The Victorian Government encouraged the development of the plant with the passing of the Western Port (Steel Works) Act 1970 – specific provisions relating to rail were:
The Premier on behalf of the State covenants that the State will ensure that there shall be provided –
to the boundary of the Plant Site a suitable rail link by which rail facilities constructed by the Company at its cost within its boundaries may be connected to the Victorian Railways network;
adequate rail motive power and rolling stock and suitable rail services to ensure the satisfactory movement of materials products and equipment to and from the Plant;
rail transportation services for the conveyance of employees of the Company or its site contractors to and from the Plant
under such conditions as are agreed between the Victorian Railways Commissioners and the Company.
The 6.2 km long branch line from the Stony Point line opened in 1969, with 87,730 tons of traffic being moved over the new connection in 1972/1973. The efficiency of these trains was improved following the introduction of dedicated block trains, with 50,000 tonnes of coiled steel transported from Hastings during 1981/82.
Steel slab is brought in by rail and ship, primarily from Port Kembla, for processing into a range of finished-steel products for the local, national and international markets. Products are sent by truck to the local market, by rail to interstate markets in South Australia and Western Australia, and by ship to international markets. Presently BHP sends 300 000 tonnes of steel a year by rail from Whyalla and Port Kembla to Westernport, but has an agreement which would permit this tonnage to be increased to 800,000 tonnes.
BHP is constantly reviewing and upgrading its operations to increase efficiency and become more export-orientated. A new cold-strip galvanised steel production line has recently been commissioned at a cost of some $138 million. Presently BHP steelworks employs 1500 persons and produces approximately 1.2 million tonnes of steel a year from a plant that has a capacity to produce 2.6 million tonnes. The new galvanised steel line increased production capacity by some 800 000 tonnes without requiring any large increase in staff numbers.
Today the steel trains are operated by Pacific National following the sale of the National Rail Corporation in 2002, and form the sole freight link to the mill following the 2012 retirement of the ‘Iron Monarch’ that moved slab steel by sea between Port Kembla and Hastings.
Australia’s rail gauge muddle has complicated the operation of trains to Hastings – steel loaded on broad gauge trains from Hastings needs to be transferred onto standard gauge trains to head interstate.
Initially this occurred at Albury and Adelaide, until the gauge conversion of the Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor by the National Rail Corporation in 1995. This saw the opening of the Melbourne Steel Terminal in West Melbourne, where the steel would be transhipped between local broad gauge trains and interstate standard gauge trains.
This terminal closed in 2015 to make room for the ‘E’ Gate development, with transhipping of steel now occurring at the nearby Melbourne Freight Terminal.
The provision of standard gauge access to Hastings has been examinedmultipletimes, via the Frankston or Cranbourne lines, but no progress has been made towards such a connection.
1.38 Million is Port Kembla and Westernport outbound
0.96 Million is transported on behalf of Onesteel
The reason for these massive numbers – each piece of steels moves an average of 3.2 times through manufacturing plants, rail terminals, distribution centres and customer sites.
To cater for this traffic, a specialised fleet of wagons is used:
Welcome to another instalment in my series on rail freight across Victoria – this time we’re looking at the Australian Paper mill at Maryvale, outside Morwell in Gippsland.
Headed down the line
Six days a week, a train leaves the paper mill at Maryvale.
It heads along a single track siding to the mainline.
Where it meets the main Gippsland railway.
Having to share the track with V/Line services.
It then heads for Melbourne, passing under some former level crossings.
And over others.
It heads through Flinders Street Station.
Following the banks of the Yarra River.
Until it reaches the Qube Logistics terminal at the Port of Melbourne.
The containers are stripped from the wagons, and another batch loaded.
Then the train heads back east, ready to do the same thing again tomorrow.
Some history
The Maryvale paper mill was established by Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM) in 1937, following a government agreement that gave the company favourable access to forests, exploiting lower-quality timber left after sawlogs had been felled.
The site was chosen due to easy access to water from the Latrobe River and electricity from the Yallourn power station, with full production commencing in 1940.
The railway siding to the paper mill opened in 1937, but the operation was antiquated – APM used their own shunting tractor to deliver wagons in small groups to an exchange siding at Morwell, where it would be picked up by mainline freight trains for the journey to Melbourne.
All of this changed in 1996, when through trains between Melbourne and the paper mill commenced. Brian Carroll explains, in Toll: an illustrated history.
For some time before Toll acquired specialist paper transport company Sibcot, Mery Hunter had been talking to Australian Paper about the benefits of moving paper by train from its Maryvale Mill, in eastern Victoria, to Melbourne and beyond. Work on the idea continued and, on 12 March 1996, a complete train load of paper rolled away from Maryvale, bound for Australian and export markets. From then on, the dedicated seventeen-wagon train was scheduled to run from Maryvale to Melbourne and back on more than 300 days of the year under Toll Metro management.
For the previous fifty years, the company had used a mixture of rolling stock: prairie wagons, box cars, and open wagons. Road transport supplemented rail when required. In Melbourne, the wagons were either unloaded for local distribution, or sent on to interstate destinations. For most of them, that meant a stopover at the bogie exchange for conversion to standard gauge. The system was labour intensive and expensive.
When the Federal Government announced its rail standardisation program, there seemed to be possibilities to improve the system. Now, with a Melbourne—Adelaide standard gauge connection, wagons could go by standard gauge over the shortest practicable route from Melbourne to all mainland state capitals. The problem was that Maryvale was still on the Victorian broad gauge system.
Toll Metro worked out a system to minimise the handling of paper on its way to market. This would reduce costs and reduce transit damage. At Maryvale, this involved building a rail container loading pad near one of the existing spur lines. This enabled a 40-tonne top loading forklift to load and unload rail containers under cover from rain. The technology for the efficient movement of paper reels up to 2.5 metres high centred on sixty 12.2 metre road/rail containers. For these, Toll Metro chose curtain-sided Tautliners. Support equipment included prime movers with minimum height turntables coupled with low profile skeletal trailers.
With all that set out in a fully-developed plan, Australian Paper and Toll Metro convinced V/Line of the merits of providing a dedicated circuit train between Maryvale and Melbourne. This was readily agreed. The train comprised 24.4-metre VQDW wagons. In time, it grew to 19 wagons carrying over 800 tonnes of paper in 38 containers. Wagons headed interstate went to Dynon Road. Those for local delivery or export first went to Flinders Street Extension and later to North Dynon, where a 40-tonne forklift and ancillary equipment were installed to handle the containers. The improved rail arrangements reduced traffic on the highway between Maryvale and Melbourne. One locomotive on one train could move as much paper as fifty trucks.
The 2.5-metre-high reels of paper meant that the containers needed an external height of 3 metres. When placed on a skeletal trailer, this gave an overall height just over the 4.3-metre legal height. Toll Metro negotiated over-height permits on designated delivery routes within the Melbourne metropolitan area.
Volumes handled by the train grew steadily as Maryvale began to cater for Australian Paper’s New South Wales and New Zealand markets. Toll Metro began to send consignment documentation electronically, direct to the Dynon Rail terminal’s system.
Since then the rail service has gone from strength to strength, containerised paper products being transport both for export, and onward transit by rail to Brisbane and Perth.
Qube Logistics took over the contract from incumbent Victoria broad gauge freight operator Pacific National in June 2013, and today third party containers of sawn timber from a Latrobe Valley sawmill are also loaded at Maryvale, although this is small in volume.
Facts and figures
The Maryvale train usually runs with two 3300 HP diesel locomotives hauling 29 wagons, each loaded with two 40 foot ISO containers. This results in a train around 792 metres long, with an empty weight of 800-900 tonnes, and 2100-2300 tonnes fully loaded. Around 30,000 containers per year are transported by the train, with 20,000 to the Port for export and 10,000 for domestic consumption.
The rail service to Australian Paper is now a key part of their operation, which presents difficulties whenever it is severed – such as in 2012, and again in October 2014 – forty trucks needed to replace a single train.
The Maryvale pulp mills currently consume over 500 000 cubic metres of logs per year from state forests, which is secured under the legislated agreement and a timber sales agreement. They also consume about 130 000 cubic metres per year of offcuts from timber mills that use native forest sawlogs
Not to mention the energy used to produce it – baseload renewable energy sounds good – until you get into the detail.
Mr WELLER — What do you use for the renewable energy?
Mr McLEAN — It is a by-product of the trees primarily.
Mr WELLER — The bark?
Mr McLEAN — The liquor, as we call it, or the sap from the tree, becomes a fuel. That fuels the boilers, and the boilers generate steam to drive the paper machines. They also drive turbines for power, so we generate a lot of our own steam on-site and generate enough power for approximately 50 per cent of our requirements.
Mr KATOS — Otherwise that would have gone to landfill.
Mr McLEAN — Absolutely; that is right.
To help manage our energy costs, Australian Paper is proposing to construct a thermal Energy from Waste (EfW) plant adjacent to our Maryvale Paper Mill site in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria.
This technology creates energy from the controlled combustion of non-hazardous waste materials that would otherwise go to landfill.
The proposed $600 million EfW plant would process up to 650,000 tonnes of residual Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as well as Commercial and Industrial (C&I) waste.
It would allow Australian Paper to attain a sustainable, long-term and stable alternative baseload energy source to produce steam and electricity for the Maryvale Mill.
The logistics network includes three components, including: utilising the “Paper train” from Melbourne, line haul trucks from SE Melbourne transporting waste to the facility and ash to the landfills, and local Refuse Collection Vehicles collecting kerbside waste across Gippsland and transporting to the proposed EfW Facility.
But isn’t a given.
Currently there is no rail siding in SE Melbourne that could house a waste transfer station to compact waste into containers and then load onto the rail network. The existing ‘Paper train” is viewed by AP as a reliable and cost effective solution for transport to and from the Port of Melbourne. Leveraging rail is a natural opportunity for the proposed EfW facility and something Australian Paper is working towards
Australian Paper is now owned by Nippon Paper, one of the Japanese paper manufacturers, a global leader in recycled papers. It is the world’s sixth largest paper manufacturing business and aims to be in the top five in the next few years.
You might be familiar with Reflex, the office paper. It is probably the most commonly known product; certainly it is a flagship product. Australian Paper also manufactures substantial quantities of packaging papers — the types of paper that would go into cardboard boxes — both recycled-based cardboard boxes and virgin fibre, which has a high humidity resistance for use in things like meat markets, removalists boxes et cetera.
We have invested in the last decade or so in a new paper machine, the M5 paper machine, which makes the Reflex paper. We upgraded our pulp mill in 2007–2008, and we currently have under construction a $90 million recycling plant for office papers. You can see there is a fairly massive capital investment required to develop the business. This enables the employment in the region of about 6000 people directly and indirectly.
We are currently recycling around about 45 000 tonnes of brown waste recycling for packaging papers. The white paper offset recycling facility will produce around 80 000 tonnes of recycled paper.
[Our products include] kraft liner board, which is the paper that goes into the cardboard boxes. Copy paper I think everyone understands. Sack and bag papers are papers that are used for sacks, like a mineral sack or a cement sack, and also could be used for foods — dog food, those sorts of things, and milk powder. The UCWF is uncoated wood-free, which is typically printing paper, the non-coated, non-glossy paper.
And their transport needs:
For our exports in particular the challenge for us is to get around 300 000 tonnes of paper from that red dot to the port. The export markets in particular are worldwide. The volume on-site is essentially 56 per cent Australian and New Zealand volumes with about 44 per cent export. A fairly substantial part of our business is export.
Our store is at the end of the rail line in Melbourne. Because we have the rail spur on site at the Maryvale Mill we do not have to go on the public roads, which means our payloads can be maximised just for the rail, which means we maximise our container payloads to the Melbourne store, and then we can get fast access to the shipping line containers in Melbourne and we can optimise the payloads of the container to get our low-freight rates to the export market.
And the challenges of exports.
From Australian Paper’s perspective exporting is something we have to do rather than something we actually desire to do. The majority of our focus is on supplying the Australian market where the revenues and profitability are obviously better, but there is a limit to that given the capacity we have at the plant.
The export challenge is that there are 37 shipping lines, 125 ports, 68 countries and over 12 000 forty-foot containers annually. We are a reasonable component of the port of Melbourne volume. The export destinations: North America, predominantly, is where the copy paper is sent, and Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America et cetera.
The challenge for us with export markets is largely one of cost. Paper is essentially a commodity product in most of these markets. You can see there, to get a feel for the economics, that the cost to take a tonne of paper from Maryvale to the wharf is around $35 a tonne, if we can pack the paper directly into the container. So if we can obtain the container from the shipping yard, bring it down on the train, pack it directly and take it straight back without having to take the paper out of the container, then it is around $35 a tonne. If we have to double handle the paper via a store, for whatever reason, it instantly goes to $52 a tonne.
Their competitive advantage.
In terms of regional Victoria’s competitive advantages, the reason why Maryvale Mill is where it is and the reason why it was built there in the first place was for trees, water and power, and the output is relatively close to the consumption base. At the time when it was built it was reasonably close to Melbourne and not far from Sydney.
For a paper mill surviving generally on forested timber, as in logged fibre, there are about four trucks going in to one truck going out, so the tree has about 25 per cent fibre in it. That is a rule of thumb you can keep in mind. It is better to be close to the fibre than it is to be close to your market, so that is why it is located where it is.
And possible growth in other freight moved by rail from Gippsland.
But the volume on rail now through Australian Paper is giving our service provider baseload, and it will now try to leverage that to try to get other customers onto the rail network. If that is successful, then that rail service provision back to us will be sustainable.
So if Qube can turn it into a sustainable business for itself and attract other customers it will not be under as much pressure to increase its costs to us. We are doing everything we can to get our business set up and operate day-to-day, month-to-month, but we are trying to help Qube leverage that infrastructure so it can actually develop the business, and in turn it will help us at the next contract review.
Footnote: high cube containers
Turns out double deck trains aren’t the only rail vehicles to have trouble with low bridges in Melbourne.
9ft 10in (3 metre) high containers are banned on the Metro Trains Melbourne Network with the exception of the Maryvale Paper Train which may operate between Melbourne Yard and Pakenham only under the following conditions:
The hours of operation are restricted between the following times:
– Sunday 19:00 and Monday 05:00.
– Monday to Thursday 21:00 and 05:00 next day.
– Friday 21:00 and 07:00 Saturday.
– Saturday 19:00 and Sunday 07:00.
The vehicles are restricted to a maximum speed of 40 km/h when operating between Caulfield and South Yarra in both directions.
The maximum height of any vehicle/container combination must not exceed 4192 mm. GPS transceivers are placed in the locomotive cabs for the purpose of speed monitoring
The 10ft 6in (3200mm) high containers are only permitted on the following tracks at Flinders Street:
Up and Down Sandringham lines
Via Platforms 8 & 9 and the Up and Down Special lines
Via Platforms 3 & 4 and the Up and Down Burnley Local lines
Is the ability to pass through platforms 3 & 4 linked to it being the former stomping ground of the double deck 4D suburban train?
In the 1880s several new mills were built on the trunk railways including James Gillespie’s Kensington Roller Flour Mill of 1886-7, Kimpton’s Eclipse Hungarian Roller Flour mills of 1887, and Thomas Brunton’s Australian Flour Mills in 1893-4. Brokhoff biscuits located further south, was also built around 1890 with the intervening space filled with various stores and warehouses serving to milling and baking trade. James Minifie & Co (former head miller at Dight’s Falls Mill and Kempton’s) built his own Victoria Roller Flour Mill in 1906-7 in South Kensington.
Developing into the flour mill operated by Allied Pinnacle today.
Kimpton’s original mill was burnt out and rebuilt in 1904 and became known as the Kimpton No. 1 Mill, until closed in 1971. The Gillespie mill was bought by Kimpton in 1904 following the liquidation of Gillespie’s Victorian interests, becoming Kimpton No. 2 Mill. It was refitted in 1913, closed in 1976 and demolished in 1982.
The Kimpton No. 3 mill was built in 1927 on the corner of Elizabeth and Arden Street. A merger of three prominent milling firms created Kimpton Minifie McLennan Pty Ltd in the 1960s, which was bought out by Allied Mills in 1981, then Goodman Fielder. As a result, a new mill was erected north of the silos in the 1990s.
Moving grain by train
Grain is grown across Western Victoria.
Being moved by truck from farm to silo.
Then loaded into trains.
Then off to the city.
Headed through the countryside.
Until the train enters Melbourne.
Grain trains take the freight tracks past South Kensington station.
With that done, it’s just a short trip over to Kensington station.
The train stops in the platform.
And is then pushed back into the flour mill siding.
The wagons are then pushed through the unloading shed.
Two wagons at a time.
With the grain being unloaded between the tracks via bottom discharge doors.
Until the entire train is done.
Once the train is empty, it’s time to change the points.
Then push the train back out onto the main line.
Then change ends, back to North Melbourne, change ends a second time, and finally back to the country for another load.
And all this while sharing the tracks with suburban trains on the Craigieburn line.
What is the grain turned into?
In 2011 Allied Mills described their operations at Kensington in a submission to the City of Melbourne for the Arden-Macaulay Structure Plan.
The Allied Mills Site has been an operational flour mill since 1887. Allied Mills manufactures and distributes milling based products including but not limited to:
a) flours for bread, cake, pastry, biscuits, noodle and culinary applications;
b) premixes for bread, cake, donut and culinary applications; and
c) specialty meals, semolinas and brans.
The composition of the flour milling industry has changed drastically over the last century. In the 1870s there were 160 flour mills in Victoria which has now been reduced to three. Allied Mills owns and operates eight flour mills nationally, located in each Australian state. In Victoria, the sites are based in Kensington and Ballarat, with Kensington being one of the largest Australian sites and representing approximately one fifth of its total operations. It is therefore strategically essential to Allied Mills’ operations.
Allied Mills is an integral component of the Australian flour milling industry. Approximately 90% of the Australian flour milling industry is comprised of three major companies of broadly equal market share. These are Allied Mills, George Weston Foods and Manildra. Allied Mills presently services the vast majority of all multinational food manufacturer flour requirements in Australia, most of whom are common Australian household names. Further, Allied Mills holds a majority portion of the bulk flour market and significant portions of both the bagged flour market and bakery mix market.
By 2017 Allied Mills was processing 800,000 tonnes of wheat and speciality grains a year into flour and other products across their operations.
And how many trains?
Back in 2017 grain trains were visiting Kensington three times a week, each train made up of 20 wagons, each loaded with 55 tonnes of grain – or 3300 tonnes of grain a week.
Compare this how much grain a truck can move – between 16 and 65.6 tonnes – or the equivalent of 50+ trucks driving through suburban Kensington.
What about the future
With the warehouses around Kensington subject to the Arden-Macaulay Structure Plan, how long will a flour mill survive in the middle of a forest of apartments?
Exacerbating this issue is the change of rail gauge in western Victoria from broad gauge to standard gauge. As the rail line and siding at Kensington is broad gauge, the site can no longer accept grain delivery by train from western Victorian growers. This has the impact of reducing grain supply via rail and increasing grain delivery by truck increasing the truck movements at the site.
We start down in the Geelong suburb of Waurn Ponds.
Which a decade ago was the southern terminus of the Geelong Ring Road.
But work was underway to extend the freeway over the Waurn Ponds Creek valley.
And up the hill via Anglesea Road.
The nearby streets had bus stops to nowhere.
With new houses stretching as far as the railway line.
Back then only thrice-daily trains to Warrnambool used this line.
But a decade later it is now the site of Waurn Ponds station, terminus of the majority of V/Line services from Melbourne.
The Geelong Football Club made it into the 2009 AFL Grand Final, so V/Line ran special trains from Geelong to the MCG to carry the thousands of fans.
With a special ‘Geelong Cats’ headboard decorating the front of one train.
More construction
The new concourse at North Melbourne station opened in September 2009.
With Connex staff outnumbering the passengers on the first day of operations.
But for the first few weeks passengers still used the old northern entrance, as work on the new station building was still underway.
At Laverton station, the third platform was now starting to look real.
And the lift shafts for the new footbridge towering above the existing footbridge.
The new footbridge at Footscray was also rising at a rapid pace.
Multiple sections of bridge were ready to be lifted into place.
With others awaiting ramps and stairs to be added.
After the turning of the first sod for the Regional Rail Link project in August 2009, work at Southern Cross Station ramped up. The pile driver continued work on the future platform 15 and 16.
And the trackbed north of Latrobe Street was cleared to make room for the new Regional Rail Link tracks.
On the evening of Saturday 12 September 2009 the train collided with trees lying across the track, felled by strong winds.
Which resulted in the derailment of the locomotives and four of the five passenger cars.
But the presence of a second locomotive on the train may have reduced the impact of the crash – there were only minor injuries to both locomotive drivers and one passenger.
As a result of the crash V/Line has taken a much more aggressive attitude to trees near railway lines.
Back in April 2019 Daniel Andrews and the Minister for Public Transport were shouting ‘Melbourne first hybrid buses’ from the rooftops. But the reality is different – they’re not Melbourne’s first hybrid buses, we’re still buying hundreds of conventional diesel buses, and technology has already overtaken us.
The first of 50 new Hybrid technology buses for Melbourne’s bus network will take its first passengers next week, thanks to the Andrews Labor Government.
The new Victorian-built buses will be progressively rolled out across the next three years and will operate across bus routes in Wyndham, Oakleigh and Sunshine.
The buses will reduce fuel consumption and the impact on the environment, while improving passenger experience by delivering a quieter and smoother ride.
The Labor Government’s order for 50 new Hybrid buses into the CDC Victoria bus fleet is the single biggest order of hybrid buses in Australia.
The body construction and fit out for the new buses is being carried out in Dandenong by Volgren, supporting Victorian jobs and backing the local automotive industry to develop new capability and innovation.
All 50 buses will feature low floor layouts and are Euro 6 emission standard, the highest and cleanest level for commercial vehicles worldwide.
Hybrid technology uses the electric battery when idling and travelling under 20 km/h. The bus noise is significantly reduced when idling at stops and departing from stops, while trials in Victoria found Hybrid buses used 30 per cent less fuel.
30 Hybrid buses will be phased in over the next 12 months, with all 50 buses to be in service on CDC routes in Wyndham, Oakleigh and Sunshine by 2022.
With the hybrid buses now appearing across CDC Melbourne routes.
Melbourne to host Australia’s first hybrid bus trial
June 28, 2009
Hybrid buses are set to hit Melbourne’s roads in an Australia-first trial aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth compared with conventional buses.
Two hybrid-electric buses will go into service on two suburban routes in the $500,000 joint Victorian and federal government trial.
The trial will assess the viability of hybrid buses in reducing the carbon emissions of public transport.
If successful, the cleaner buses could be rolled out across the network.
“We believe the hybrid-electric bus trial will show how improvements in transport technology can deliver air quality improvements and reduce our carbon emissions,” Victorian Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings said.
“It is estimated this hybrid-electric technology will provide a saving of around 20 per cent on fuel and greenhouse gas emissions compared to a conventional diesel bus.”
Grenda Corporation will trial a hybrid bus on its 900 route from Stud Park to Caulfield, in Melbourne’s southeast.
A second bus will be put in service on Ventura Buses’ 250 route from bayside Garden City to La Trobe University in the northern suburbs.
Volgren, Volvo and Latrobe Valley Bus Lines unite in hybrid low-floor Aussie first
16 August 2018
The first of eight new Volgren-bodied Volvo hybrid chassis buses for Latrobe Valley Bus Lines (LVBL) – and the first full service hybrid in Australia – is being launched in Moe, Victoria, offering “up to a 40 per cent fuel saving” and cleaner Euro 6 emissions standards.
Dandenong-based bus body-building company Volgren is building the new Volvo Euro 6 buses on a hybrid chassis imported from Volvo in Sweden.
Volgren – now the first Australian manufacturer in the country to successfully deliver a bus body on the new Euro 6 Volvo B5LH hybrid – says it worked closely with the Volvo development team in Sweden, sharing concepts and refining the design of both the body and chassis, ensuring each stage was validated and complied with Australian Design Rules.
The completed prototype breaks new ground in bus body design and manufacturing assembly processes, says Michael Kearney, Volgren’s Product Engineering manager.
“The design and construction of the Euro 6 hybrid bus is quite different [to a traditional bus], with high voltage battery packs, radiator, air compressor and associated equipment all mounted in the roof,” Kearney explained.
With the majority of this hybrid’s components in the roof, those responsible for engineering, manufacturing and production had to rethink the assembly line. In fact, Kearney says, innovative changes were developed to accommodate the new build process to enable the Euro 6 hybrid to fit within the factory processes normally dedicated to the assembly of diesel buses.
So beaten to the punch there.
More diesel buses
At the same time as the State Government was boasting of 50 new hybrid buses, they announced an order of 100 brand new exhaust belching diesel buses!
The Andrews Labor Government will buy 100 new buses to support Melbourne’s public transport network, giving passengers across the city better buses to get wherever they need to go.
Minister for Public Transport Melissa Horne today announced the Labor Government will invest $16 million over the next two years to replace and modernise the ageing state-owned bus fleet used on routes operated by Transdev Melbourne.
The new bus order will improve reliability and comfort for passengers, with Transdev exploring passenger-focused improvements including onboard Wi-Fi, mobile phone charging and improved passenger displays.
Many of the buses operated by Transdev are older than the industry average and are susceptible to reliability issues, particularly during hot weather.
The new buses will be built in line with the Government’s Local Jobs First policy, meaning they will be made with 60 per cent local content and create more than 20 new jobs for locals in Dandenong, Truganina and other potential locations.
Due to the size of the order, it was split between two bus builders.
Ballarat automotive manufacturer OzPress Industries has partnered with South East Asia’s largest bus body builder Gemilang, to deliver 50 new buses for Victorian passengers.
The remaining 50 buses are being built at Volgren’s Dandenong factory, providing further Victorian employment opportunities connected to the upgrade of Melbourne’s bus fleet.
So why are the new buses for Transdev not hybrids? Apparently cost is the reason – the government is desperate for new buses, and isn’t willing to prise open their chequebook to help the environment.
And behind the times in technology
Electric buses are now the future of public transport, with the Chinese city of Shenzhen hitting the worldwide news in 2018 when they moved to a 100% electric bus fleet.
Shenzhen’s silent revolution: world’s first fully electric bus fleet quietens Chinese megacity
12 December 2018
Shenzhen now has 16,000 electric buses in total and is noticeably quieter for it.
The benefits from the switch from diesel buses to electric are not confined to less noise pollution: this fast-growing megacity of 12 million is also expected to achieve an estimated reduction in CO2 emissions of 48% and cuts in pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, non-methane hydrocarbons and particulate matter. Shenzhen Bus Group estimates it has been able to conserve 160,000 tonnes of coal per year and reduce annual CO2 emissions by 440,000 tonnes. Its fuel bill has halved.
The main roadblock – cost:
China’s drive to reduce the choking smog that envelops many of its major cities has propelled a huge investment in electric transport. Although it remains expensive for cities to introduce electric buses – one bus costs around 1.8 million yuan (£208,000) – Shenzhen was able to go all-electric thanks to generous subsidies from both central and local government.
Availability of changing stations:
To keep Shenzhen’s electric vehicle fleet running, the city has built around 40,000 charging piles. Shenzhen Bus Company has 180 depots with their own charging facilities installed. One of its major depots in Futian can accommodate around 20 buses at the same time. “Most of the buses we charge overnight for two hours and then they can run their entire service, as the range of the bus is 200km per charge,” says Ma.
And geography.
Shenzhen is fairly flat, but the hills of nearby Hong Kong have proven too much in trials of electric buses. Other cities in northern China have struggled with battery power in the extreme cold of winter.
Once an operator buys a new bus, they’ve committed to using it around Melbourne for the next 20+ years.
Back in the late-1990s some bus operators delayed the introduction of ‘new fangled’ low floor buses to their fleets. Twenty years on, we’re still feeling the impact of this decision, as passengers in wheelchairs get left behind whenever an inaccessible high floor bus shows up.
Our tardiness introducing clean buses will have the same impact on Melbourne of the 2040s – today’s ‘new’ diesel buses will be even more polluting as they age.
Footnote
Australian bus body manufacturer Volgren has their fingers in many pies – they’re building the 50 hybrid buses for CDC Melbourne, 50 diesel buses for Transdev, and now their first electric bus.
Australian bus builder Volgren to produce its first all-electric vehicle
May 14, 2019
Australian bus body manufacturer Volgren has commenced production of its first ever electric bus, as part of what the company hopes is a larger transition to zero-emissions transport.
The milestone is the culmination of a five-year development period for Volgren, which has sought to be pro-active in shifting to all electric buses, while wanting to ensure passengers enjoy a reliable service.
Volgren says it is Australia’s largest producer of bus bodies and has previously partnered with major chassis manufacturers including MAN, Volvo and Scania.
“We’ve known for some time that the bus industry was about to go through its biggest transformation in three or four decades. And we wanted to approach this shift with the best information at our disposal.” Volgren business development manager Jon Tozer said in a statement.
“We wanted to understand the products, the technologies and the solutions available in the market before beginning our work in earnest,”
Volgren will complete its first prototype electric bus in June, with an operating range of 250km. The prototype will be produced at Volgren’s Australian headquarters in Dandenong in Victoria.
The bus will be equipped with 324kWh of battery storage, that can be charged in four to five hours between routes upon returning to its depot.
Due to the falling cost of battery technologies, Volgren believes the bus market is on the cusp of being cost competitive with existing diesel fuelled options.
While all electric buses still have higher up-front purchase costs, significantly lower operating costs, including reduced fuel costs, mean that electric buses will soon be cheaper over the full life of the vehicle, if not already.
“When you take into account the significant operation saving in maintenance and energy costs per kilometre, as well as the significant fall in the cost and increase in energy density of batteries over the last few years, we’re nearing the point where total cost of ownership will soon be the same as it is for a diesel, if it isn’t already.” Tozer said.
I wonder who will be the first Victorian bus operator to take up the opportunity?
