Australian National Railways Commission - History

History

The Australian National Railways was established by the Whitlam Federal Government following a commitment made in the 1972 election to invite the states to hand over their railway systems to the federal government. In July 1975 Australian National Railways was formed taking over the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways.

The state governments of South Australia and Tasmania whose railway systems were deeply in debt, accepted. During the next two years discussions between these two states and the federal government resulted in a number of staffing and operating agreements being made that resulted in all South Australian Railways services (except the Adelaide metropolitan passenger network) and all Tasmanian Government Railways services transferring to Australian National Railway in March 1978, the latter being rebranded TasRail.

Overnight Australian National Railways went from an organisation controlling just over 2,000 km of track with a total staff of 4,000 employees to the operator of 20% of Australia's rail network. It now controlled 7,890 km of rail track being 2,395 km of broad gauge, 2,812 km of standard gauge and 2,683 km of narrow gauge track. The narrow gauge track included 851 km in Tasmania and 748 km on South Australia's isolated Eyre Peninsula system. The remainder of the narrow gauge tracks were two short lines in the Mid North of South Australia radiating from the stations at Peterborough and Gladstone and the famous Ghan line from Marree to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The total number of employees numbered just over 12,000.

Australian National Railways was a federal government owned corporation and, in 1978 the Fraser Government made it clear it was expected to achieve a financial break-even point during the next 10 years. This decision was unique in Australia's railway history because with the exception of Commonwealth Railways, all the State systems were running at a loss, being financially supported by their respective governments. The Commission appointed a professional engineer with overseas experience as General Manager in a break from the traditional railway practice of making such appointments from within the organisations.

The Commission's first Corporate Plan in 1979 set out six ways that the Commission was to pursue if it was to survive. These were:

• concentrating its marketing drive on bulk traffic, inter-capital freight and major city freight
• seeking agreement to cease services where there is little or no demand for the services
• rationalisation of services and withdrawal of services not effectively demanded
• implement technological changes in all areas of railway operation particularly track maintenance
• acquire larger and more efficient locomotives and rolling stock to operate trains at maximum capacity
• pursue a vigorous policy directed towards staff reductions and more efficient use of manpower

In 1980 a delegation of senior staff and led by the General Manager visited North America to examine current railway practices. In Canada the delegation had talks with Canadian National Railway (which like Australian National was government-owned) and Canadian Pacific Railway. In the United States contact was made with Chessie System and Southern Pacific Railroad. The areas looked at included marketing and pricing, finance and planning, engineering and staff training.

In October 1980 a new standard gauge line from Tarcoola to Alice Springs opened replacing the narrow gauge Central Australian Railway which closed in December 1980.

In December 1982 the Adelaide to Crystal Brook line was converted to standard gauge.