TasRail


G'day John ..Sincerest apologies ..I missed your question because I've not been on MRL for a few weeks..Tasrail is doing okay , still not market share for ideal yet but way way better than the dark days of the early 2000's..Tasmania is very mountainous , lots of decent grades so the 17 new TR Class loco's were purpose built in the U.S. by EMD for our needs . I think they're detuned to 2500 hp but are capable of 3600 hp if needed. Lots of tight radius and inclines . That said , some of the old QR and DQ Class are still running for helper units etc.. and a couple of the QR Class too doing some switching/shunting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A8utrMkL4E ..Still all freight , no re introduction of regular passenger services but there's a few scenic rail trips for tourists going okay..Cheers Rod..
 
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Looks like Tasrail bought most of the surplus QR locos when the freight arm and QR National got sold off. Only see a couple of those locos on passenger duties now, on the inland service out to Longreach, QANTAS's birthplace. Wonder how many of our US chums on here know what the initials stand for (no Googling now).

Been meaning to ask you, are there any model railway clubs down your side of the island?
 
G'day Toot , I love the QR locos ..We have had them since the early 70's so QR and TasRail have a pretty good link there. With the ones like 2052 and 2053 in the vid they even liked the Queensland colour scheme so much they kept it.
Unfortunately no model rail club even remotely nearby. That would be awesome. There are a couple in Hobart and one in Launceston that I think still operates. One on the North West coast folded though.. Maybe I ought to try and start one..All that said I'd like to visit one sometime.. Cheers Rod..
 
G'day Louis...Conrail was a great story..Drawback with Government owned railroads is if penny pinching politicians like ours for a time can decimate infrastructure maintenance that is crucial it affects everything badly. On the flip side though , if a well maintained railroad is upgraded properly by governments it becomes a huge enhancement to transport needs and requirements over the sector. There are plans for Tasrail to one day return to passenger services but the CEO of Tasrail stated that this will not happen until there is a lot more upgrades done on trackwork to allow speeds that make passenger services a viable alternative to car and bus options.

We only have two reasonable sized cities that are about 250 km apart. Hobart is about 250,000 and Launceston is about 120,000. By car it takes about two and a half hours on the old style highway. A major upgrade of that is currently taking place too so a decent reduction of travel time is expected. Rail would need to be close to that in safety and that would require a lot more cash. One day perhaps.

So far on Tasrail infrastructure they've spent $280,000,000. Of that $60,000,000 was for new purpose built (in the USA) locomotives and a big chunk of change for new coal cars , log cars , spine cars for container freight and ore cars.. The rest of the approaching 300 million bucks is in safety and trackage of course.
Another major improvement (federal funded) was the new Brighton Rail Hub that meant the slow crawl through Hobart suburbs of freight such as on this video was eliminated . There is hope for the old suburban line to one day be used as a commuter city rail service that won't impact on vehicle traffic as much as these sort of times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V31fFJ3q97I..
Cheers Rod
 
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G'day all... Still on Tasrail (sort of). Here is a short video on my State . I don't want to live anywhere else but lots of amazing places I want to visit including the incredible USA and Canada and maybe meet some of the great crew on this forum of course . This is why I'm so glad that Tasrail is FINALLY getting sorted to help service 'our little piece of paradise' .. Re the ships. There are two of them , Spirit of Tasmania 1 and Spirit of Tasmania ll. They also carry semi trailer container freight that ultimately is carried by Tasrail but there are also dedicated container freight ships plying Bass Strait for major cartage. Believe it or not Bass Strait is also regarded as part of Australia's National Highway Route despite it being a waterway. Middle of winter , bloody cold but Tassie is still beautiful ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTBAHCrNy68
Cheers Rod..,
 
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