Official openings

I have just come back from attending the official opening of the "North Quay Freight Rail Terminal and Rail Loop" in Fremantle.

It's a very worthwhile project: it is a new rail line and freight terminal designed to bring freight trains from the south of Fremantle directly into the inner harbour port. It replaces an inconveniently located life-expired freight marshalling yard to the north (Leighton) which can now be redeveloped for housing. Unusually for this type of project it is dual gauge and caters for both WA local narrow (3'6") and interstate standard (4'8.5") gauge trains.

It is doubly important because it is one of the few rail projects in Australia today that I can think of that arose out of a decision not to build a road that the engineers and planners had been expecting for years. After a lot of debate, the Minister (the amazingly capable Alannah MacTiernan, MLA) said no to the Fremantle Eastern Bypass and Roe Highway Extension, saying that freight would be transferred between the freight terminals (Kewdale and Forrestfield) and the Port of Fremantle by rail instead.

I've been to a number of these launches over the years, and they are all the same. A marquee is set up somewhere (road, station, freight yard) and caterers hand round orange juice and sandwiches. A lot of blokes in suits stand around (usually in pairs, two from each company) wondering what on earth to talk about. What can you say? "The bitumen is very nice"? There is usually one group talking about football of one code or another. The CEO of the project then gets up and introduces the Minister who makes a speech and unveils a plaque. Then we all go home.

This one was slightly different in that there were two ministers (state and federal) so there were two speeches, one unveilling and one ribbon cutting in front of a freight train. I spoke briefly to a manager of the construction company, a consulting engineer, a manager of a railway company and two blokes from Consolidated Bulk Handling - until they started talking about rugby.

Oh yes, the ribbon cutting was delayed by about half an hour as the train had broken down.

Brillant.