Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 42, 2014

The city of Melbourne, Australia, has an extensive network of railway lines and yards to serve freight traffic. The lines are of two gauges—5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) broad gauge and 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge—and are unelectrified. In the inner western suburbs of the city, freight trains have their own lines to operate upon, but in other areas trains are required to share the tracks with Metro Trains Melbourne and V/Line passenger services. Freight traffic in Victoria is divided into two main segments: interstate freight on standard gauge, and intrastate freight on broad gauge. All track is owned by VicTrack, but is leased to and managed by differing organisations. The broad gauge lines were leased to Freight Victoria in 1999 as part of the privatisation of the rail network. Pacific National bought Freight Australia in August 2004 and in May 2007 the lease and management of the track was sold to V/Line. The interstate standard gauge lines are leased and managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation. Freight terminals are mainly leased from VicTrack or owned outright by private operators. There are also a number of 'common user' terminals managed by VicTrack, which are open to any freight operator. On the broad gauge the main freight operator is Pacific National. On the standard gauge operations are more varied, with trains run by Pacific National, Aurizon, Qube Logistics and Specialised Container Transport.

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