This is something that should be of concern to all Australians, particularly those in the western states. A train derailment has cut Australia’s rail network in half, breaking the east-west train connection, the main Melbourne-Adelaide train line. This cuts off Adelaide from the Port of Melbourne. The other train line from Sydney to Adelaide has been cut off by flooding. Thus, the mainstream media is predicting empty shelves and rising food prices in Adelaide, and Perth. Of course, when the trainlines are back in order, the food prices will not be going down.
This is no conspiracy, well apart from the opportunistic price rises, like the attacks upon infrastructure in the US, but could have more devastating short-term effects. Our sympathies to people in Adelaide and Perth. Hope you have followed our prepping advice and are all stocked up.
“Empty shelves and high prices look set to get worse following a train derailment that has essentially cut Australia’s rail network in half.
Get ready. Empty shelves and high prices could be about to get even worse following a train derailment disaster that has crippled a vital piece of Australian train infrastructure, and left the country without an east-west train connection.
It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The main Melbourne-Adelaide train line is now cut off following an enormous train crash near the small Victorian town of Inverleigh, after months of heavy rain had undermined a piece of track.
On Monday morning, just before dawn an enormous freight train trundled over that piece of track. The train was over a kilometre long, and most of the wagons made it across. But not all of them. The track couldn’t handle the pressure and finally collapsed, scattering containers and wagons all over a muddy field.
These are containers that should have been going to the Port of Melbourne for export, and wagons that should have been picking up new containers to carry back to fill shelves for customers.
But the crash has wider implications. It is now blocking the rail line between Melbourne and Adelaide, cutting off Adelaide from the Port of Melbourne.
Normally, such a loss wouldn’t completely cut off Perth and Adelaide from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane because there’s another train line that runs from Sydney to Adelaide. But that line is currently cut off due to flooding at Broken Hill. No trains are able to go east to west in the whole country. We were hanging by a single thread, which has now been severed.
“The Broken Hill to Parkes line remains closed because of flooding and there has been substantial damage to the track around Condobolin,” an Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) representative said.
“As flooding remains widespread in the area, ARTC has not been able to assess the full damage to the track and begin our recovery efforts. The derailment at Inverleigh on Monday has meant trains are unable to run from Melbourne to Adelaide. These network disruptions have meant trains are unable to run from east to west via our Broken Hill or Melbourne-Adelaide lines.”
- Supply chain misery
Supply chains have been a mess in this country for months. Shortages and high prices have become a fact of life. And now, just as we are starting to recover, this.
The east-west train lines are, according to government statistics, the busiest freight lines in the country. They carry all sorts of goods from Adelaide and Perth to Sydney and Melbourne.
The link between Adelaide and the Port of Melbourne is especially important. Many container ships are extremely large and don’t stop in Adelaide. So South Australia relies on goods being unloaded in Melbourne and brought along the rails. It is a 12-hour journey, usually.
Now, most cargo in Australia goes by road. Over 90 per cent of what is unloaded at the Port of Melbourne goes on a truck. So the rail crash isn’t going to stop everything – urgent deliveries will be able to go by road instead. But there is hardly a surplus of free trucks and drivers at the moment.
Instead containers bound for Adelaide will pile up on the docks in Melbourne until the floods go away or the train line can be repaired. In the lead-up to Christmas, when retailers can’t afford to have bare shelves, this is extremely disappointing.
Exporters in South Australia will be hurt too. Wine, grain and other goods bound for export now won’t make it into ships. That’s going to punch a big hole in the livelihoods of farmers and manufacturers.
This is not the first time this year flooding has screwed up the train system. In February, a rail line between Adelaide and Tarcoola was shut down for 24 days due to flooding. And recently the train line from Sydney to Adelaide has had to be shut at times due to flooding, causing trains to be diverted. Now it is happening again.
Mud and bulldozers
It will take time to rebuild the rail line. First on the scene are the investigators: The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). They get first access to try to figure out what happened. Only after they are finished will the track owner be able to get in there, figure out how to move the containers, then look into repairs
That won’t be easy. The amount of rain in the area has been extremely high, and nearby rivers are flooding. There has been more heavy rain since the train crash and the State Emergency Service (SES) issued a new flood warning for the area on Tuesday morning.
Even a man in gumboots is probably going to get stuck in the mud if he goes into the field to look at those containers – sending in heavy cranes and bulldozers is a recipe for disaster at this point.
This year has been very wet in the area, but November 14 is showing as the wettest day of the year at a weather station near Inverleigh. The enormous rainfall on that night comes after a drenching October where Inverleigh got nearly three times as much rain as normal, as the next chart shows.
The whole country has been soaked in fact; it is unlikely this piece of rail line is the only one that has been destabilised.
Roads are also damaged all over the place. While some sections have been swept away dramatically, there is also a build-up of small damage. I’ve never seen so many potholes in Australia as I have this year.
I just checked Google Trends data to see if I’m the only person who has noticed this, and I’m definitely not. It seems like half of Australia is googling potholes.
The Victorian Transport Association says $1 billion is needed to fix damaged roads and rail in that state alone.”
This is going to be messy.