006) but interestingly the load included about 6 Aurizon containers when sighted in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Today's 2BM9 was a single engine load (SCT006) but interestingly the load included about 6 Aurizon containers when sighted in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Thanks 7334 for quoting the full train number from which we can deduce that it was yesterday's (13/11) 2BM9 rather than today's 3BM9 (14/11) assuming that it exists.
It is good to be able to see the complete picture.

Yes thanks 7334.  We appreciate the sightings made by various people across the country.   It really helps get a picture of what's happening especially now with the Aurizon wind down and how that plays out with SCT, PN and QUBE in particular.

With freight being hauled by SCT for Aurizon and volumes decreasing what is PN actually buying in the end and what might be left?

With freight being hauled by SCT for Aurizon and volumes decreasing what is PN actually buying in the end and what might be left?

I thought that PN/Linfox purchased the Aurizon narrow gauge intermodal business and that Aurizon was shutting down the interstate intermodal.

With freight being hauled by SCT for Aurizon and volumes decreasing what is PN actually buying in the end and what might be left?

I thought that PN/Linfox purchased the Aurizon narrow gauge intermodal business and that Aurizon was shutting down the interstate intermodal.

You have that right, the biggest winner of the shut down of Aurizon's standard gauge intermodal operations will probably be
STC as they are already dealing with a number of the previous users of Aurizon's services, the only limiting factors will be the availability of locos and rollingstock.
For locos the LDP's will come off lease to Aurizon and there are a couple of G class that Aurizon will have no further use for that STC may be able to acquire or lease and the container flats that have been on lease from CFCLA will be avaliable in the short term.
Qube might put their hand up for some of the traffic but they would be more likely to move into the Queensland traffic particularly in North Queensland where they already have quite extensive road freight operations.

With freight being hauled by SCT for Aurizon and volumes decreasing what is PN actually buying in the end and what might be left?

I thought that PN/Linfox purchased the Aurizon narrow gauge intermodal business and that Aurizon was shutting down the interstate intermodal.

As MuFreight says only Qld Intermodal and Acacia Ridge are being sold (in separate deals) with the rest being shut down by end Dec 2017 (see link below)

http://www.aurizon.com.au/what-we-deliver/intermodal

I know a lot of people on RP don't understand this decision (nor do I exactly) but it seems that Aurizon are concentrating all of their resources (pardon the pun) into their bulk haulage business and coal in particular. Intermodal doesn't seem to be able to generate the return on investment that they are seeking but smaller and more nimble players should be able to fill the gaps especially if they have a lower cost base and/or are prepared to take a lower return on investment.

In years to come they may well re-enter the market if different management or a slide in Coal volumes dictate that they look elsewhere for business but for now it's goodnight Irene.

BG

With freight being hauled by SCT for Aurizon and volumes decreasing what is PN actually buying in the end and what might be left?

I thought that PN/Linfox purchased the Aurizon narrow gauge intermodal business and that Aurizon was shutting down the interstate intermodal.

As MuFreight says only Qld Intermodal and Acacia Ridge are being sold (in separate deals) with the rest being shut down by end Dec 2017 (see link below)

http://www.aurizon.com.au/what-we-deliver/intermodal

I know a lot of people on RP don't understand this decision (nor do I exactly) but it seems that Aurizon are concentrating all of their resources (pardon the pun) into their bulk haulage business and coal in particular. Intermodal doesn't seem to be able to generate the return on investment that they are seeking but smaller and more nimble players should be able to fill the gaps especially if they have a lower cost base and/or are prepared to take a lower return on investment.

In years to come they may well re-enter the market if different management or a slide in Coal volumes dictate that they look elsewhere for business but for now it's goodnight Irene.

BG

An interesting news item that came through the Newcastle local radio early this week said that there were around 100 coal ships at anchor off Chinese ports and were unable to unload owing to no unloading/storage areas at the ports, and an over supply of coal to the Chinese Markets.

With Winter fast approaching the demand for heating is bound to increase but there has been a lot of inner pressure to keep local mines open for employment.  I recently did a Google maps search to areas in China that I had been to in the past, and several locations have the whole of the mines and mine railways closed down and no longer any lines left, except for the embankments and ROW.

Also of note is the huge number of relative numbers of stored diesels in depots, a lot is the result of intensive and broad electrification and line rerouting there as well, I see things tightening a lot more in time to come.

As you maybe aware X31, GWA used to operate a 5 to 6 day per week intermodal between Kewdale and Adelaide.  Given the enormous ramp up by SCT and even PN over the years on the E-W Corridor I'm not sure how much loading would be available purely ex Adelaide for GWA and who would be the "anchor" client/clients to provide the base load.   Coupled with that is the down turn in construction and hence consumption in WA so whilst a good thought I wonder how much business there would be that wasn't being picked by SCT and PN already.   Hence the sighting of Aurizon boxes on an SCT service recently!!!

GWA have never operated their own services between Kewdale and Adelaide.

I think Bingley it must have been done in association with Westrail because living in the west at that time in the transition period after privatisation elsewhere Westrail L class locos were running an interstate freighter with partial doublestacking at the sametime that National Rail were getting underway.   I asked about the nature of this train because there is the the intrastate freighter to Kalgoorlie and the management rep advised me it was in partnership with Genessee and Wyoming.   So I'm not disputing yr advice.   This was around 1999 maybe.

With Aurizon exiting the Bris > Mel intermodal game and seemingly handing the business to SCT on a platter it makes me wonder about the sequence of events over the last 12 months or so.

Did Aurizon know that they were going down this route when they didn't renew the contract to haul vans for SCT?

Did they even go so far as to tell SCT this in advance to allow SCT to plan and get underway before AZJ ceased running the services, perhaps to help it's own customers to find alternative transport?

With SCT seemingly helping Aurizon to finish up by hauling containers for them in the last few weeks it looks like a pretty cosy relationship between the 2.

BG

Very good question.   Certainly even after committing to a sizeable investment in new wagons for intermodal on standard gauge, Aurizon had started to signal as early as 2-years ago (perhaps even earlier) that its intermodal traffic was not performing and whilst there are many factors in the mix, fleet age, condition and efficiency was definitely in that mix and hence investing in new fleet was seen as 1 piece of the puzzle to lower costs and improve margin.

But as I said earlier the fact that Aurizon was and still is even in its dying days running lrge numbers of leased wagons from CFCLA whilst parking up lots of new equipment makes me think like you that Aurizon doesn't display the enormous attention to detail needed in every facet of its business to reduce costs wherever it can.   I don't know how many wagoins were/are on lease but each day, often twice a day I see lots of CFCLA wagons still on trains and modern Aurizon wagons not turning a wheel.   Take this one factor and appky the cost over literally months and years and it becomes a whopper.

This is not having a go at CFCLA, thank goodness the industry has them but it shows that sitting right under its nose management must have had in its monthly accounts a line item referred to as equipment leasing costs.  I know its one factor but I'm with you BG to an extent.   Anyone know what CFCLA might charge Aurizon on a long term leasing basis the rate for a 20 metre container flat???

Did anybody at Aurizon negotiate better terms with CFCLA and then perhaps rightly (who knows) decided it was better to lease.   For big players with large fleets you'd expect leasing to cover seasonal movements, not embedded in your core operation I would have thought!!!

With Aurizon exiting the Bris > Mel intermodal game and seemingly handing the business to SCT on a platter it makes me wonder about the sequence of events over the last 12 months or so.

Did Aurizon know that they were going down this route when they didn't renew the contract to haul vans for SCT?

Did they even go so far as to tell SCT this in advance to allow SCT to plan and get underway before AZJ ceased running the services, perhaps to help it's own customers to find alternative transport?

With SCT seemingly helping Aurizon to finish up by hauling containers for them in the last few weeks it looks like a pretty cosy relationship between the 2.

BG

There is an assumption that SCT is picking up all the Aurizon intermodal business.

I think you will find PN are picking up a fair bit of it as well.

I think Bingley it must have been done in association with Westrail because living in the west at that time in the transition period after privatisation elsewhere Westrail L class locos were running an interstate freighter with partial doublestacking at the sametime that National Rail were getting underway.   I asked about the nature of this train because there is the the intrastate freighter to Kalgoorlie and the management rep advised me it was in partnership with Genessee and Wyoming.   So I'm not disputing yr advice.   This was around 1999 maybe.

In 1999, GWA (or ASR as it was then and later ARG) were providing hook and pull services to Toll and SCT on the corridor. I can't remember if Westrail provided hook and pull on these services between Kewdale and Kalgoorlie, but GWA never marketed their own services to the west.

Thanks for the clarification.  Cheers

Did anybody at Aurizon negotiate better terms with CFCLA and then perhaps rightly (who knows) decided it was better to lease.   For big players with large fleets you'd expect leasing to cover seasonal movements, not embedded in your core operation I would have thought!!!

Do CFCLA leases provide for them to do the maintenance or does the hirer organise it themselves?

Or do they offer different lease contracts to cover different client requirements and abilities?

BG