Australian Rail Track Corporation briefs Albury Council on Inland Rail modifications

The rail authority briefed Albury Council this week on the modifications needed at key sites including the Murray River crossing and railway station to allow double-stacked trains to pass through the city.

Cr Henk van de Ven told the ARTC delegation he hoped it had learnt from past errors in fixing the Albury to Melbourne line which is the subject of another $235 million repair job.

“What I want to make sure is in the design profile you don’t make the same mistakes,” he said.

“Obviously that would be an absolute disaster not only for freight trains, but the current passenger line trains that run on that route.”

ARTC senior project manager Dinesh Batra assured councillors drainage would be upgraded around the Riverina Highway and Wagga Road bridges where the track has to be lowered so double-stacked trains can pass under.

The vertical clearance required is 7.1 metres and the track has to be lowered less than a metre at the Riverina Highway bridge and 1m at Wagga Road.

The area where potentially the most work will be required is the railway station footbridge which links to Kenilworth Street in East Albury.

It presently has a vertical clearance of only 4.66m and heritage aspects will need to be taken into account.

The future bridge structure also needs to be DDA compliant with the addition of ramps and stairs.

Further heritage considerations also come into play with the Murray River bridge with a vertical clearance of only 5.2m.

The bridge was built in the 1880s and the seven overhead “sway brace frames” will need to be raised 1.9m under a similar program carried out in the early 1990s to provide clearance for single-stack freight trains.

Also, the redundant broad gauge track is earmarked for removal with the standard gauge track to be slightly re-aligned to achieve the horizontal clearance requirements for the trains which will be up to 1.8km long in some instances.

Cr Darren Cameron queried how long work would take around the Riverina Highway bridge and what impact that would have on existing passenger train services.

He was told there were “shuts” on the line once a year, but some works including drainage could still take place without major interruption.

“We have to look at the constructability of being able to carry out each element of the project,” Mr Batra said.

“We’ve got a little window once a year of around 60 to 70 hours and we are testing and validating that.

“Our intention is to do some of the works outside of that.

“It is early days.”

The existing line between Albury and Illabo near Junee meets Inland Rail track standard.