LAU General Discussion

Some other 'HC' contributors have started identically named threads, so I thought it's time to create an LAU example as the MD's speech dates more as each week rolls by.

Here's a video of a diverted Sydney to Perth intermodal train at unattractive Direk, just north of the Adelaide suburb of Salisbury, 13 days ago.

Pleasingly, there's 12 LAU railable containers being hauled.

Not all trains that go across the Nullarbor to/from Perth WA are 'double stacked' (i.e. the lower wagons, called 'well wagons' have one container stacked on top of another). This train is an example of one that isn't.

Normally, these trains would travel via Goulburn, Cootamundra West and Forbes up to Goobang Junction near Parkes, NSW, and then across through Menindee and on to Broken Hill and eventually Coonamia near Port Pirie SA, but the Parkes - Broken Hill line remains flood affected and at the earliest will reopen in late January 2023. A difficulty has been that floodwaters had kept on coming/rising, hence it maybe still hasn't been possible to fully inspect the damage and commence rectification. (A minority of trains travel via the Blue Mountains through Lithgow to Parkes in 'normal' times but this route is steeply graded).

So these Sydney to Perth trains at present travel via Goulburn, Cootamundra, Junee, Albury, the Melbourne suburbs of Tottenham, Brooklyn and Newport and then on to North Shore near Geelong, Ararat, Horsham, Murray Bridge, Adelaide and the infamous town of Snowtown to rejoin the normal route near Coonamia.