Junee Shire Council at their July meeting endorsed a private level crossing off Olympic Highway approximately 3.9km south of Illabo as part of the Inland Rail.
Junee Shire Council (JSC) said they have been negotiating with Inland Rail concerning proposed public road and crown road closures along the Inland Rail route, from Albury to Illabo (A2I) and Illabo to Stockinbingal (I2S). The particular crossing named LX605 is an entry to Council’s gravel pit. This is a private entry to Council-owned land and land owned by Councillor David Carter.
JSC said, “Inland Rail (IR) has been working closely with Council on the design of LX605 to ensure the relevant vehicles for quarrying operations can continue to use the exit. Council said the result of these negotiations has resulted in them considering a 4m slew of the rail towards the private property away from the Olympic Highway.
“The target vehicle for the crossing is Council’s recently endorsed “19m” Truck and Dogs, which are being purchased in this financial year. These will, in reality, be 18.8m long as the currently owned Truck and Dogs are. This suits the 42t capacity for the truck and dog design. Inland Rail has indicated that fencing and further detailed design elements, including buffers, will be presented at a later date.
“Council has requested that the proposed cattle grid meet Council’s design requirements, including having a concrete base and being a quality management certified design with a minimum of 17t load rating per axle. Inland Rail has committed to providing a cattle grid design to Council specifications. Council has requested that the clearance width be suitable for two vehicles, including a minimum pavement width of 6.1m in accordance with current driveway design standards, along with a clearance width of 10.2m minimum.
“Inland Rail has indicated they can comply with this. Council has requested a longer delay on the boom for the crossing to ensure vehicles can safely check in both directions and exit across the rail corridor. Inland Rail has indicated the signalling is suitable for a 19m vehicle, including a 19m truck and dog; however, hey could not comment on the longer delay and any changes from the standard delay times were unlikely to be practical in that location.
“Endorsing the design improves safety at the level crossing due to the introduction of a signalised crossing and boom. Current safety risks remain the highest enterprise risk for this area. This is particularly around the short stacking and turning safety onto the Olympic Highway. These are managed operationally by controlling vehicle sizes and movements.
“It was recommended Council endorse Inland Rail’s design of LX605. At the Council meeting, only Councillor Clinton was against the motion. During the meeting, David Carter opened with a speech regarding the proposed rail, saying, “The reason for this report is that this crossing doesn’t meet the requirements for short stacking.
“This has come about because the railway line is being upgraded, for a division of a new inland rail freight network from Melbourne to Brisbane. The term stacking, short stacking, refers to a need for a 19 metre truck, a semi trailer or a truck and dog, to sit in the space between the Railway line and the Olympic highway without interference.
“With this problem, Inland Rail can do either: Close the crossing. This is impractical. This private crossing has been in existence for over 100 years. Or move the highway, which would seem the most practical solution, or move the railway line, which is the railway’s plan.
“Since the inception of this project, I’ve had maybe four one-on-one discussions with the project team, and that is probably over the last four years. I’m not sure how many Council has had in that time.
“I had indicated to a Director of Engineering a few times that maybe a joint approach may have been helpful by forming a united approach, but this is not happening. “I indicated to a Director of Engineering that I was in favour of a design, but in principle, I still had issues with the tightness of short stacking and would prefer a longer delay in the timing of the activation of the lights to the lowering of a boom, to make it safer for trucks to navigate this crossing.
“The current design allows for an 18.8 metre straight clearance between the edge line and the boom.
“What position does it put me in if you approve this, but I don’t. I would have thought that a combined approach to this matter would have been better than a disjointed one.”
Director of Engineering, Lloyd Hart, said during the discussion, “The current length of stacking that we have there is only 15, so what this provides, as far as stacking length as far as a project outcome is, is a four metre flue away from the Olympic Highway.
“My take on why Inland Rail has taken that approach is that they work in the rail space. Whereas if someone like me were delivering the project, I would do a realignment of the Olympic Highway because I work in the road space. We’re talking about rail operators working in the rail space. If we talk about how far they can slew, the rail there, they’ve slewed into a crown reserve that they’ve had to go through a property acquisition process to achieve, but they’re limited by service assets, so Essential Energy lines and Telstra assets. I guess it would be quite cost-prohibitive to go further than they have proposed now. So I guess that being said, we’d talk about the end outcome.
“I’ve got a couple of comments on this and one outcome. Although we are an asset owner, it is a private level crossing, so we can talk around road compliance and that kind of thing, but the real question here is around driveway access, and access for the appropriate vehicles for what we are using.
“I don’t see it being an issue exiting… It is the entry component, and my take on what the reality of entry is is that we enter, particularly from the Illabo side, or we enter on the road shoulder.”
– Jack Murray
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