Greater Hume Shire to sign off on land acquisitions for Henty railway relocation

Councillors will be asked to sign deeds of acquisition with four landowners to widen sections of the Olympic Highway and Grubben Road for the construction of the rail crossing north of the Henty township.

An electricity easement to allow power to be supplied to the new rail crossing is also needed.

The costs associated with the land acquisitions have not been made public in a report to be presented to councillors next week.

Land has had to be acquired from the Leitch, Muller and Klemke families in addition to GrainCorp.

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The $7.2 million project has attracted federal and state funding and was originally hoped to be completed before this year's harvest.

But in August it was decided to delay a start on roadworks associated with realignment of the Olympic Highway to early next year to avoid harvest inconvenience, in part, with the GrainCorp facility nearby.

Telstra, NBN and Riverina Water County Council assets were also in the construction zone and needed to be relocated before any roadworks or rail works could take place.

Additionally flood modelling was not included as part of the design work and led to additional drainage infrastructure to be installed.

Works also had to line-up with planned annual maintenance shutdown of the Sydney-Melbourne railway line owned by the Australian Rail Track Corportation.

The total budget for the project is $7.2 million including including a 25 per cent contingency of $1,44 million.

Councillors were informed in August the contingency had reduced to $591,151 due to the additional costs associated with the service relocation works, and complying with ARTC requirements.