Agreed, the comment:"I have never seen such an open and shut...

Agreed, the comment:

"I have never seen such an open and shut case," he said. "This is privately built infrastructure that was never in public ownership."

does not take this into account, i.e. the land used by these railways is not in private hands and was given over to railway use on the provision that there might be a future requirement to share the railways being built.

Frankly, I have some sympathy for RIO/BHP, but it seems to me that those rail links could be augmented to accommodate FMG (at FMG's expense of course). This augmentation would be passing loops/sidings, etc.

BTW, the RIO/BHP arguments that the rail links are already at capacity is total nonsense - how are both companies going to ramp up production if the rail links are already at capacity?