QR National – You can trust a Queenslander!

….But can they run a train service?

Banana Benders out of Newstan. Fassifern, Short North. April 2008, By Frederick Sawyer

Well, apparently, they can! And they are very good at it too! By the looks of things in Queensland, QR have done a great job! From what I have come across, well, a good suburban service (so much so their seats are better than on an XPT..), decent regular loco-hauled regional services and a great high speed tilt-train service (speeds pushing 200kp/h), They basically have it in the bag!

Just so much so that in 1997, they set up shop in the land of New South Welshmen (I mean wales..) and taken up some of the interesting locos of Northern Rivers of the Mullwillumbah-Casino area. At this point, they turned it into a company that is still known today as Interail.

Since then, they have invaded other if not most parts of New South Wales and spreading into Victoria. Soon enough, they have been operating intermodel services onwards to Adelaide and into Perth with there east -west diversion. They have also set up a Coal diversion with some ex-NSWGR 49, 422, 421 class locos as-well as some ex-QR 1502 class locos converted and modified to suit crews and renumbered the 423 class (along with the standard gauge bogie’s taken from the 49 Class locos to replace their narrow gauge bogie’s). And even this wasn’t enough! They then resorted in purchasing new locos from United Goninans of Newcastle called the 5000 class. A standard gauge/modified design to PacNats NR class (and heavier to revival any 90 Class) to work the Coal roads of the Hunter Valley and the Ports around Newcastle.

 

3MB7 Gallops into Sydney. Menangle, Main South. July 2008, By Frederick Sawyer

Around Mid 2005, Interail’s Intermodel and Coal services were then renamed QR National (or QRN for sort). In February of 2006, QRN acquired Australian Railroad Group and around half of Genesee & Wyoming’s(WA/VIC) fleet of locomotives of 22(ex-422), 31(ex-L), and CLP/CLF class locos. For a while, the CLF/P Bulldogs were keep on the ARG runs, but after 2007 they were put into QRN East Coast Intermodel service. QRN also purchased more second hand locos of FreightAustralia (now apart of Pacific National) building there fleet even more with GM G Classes and Hooded X Class locos. QRN have also taken over CRT Group (Container Freight company) and now use their facilities in Yennora Sydney and Altona in Melbourne.

Flour for Nowra. Heathcote, Illawarra. January 2008, By Frederick Sawyer

ARG on the other hand won the contract of Pacific National to haul Flour and Container Trip Trains for the Manildra Group from their Mills around the state, from their base in Nowra (South Coast) to Manildra (West), Narranderra (South) and Gunendah (North) all in New South Wales. ARG also haul other trains around Western Australia.

Today, QR National is expanding even more, with more trains and more motive power right across the country. QRN is a good example of a small company expanding into big territory, competing with bigger companies like Pacific National (which is basically a combination of Freight Corp (NSW), Freight Australia (Vic) and West Coast (SA)).

Triple G Class! Yanderra, Main South. July 2008, By Frederick Sawyer

The reason as why I am interested in QRN is that in the end, they are also human. Their aging fleet can have trouble and yet as interesting and colourful their lash ups can be, they do have the occasion cock-up. But in the end, QRN always redeem themselfs, even though they might be 5 hours late (or worse). Before we known it, I won’t be suprised if they even take over Cityrail!

On a day, 3 out of 8 trains I see will be QR National’s. And I’m quite impressed by that.

More photos of QRN/ARG Motive Power can be found on my Flickr!

Reference – LocoPage.