There are nine Pacific National northbound Melbourne-Brisbane...

There are nine Pacific National northbound Melbourne-Brisbane intermodal trains timetabled in a normal week (January 2023 may be quieter) and seven southbounds Brisbane-Melbournes.

This video (watch from 0:50 to observe) shows only six LAU containers on a Melbourne-bound train, but if every train on this route had a median of just five and it took two days for the same container to reappear on a train, that would see 30 of LAU's 400-strong railable containers tied up on Melbourne-Brisbane-Melbourne duties alone.

Given LAU sends more containers west to Perth (principally from Melbourne but also many from Sydney), and these freight trains typically take 2.5 days from Melbourne to Perth and longer from Sydney, it's not difficult to suggest that these '20 tonne profit centres' for LAU could be in quite high demand.

There'll be complexities not identified above, such as containers requiring repairs to refrigeration units, clients slower than expected to load or unload, trains or connecting road transports delayed, the occasional unfortunate and costly derailment of a train and numerous other factors, but the profitability of this facet of LAU has been spelt out in FY 22's annual report: