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$7m in ballast contracts awarded

John Holland has acquired RCR Tomlinson Group’s rail business in late December 2018, after the engineering firm was placed into voluntary administration.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation has awarded a pair of new contracts for the supply of ballast and capping for the first section of Inland Rail, between Parkes and Narromine.

Parkes-based company Calvani Crushing has won a $4.8 million deal to supply more than 150,000 of ballast and 75,000 tonnes of capping for the project, while Ausrock Quarries has been awarded a $2.1 million contract for over 45,000 tonnes of ballast and 45,000 tonnes of capping.

Deliveries under the contracts will take place over the next 12-18 months, allowing for the first new Inland Rail track to be laid later this year on the Parkes-Narromine section, Inland Rail boss Richard Wankmuller said.

“Inland Rail is securing jobs in regional Australia and our cities,” Wankmuller said. “We now have ballast and capping supplied from Parkes, concrete sleepers from Mittagong, steel track from Whyalla; and there are many other significant contracts to be awarded.”

Inland Rail is expected to deliver 16,000 new jobs at peak construction, and an average of 700 additional jobs a year over the entire program.

Calvani Crushing managing director John Calvani praised the Inland Rail team for maintaining a strong focus on local industry participation.

“The Inland Rail contract is the biggest we’ve been awarded and it’s an advantage for everyone to source these products locally. It’s allowed us to create new jobs and it provides a good income for these people,” Calvani said.

“It’s also a saving for Inland Rail as it doesn’t have transport product over long distances.”

Ausrock Quarries director Simon Shannon agreed, saying Inland Rail was generating a lot of optimism locally.

“We’ve been an ARTC supplier for five years, but this large Inland Rail contract means that we have been able to employ an extra eight people, which delivers many local flow-on effects,” Shannon said.

Ballast is the small rocks that sits beneath, between and around railway sleepers, while capping is the smaller crushed rock that sits beneath the ballast to help form the track foundation, which keeps the track in position, allows for drainage, and reduces vegetation growth.

Overall, the 1,700-kilometre Inland Rail project is expected to need around 3.6 million tonnes of ballast, and 3.4 million tonnes of capping.

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