The Queensland Government has announced two new rail corridors to service new and existing coal mines in the Galilee and Bowen Basins. The east-west corridor will see an expansion of the existing QR National network near Moranbah to the central Galilee Basin and will provide links to coal ports of Abbot Point, Dalrymple Bay and Dudgeon Point.

 

The north-south rail corridor will run along the proposed GVK-Hancock Coal alignment to support the vertically integrated mining operations in the southern Galilee Basin to Abbot Point.

 

“After exhaustive negotiations with all the mine proponents I believe that the responsible development of the Galilee Basin can be achieved by defining an east-west extension of the QRN network and a north-south corridor to facilitate a new standard gauge line,” Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Jeff Seeney said.

 

 Mr Seeney told Parliament the two corridors were the only areas in which the State Government was likely to use its powers to compulsorily acquire land for new rail lines.

 

“The Government will work towards declaring State Development Areas to define these two preferred corridors within which the Government’s powers of compulsory land acquisition can be exercised to bring about our clearly stated policy outcomes of a coordinated approach to railway development.”

 

For the large, vertically integrated mines proposed for the southern Galilee area the Government will define a corridor that straddles the alignment proposed by GVK-Hancock Coal for a new 500km standard gauge line north to Abbot Point.