“Rather than landing a plane,we’re dealing with large interstate trains which come across from Perth and Melbourne and eventually from Brisbane and land on the terminal here at Moorebank,” explains James Baulderstone,the chief executive of the federal government’s National Intermodal Corporation.
“It’s the road and rail version of Western Sydney Airport. But,in some ways,this is more sophisticated than an airport because an airport is one mode. You’ve got the inland port,the train and the truck.”
National Intermodal Corporation chief executive James Baulderstone.Nick Moir
Unlike the,the giant intermodal precinct at Moorebank flies well below the radar despite being key to the vast array of consumer goods that end up in hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
Sydney University ports and maritime logistics professor Michael Bell calls the Moorebank hub “Sydney’s best kept secret”.
The massive facility,just off the M5 motorway about 35 kilometres from the CBD,will have a growing role in the city’s day-to-day life.
It will also be crucial to ensuring Australia reverses a decline in rail’s share of freight criss-crossing the country.
The amount of freight transported around the country has tripled over the past eight years.
Yet,the massive increase in cargo has been placed on the back of trucks instead of trains,piling pressure on roads. As a result,trains’ share of freight has fallen to 9 per cent from 30 per cent in the 1980s. “Trucks have a very important role,but you want the right mode moving the right loads,” Baulderstone says.
Located near the banks of the Georges River,the Moorebank hub has sprung up in seven years,covering more than 240 hectares – almost the size of Sydney’s CBD between Circular Quay and Central Station. Once completed within the next two to five years,it will house more than 850,000 square metres of warehouses.
Trains carrying containers shuttle between Qube’s import-export terminal at Moorebank and Port Botany.Nick Moir
The interstate rail hub and a neighbouring import-export terminal sit at the centre of the sprawling Moorebank complex,flanked on either side by massive warehouses operated by the likes of Woolworths. The supermarket giant’s large new two-storey warehouse is due to be completed shortly and will feature 20-metre high cranes lifting products.
“It’s like something out ofThe Matrix,” Baulderstone says. “Woolies is by far the most sophisticated high-bay warehouse.”
While long freight trains pull into the interstate hub,the import-export terminal operated by logistics company Qube Holdings serves as the entry point for 600-metre-long trains that shuttle between Port Botany and Moorebank. Twelve automated cranes lift containers off trains and stack them in a large yard.
Qube general manager Sean Hovey says the automated terminal is designed purely for import-export shipping containers. “We have got the opportunity to have three port shuttle trains in motion at any one time,” he says.
It makes the import-export terminal,which opened in 2019,a de facto extension of Port Botany,helped by the completion in February of the of the rail line to the port.
“You have your overseas containers coming in from the ships;you have trains doing large interstate movements and trucks are doing the last drop-off and delivery. We’re not a rail terminal – we’re an intermodal,” Baulderstone adds.
The precinct is built on former Defence Force land near the Holsworthy Army Barracks. Unexploded bombs were discovered during the construction of the precinct,requiring the military to be called up to remove the ordnance.
“These were bombs from the ’40s,‘50 and ’60s,” Baulderstone says. “This is where they used to have their Vietnam tunnels for practising for the war,tank train facilities.” A lot of ordnance was found,he adds.
With the Liverpool CBD skyline looming in the distance,the precinct also features the country’s largest rooftop solar project. It will eventually have the potential to generate 100 megawatts,enough to power 40,000 homes and make it the equivalent of a mid-sized electricity station. Plans are afoot to install a large battery to store energy from the solar panels.
Big projects like motorways and stadiums are popular with politicians but less exciting ones,like the intermodal,often do more to improve our living standards. It also promises good bang for buck.
The business case for the intermodal estimated it would create about $11 billion in economic benefits over three decades,including $120 million a year for the economy of south-western Sydney. This includes cuts to freight costs,traffic congestion,accidents and carbon emissions while improving productivity.
That will ultimately mean savings for businesses and consumers.
A Qube worker in the control room for the company’s import-expert terminal at Moorebank.Nick Moir
Rob Tyson,an economist at consultancy Polis Partners,says the Moorebank intermodal precinct will figure prominently in the day-to-day life of Sydney.
“It’s going to touch almost everyone,from stocking the shelves on a daily basis to getting parcels delivered across the city,” he says. “Our freight supply chains operate behind the scenes. Not many people understand them,but they’re the oil in the engine that allows important things to happen,as basic as our daily consuming. People only realise how important these things are when they break.”
At full capacity,the Moorebank intermodal precinct could take 3000 heavy truck movements off Sydney roads each day.
“The way the intermodal will relieve road transport pressures around Port Botany,support business supply chains and help get goods efficiently onto our freight rail networks to the major highways that run north and south from Sydney will be transformative,” Tyson says.
“It’s a behind-the-scenes investment that will benefit the community and business for the long term.”
Qube’s giant warehouse at Moorebank.Nick Moir
A recently released from a review commissioned by the Minns government into Sydney’s rail network outlined the need to transport a greater proportion of freight by train.
“At the moment,there are a lot of disincentives to invest in rail freight,” says Carolyn Walsh,the chair of the National Transport Commission,who led the review.
“COVID really showed if you get disruption to supply chains you wind up with empty shells in supermarkets. It’s about recognising that freight does have a direct impact on community wellbeing. We have to find ways of actually investing in cleaner,greener technologies in rail.”
Sydney University’s Bell says more logistics firms will need to relocate near the Moorebank freight hub if it is to live up to its potential. “The challenge will be encouraging enough warehouses and distribution centres to locate either in the Moorebank facility or close to it because the name of the game is getting containers off the road network and onto the rail network,” he says.
The Moorebank freight hub opening has also created a “policy dilemma” for the state government,given WestConnex and the motorway improves road access to Port Botany for trucks. “The hope is that the Moorebank facility gets containers off the roads onto the rail network,” Bell says. “The problem is that it and the WestConnex motorway are now sort of in competition.”
While the NSW government wants to shift container freight to rail,new motorways make it easier for trucks simply to “rock up to collect containers” from the port. Bell says NSW needs to “formulate a consistent policy” to switch containers from road to rail.
Federal transport and infrastructure Catherine King says the Moorebank freight hub will connect to the future Inland Rail project “enabling movement of vital consumer goods” between Australia’s biggest cities.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese opens the interstate rail terminal at Moorebank in early April.Dion Georgopoulos
But massive cost overruns and delays on the Inland Rail,a scheme to connect Melbourne and Brisbane with a new 1600-kilometre freight corridor through regional Victoria,NSW and Queensland,has underscored the challenges in improving Australia’s rail freight system.
The Inland Rail project was budgeted to cost $8.4 billion when announced by the Turnbull government in 2017 but a review last year found that had.
Amid the challenges,Australasian Railway Association chief executive Caroline Wilkie says there is an urgent need to boost the proportion of containerised freight moved by rail,and to take pressure off roads.
“Our research has confirmed that well-located,open-access intermodal terminals like Moorebank are critical to increasing rail freight,” she says.
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