What time's the next train?

Are we getting a train or not? The NT Government seems to be pinning quite a lot of hope on the railway as a boost to the Territory's economy.
For many years now, centuries even, there have been plans to build a north to south railway in this country. The current Alice Springs to Darwin project is the latest to get a conditional nod. There is also the very ambitious Melbourne to Darwin link, though it is not being taken seriously by many people outside its own lobbyists.
The missing part of the story about these projects is - what's to be carried on them? I don't know the exact figures for road trains through Tennant Creek but you wouldn't say the highway is bumper to bumper with big rigs.
The railway will not put all these operators out of business even if some of the current road freight shifted over to rail. If the railway is not going to carry much of this cargo, what is it going to carry?
"Nothing with legs!" was a popular catch-cry for a while. No people, no cattle, no tables; that sort of thing. Railways are only profitable carting bulk freight decreed the modern wisdom.
But what bulk freight?
Is there a whopping huge mine in South Australia somewhere just waiting for a trainline to Darwin Port? It might turn out that neither the South Australian nor Queensland governments will redirect their freight through the Northern Territory and on to ships in Darwin at the expense of their own ports in any case.
Ah yes, I hear you say, what about incoming freight - thousands of containers, cars and assorted imports currently docking in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide?
Put yourself in the exporter's place. You've got a few hundred, perhaps even thousands of containers to ship to Melbourne say. The way of doing it now is to hunt around for a cheap vessel, perhaps sailing under a flag of convenience which is using the cheapest labour it can get away with.
You cart the containers to the docks in the exporting country and bung 'em on the ship. The ship sails across the seas around the coast of Australia and drops the whole lot off in Melbourne where another fleet of trucks is waiting to take the containers to their ultimate destination.
What would be the point of double-handling through Darwin Port? Unloading all those containers and laboriously laying them out in a whole series of snake-like trains to amble majestically the whole length and half the breadth of the country!
The same goes for cars. I've seen them being driven from the ships in Sydney and parked in vast lots. The point is that they're very close to where they are to be sold - at least as close as a train could get.
The Tennant Foodbarn is a good example of road freight in action. The trucks pull up right outside and the produce can be whisked inside in a flash (relatively speaking). Compare that to it being shunted off the train at the Tennant Creek freight siding where a truck will still be needed to bring it down to the Foodbarn.
Don't get me wrong, I like trains. They are more environmentally friendly than trucks and a darn sight nicer to travel in than buses.
It's just that it seems to be all back-to-front to me the way the project is being handled. The reasons for needing a rail link between Adelaide and Darwin are surely not a commercial secret. If not, what are they?
In all the ballyhoo and election backslapping there is scant mention of what this rail link is for. We are told to wait for the consortia to submit their tenders and then the governments will announce the winner.
What research have the tenderers done in terms of potential revenue? If they have found the required volume of freight somewhere, perhaps we ought to know what it is.
The NT Government showed us startling pictures of pallets and pallets of documentation while announcing that nothing could be announced before they had waded through tonnes of submission documents.
It's a pity that the tenderers couldn't have been required to provide a summary sheet stapled to the top. It is also a bit of a worry that such a major infrastructure project is not being conducted with a greater degree of public scrutiny.
But perhaps the greatest pity of all is the way in which all recent governments in Australia have shied away from committing to large-scale infrastructure development. We have inherited so much in the way of road and rail networks, yet we don't seem in any hurry to make anything for future generations to enjoy.
The pioneer spirit that got the technological development of the nation going seems to have been lost. Now we have governments saying, "Yes we do need a railway," or whatever, "let's see if there's anyone out there who is willing to take the risk".
'Risk' meaning of course working out if a tidy profit can be made.
Private enterprise isn't going to build anything that doesn't make a quid.
We've got a tragically large number of people with no work in this country - especially in this part of it. Couldn't they help build a train line from Alice Springs to Darwin? It's not that hard surely; after the first hundred k's you'd have it down pat wouldn't you reckon?
If these overseas speculators can't come up with a proposal that does what we need for our future - let's build it ourselves!

Paul Cockram