road and rail options mt m to mourilyan port, page-7

I am a Cairns/Tableland local and my family have been here 2 generations before me.
The rail used to go from Mareeba through Malanda to Milla but it was pulled up years ago and I think that the easements have been taken up. Certainly I looked at a property a few months ago near Jaggan and the railway line easement was included.
Any line down the mountain would probably follow the Palmerston highway and that would be very costly and would not happen.
The road down the mountain (Gillies Highway) has been worked on for decades and is only just now becoming reasonable and there will be no coal trucks going down it. There will also be no coal trucks going down the Kuranda Range. Reason is the danger and congestion to the general traffic going down bendy mountain roads subject to a lot of rain for half the year.
Century zinc exports ore out of the Karumba Port dewatering facility: Concentrates at the mine site are transported via a 304 kilometre underground slurry pipeline to a dewatering and transport facility in Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. From here it is transported via transfer vessel the MV Wunma to export ships anchored offshore. Because Karumba is a shallow water port not allowing the big ships in. I think that Mourilian would be the same.