New sugar 2-footer in Australia

[Wayne Laepple]

Here's an article about a new sugar railway being built in 2020 in Australia.

https://www.railexpress.com.au/cane-rail-line-continues-apace/

[Bill Baskerville]

"The 39km line connects cane growing communities to the Isis Central sugar mill.  Costing $15 million..."

“A major plus is the fact that our staff have engaged in constructing these cane railways in the past and that experience is invaluable. A good crew can lay about a kilometre of line a day,”
 
Wow, 1 kilometer a day... we can't touch that, but at that $15M (Australian) price our more or less mile of track the past two years should have cost about $41K.  I think we beat that cost a by a bunch.  But I didn't do the currency conversion and I don't know how much we spent on the mountain track.

Food for thought and debate.

[John Kokas]

Bill,

Their track is easier to install than ours as many mill operations use steel or concrete ties/sleepers.  With the steel ties, they are already pre-assembled into panels with even curves calculated for the amount of rail stagger.  For you HO modelers it's like putting "snap track" together.  Very efficient and cost effective in a light rail environment.

[Graham Buxton]

Hmmmm ..... by my calculator,  $15,000,000 divided by 39 kilometers = $384,615 per kilometer. 

A kilometer is roughly 2/3 of a mile, and an Australian dollar is currently slightly more than 2/3 of a US dollar.  So by the time that all works out, those sugar mill folks have spent waaaaay more per mile (or kilometer) than the WW&F on tracklaying. 

Of course, they may not have even heard of Elmer Gantry.   Perhaps we could make a few bucks licensing out Elmer  ... 

[John Kokas]

Price is total package so you have to account for surveying, grading, any cuts and fills, culverts, bridges, grade crossings, signaling, plus any switches, sidings, and yards.  They got their 39 km quite cheap.

By contrast an existing line rehab on a US railroad is close to $1.0 Mil / mile.

[Harold Downey]

I calculate their cost is $428k per mile. 

[John Browning]

No. These lines are not assembled from pre-made sections. Only switches are pre-made and dropped into place.