Transport
During the early years most grain movement was by rail over the Western Australian Government Railways network, with sidings and branch lines specifically serving wheat growing areas. Many of the branch lines and rail facilities have not been updated or maintained, with road transport increasing in many areas.
In 2009, CBH decided to put its rail grain haulage services out to tender for the first time.[10][11] It aimed that the amount of grain transported by rail rise from 50% to 70%.[10][12] CBH settled on a business model that saw it invest in new locomotives and grain wagons, with day-to-day operations contracted out.[13][14]
In December 2010, CBH awarded Watco Australia a ten-year contract to operate services in the south of Western Australia.[15][16][17] To operate the services, CBH purchased 22 CBH class locomotives from MotivePower, Boise[18] and 574 grain wagons from Bradken, Xuzhou.[19][20]
Under the agreement, Watco was responsible for providing a comprehensive rail logistics planning service, including train planning and scheduling, tracking, maintenance, inventory control, and crew management.[21] Watco operated and maintained the rolling stock, with ownership remaining with CBH.
The services link various CBH grain collection points in the wheatbelt with CBH terminal and port facilities in Albany, Geraldton, Esperance and Kwinana.[22] CBH operate on the Arc Infrastructure managed open access network.[23]
Although the contract officially commenced on 1 May 2012, Watco operated its first service on 30 March 2012.[24][25][26] Because of a delay in the delivery of the rolling stock, QR National continued to operate some gauge services until October 2012,[27] while to operate standard gauge services, locomotives were hired from Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia and SCT Logistics.[28] A further three locomotives were delivered in 2015 as compensation for late delivery of the original order.[29]
In October 2013, CBH referred an ongoing dispute with the network owner Brookfield Rail over track access prices and the state of the network to the Economic Regulation Authority.[30][31] In December 2017 CBH Group expanded its locomotive fleet purchasing 10 DB class locomotives from Aurizon.[32][33]
When next tendered, the contract was awarded to Aurizon for six years with an option to extend to 10 years. Aurizon introduced a further three sets of wagons to the 10 owned by CBH.[34][35] Although scheduled to transition in May 2022, all parties agreed to bring the handover date forward to September 2021.[36][37]
