The New England Highway is the sole major road freight route connecting Queensland with NSW, VIC and their capitals. The areas of the Granite Belt at Stanthorpe, Gratton in Lockyer Valley, Warwick and further north are feeding large supermarket freight volumes to the five million supermarket customers in Sydney and Victoria.
The 215 km rail line Armidale – Wallangarra in QLD was called the Great Northern Railway (GNR) when it was built in the 19th century and has now been idle for 35 years. It also connects to Parkes along an operational rail corridor that starts at Tamworth. The re-activation of the GNR line to SE QLD would complete a national train rail that connects all states and capitals along existing rail corridors.
Research points to rail freight potential of 6 return trips to Newcastle and Sydney daily and a further four daily to Parkes. Additional freight movements include the Inland Port concept with empty containers being filled with grains and other bulk items for export. The Inland Rail will be completed from Melbourne to Parkes by 2027, allowing rail freight to reach Melbourne along a re-activated GNR route from the QLD Darling Downs in 18 hrs. Current Truck movements on the New England Highway are show below.
The GNR rail route is basically useable for ordinary freight trains. Re-instatement costs oif the tracks, crossings and numerous bridges are much lower than indicated in previous studies. Additional savings such as the Bolivia Hill crossing, where a deviation of 15 km will result in a significant saving of about $200 million. The GNR line can be built without any highway level crossings. It will require additional passing loops to provide efficient freight movements. Station freight infrastructure is available in Glen Innes, Guyra and Tenterfield. There are some platform sidings and passing locations in the smaller villages along the GNR line
Trains have been absent north of Armidale for the last 35 years and re-activation would provide modern passenger train connections to the population of the QLD, Southern Downs and the New England regions. There is currently no public transport from Stanthorpe QLD or Tenterfield QLD so passenger numbers stated are currently subdued. The combined populations of Toowoomba, Warwick, Stanthorpe, Tenterfield, Glenn Innes, Armidale, and Tamworth is 300,000 and passenger numbers of 300 people daily are possible. This includes medical and disability movements, student and school leavers (without a car), train tourists, farm workers and backpackers, and short shopping trippers.
The major rail transport operators have signalled increasing containerisation with long haul rail freight movements between Intermodal sites such as Moorebank, Enfield, Tamworth, Newcastle and the future Charlton site in Toowoomba. The future lies in fast freight trains up to 1200m long and 3000 tonne loads able to match truck times. Trains can reach Sydney from the QLD Darling Downs area in 10 hours or less with limited stops. Each freight train will replace 40 interstate B-double trucks. The income stream to the train line operator is upward of $30 million annually.
Transferring each 20ft TUE container from trucks to trains going to Sydney will result in a an estimated reduction in diesel usage of 574 litres and saves 3.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide. At the current carbon credit value this values the benefits at $11 million annually.
Re-activation of the GNR line Armidale to SE QLD will provide much needed passenger transport to the region. This will bring increased visitors and commerce to the New England region, especially to Tenterfield, Glen Innes, Wallangarra and the smaller villages along the line. With freight moving by rail the planned $160 million Tenterfield bypass could be reassessed and a local diversion road via Railway Avenue used, for a saving of about $80 million.
The GNR line is strategically located between the Brisbane – Sydney via North Coast Line and the Werris Creek – Moree Namoi Line. It is able to provide redundancy benefits in times of disaster such as floods or other downtime. The North Coast Line was cut by floods for 5-7 days as recently as March 2025. The GNR is a flood resistant corridor and no other regional rail project can provide so much benefit in such a short time period.
Re-activating the GNR line suits recent statements by the federal Infrastructure Minister, Catherine King, referring to national land transport corridors and interstate connections.
Allen Crosthwaite
Director Engineering
Tenterfield Network and New England Network
allen.crosthwaite@gmail.com
29-apr–2025
