Trackside

8150 leads 8126 north towards Sydney with 9132 loaded stone train from Dunmore.

From Pacific Nationals website: “Pacific National is Australia’s leading national freight rail operator”. This is true. They easily have one of the largest fleets of locomotives and wagons in the country. However, this does not make them “good at what they do”, this just means they are larger than their competitors. In reality, Pacific National can be as unreliable as any other company on the rails today.

Pacific National was formed in 2002 from the sale of the (then) NSW state government owned Freightcorp and the Federal Government owned National Rail Corp. At that time, Pacific National was a joint venture by Toll Holdings and Patrick Corp. Pacific National then acquired Freight Australia, making them easily the largest railway freight corporation in Australia. In 2006, Toll Holdings acquired Patrick Corp through a hostile takeover, and the resulting company was split into two separate companies, Asciano Limited and Toll Holdings. Pacific National is a subsidiary of Asciano Limited.

Pacific National in NSW is split into three seperate operating divisions, which operate as separate companies.

Rural and Bulk : This division is dedicated to the movement of bulk materials, such as fuel, grain, minerals, cement and other similar products. The majority of the 81 Class, the 48 Class and the X Class can be found operating on Rural and Bulk trains in NSW, although standard gauge BL Class can be seen on ore trains, and refurbished members of the 80 Class have been appearing on fuel and grain trains.

Intermodal: Intermodal is probably the most often seen, and most easily recognizable division, heralded by the NR Class (although members of the DL, BL, AN and 81 classes are also used as helper locomotives). It is cause to wonder why, the NR Class locomotives are always so dirty – it has become synonymous with the terma “grubby”, “dirty” and “grimy”. Pacific National has repainted plenty of their 81 Class into their new corporate scheme, yet plenty of NR Class are appearing almost unrecognizable as the same locomotives when in National Rail service. The Intermodal division also encompasses SteelLink trains also, which are often seen running to and from Port Kembla or Newcastle. SteelLink services themselves are a carry over from the National Rail days – National Rail even had a special livery for locomotives operating such trains! The Intermodal division also provides motive power in a hook-and-pull arrangement for Great Southern Railway (GSR) luxury passenger trains such as “The Overland”, “The Ghan” and “The Indian Pacific”. In the case of the latter two, a handful of locomotives have been painted in specific colour schemes for use on these trains. It goes without saying that GSR makes sure that Pacific National always keep such units clean and spotless! Such specially painted units are always a treat for enthusiasts to see hauling Intermodal trains, usually as part of a locomotive transfer to ensure that the locomotive is moved to the correct location to haul a GSR train. It is interesting to note that “The Overland” is the only train to not have any locomotives painted for it, especially as it is a “daylight” service, with no sleeping cars.

Coal: Pacific Nationals Coal division can be split again into “Southern Coal” and “Northern Coal”. “Southern Coal” is an umbrella for all the trains working to and from Inner Harbour at Port Kembla. This one of the two places where coal is railed to for export in NSW. Southern Coal trains are almost always headed up by the 82 class, a class purchased specifically for hauling heavy coal trains. Due to a shortage of locomotives, Southern Coal has often “borrowed” unneeded 81 Class from Rural and Bulk (and then placed said units “in the shafts”. As a lot of Rural and Bulk 81 Class have been refurbished and repainted, this gives them a thick layer of grime over the outside). As well as 81 Class, early in 2008 a number of GL Class were leased from CFCLA to assist with the locomotive shortage. This proved to be too expensive in the long term, and presently, G Class displaced from their Rural and Bulk/Intermodal operations in Victoria are being conveyed to NSW to work on Southern Coal trains to assist their fleet of 82 class. “Northern Coal” is all the trains that operate to and from Port Waratah, in Newcastle. Northern Coal has the entire 90 Class fleet (35 locomotives), which were (until recently) the heaviest diesel operating in government service (while under Freightcorp operation). Northern Coal also have a large portion of the 82 Class fleet, and a number of 81 class units. Northern Coal also maintains a small fleet of 48 class, including those modified to become the PL class, for use on the South Maitland Railway (SMR). The PL class were originally used for PortLink services under Freightcorp, but Pacific National had no use for them in that capacity, so they are used to head up most SMR branch line trains (as the line is in such poor condition, only branch line units may be used on it). Northern Coal account for most of the coal trains operating in The Hunter Valley, with an increasing number of 120T gross coal hoppers, the rest (with the exception of those rakes used on the SMR which are 76T gross hoppers of the NHTF variety) being a variety of 100T gross coal hoppers.

Despite Pacific National being the largest railway operator in Australia, they are always endeavoring to cut their costs. In late 2007 they announced that they would be closing down most (if not all) of their rural Victorian operations, as well as downsizing to the bare minimum their NSW Grain haulage. Pacific National currently control all of the export grain trains in NSW, with Australian Railroad Group (ARG) and Pacific National sharing the domestic grain duties (ARG won the Manildra contract, so haul a number of Manildra trains in NSW). If history is anything to go by, Pacific National will sooner sell off their grain hoppers for scrap, or convert them into coal hoppers, before selling them to any potential competitors. With the exception of a forced sale of a selection of “starter locomotives” to SCT (which itself was a condition of the ACCC of Pacific Nationals purchase of Freight Australia), Pacific National has proved to be very unwilling to sell operational locomotives or rolling stock, sooner storing them indefinably, or scrapping them outright.

From an enthusiasts perspective, Pacific National is everywhere. If one wants to take photos of north/south intermodal traffic in NSW, they will undoubtably see a large number of NR Class. If one wants to see coal trains, either in The Hunter, or over the Blue Mountains, they will be Pacific National trains. Grain/mineral/fuel trains will similarly be Pacific National run trains. This is both a good thing, as it provides enthusiasts with a regular selection of freight trains to photograph in daylight hours with a minimum of fuss – one can take any new enthusiast out to The Short North and let them get excited over the NR Class at any time of the morning on any given day. The downside of course, is that this reliability has become boring for many of the older enthusiasts, who remember the days of random motive power on any given train. Gone are the days when 81’s would be seen hauling containers between Sydney and Melbourne, DL class on the Dunmore stone train, 44’s and 442’s on anything from grain to pickup goods trains… etc. With the future of NSW export grain trains in doubt, one of the enthusiasts favorite classes of locomotive may also be in doubt – who knows what the future holds for the 48 class, for example?

The benefits for the enthusiast is there, frequent trains during daylight hours that (most of the time) will show up when expected. Of course, the downside is that soon, perhaps we will only see containers and coal? Who knows?