Edited 02 Oct 2014 08:00, 5 years ago, edited by cootanee

Concrete sleepers = mud holes debate seems to have dominated discussions about ARTC.
Given this thread is about the NSW Lease I’ll focus on that.

Going into the Lease there was an expectation that ARTC would be a commercial enterprise and drive down costs. The feds weren’t prepared to invest in RIC/RAC because they were perceived them inefficient, union dominated, etc.  So why concrete sleepers and not timber/ballast?
ARTC’s original strategy was quite modest. Concrete sleepers would be used on tighter curves.

Around the time of the NSW Lease several derailments put the spotlight on sleeper condition across NSW particularly on the NSW interstate network.  http://www.otsi.nsw.gov.au/rail/IR-SteelSleeper-final.pdf

Along the east coast thousands of sleepers needed to be replaced and deterioration was ongoing. ARTC took the view that wholesale replacement was warranted. Concrete sleepers were modern, economically sustainable, and politically appealing (for funding).  ARTC challenged the market to meet or better the whole of life cost against timber, a relatively ballsy move.

It was able to convince the feds to fund the purchase a batch of 500,000. This provided employment benefits in two regional centres. In time the feds agreed to fund further batches which resulted in a new sleeper plant at Bomen. This allowed ARTC to complete concrete sleepering across the network.

Whilst these sleeper purchases were federally funded, installation was not.  ARTC selected the most affordable and quickest means of doing so. ARTC have long acknowledged the ballast and drainage problems however given a lack of funds and immediate safety issues, sleeper replacement was the priority.