Chanticleer in the 'Australian Financial Review' has been very...

Chanticleer in the 'Australian Financial Review' has been very negative on the AZJ Darwin landbridging vision, referencing a 20 year old comment from well known and liked if one was a SH Chris Corrigan about 'smaller than a tick's testicle.'

'The Australian's' Nick Evans, a much respected resources writer, has been more neutral. He highlighted how AZJ is initially targeting small container ships that carry only 1000 to 2000 TEU, bearing in mind Darwin's port is apparently restricted to ships carrying c.4000 TEU.

(One TEU = a small 6.1 metre shipping container, 20 feet in the old lexicon, but vast numbers of containers are now 12.2 metres long, so the equivalent of 2 TEU. The latter term originally meant 'twenty foot equivalent units').

Maybe Chanticleer ought look at AZJ's post-2017 history after it scrapped its initial unsuccessful foray into interstate intermodal trains.

Since then, I'd suggest the company has largely performed well.

Obtaining what can be in reasonable to good years the mammoth CBH (Cooperative Bulk Handling) contract for grain haulage on standard and narrow gauge lines in Western Australia was a masterstroke. There's been nothing I've seen publicly to suggest that WA graingrowers (who own CBH) are dissatisfied with AZJ's contractual performance.

Similarly, AZJ seems to be doing quite well in obtaining other bulk commodity contracts. Clearly it's won some business from unlisted, foreign owned Pacific National.

The only mainland state where AZJ doesn't have a significant presence (apart from its now two weekly trains to Perth) is Victoria. But by April 2024, AZJ should also be operating intermodal trains between Melbourne and Brisbane for TGE.

Chanticleer needs to get out a bit more and observe AZJ's track record in rail in the last six years.