TASRAIL has not had a derailment for the past seven months and only four in the past two years, says the state-owned company's chief executive, Damien White.
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``Derailment is a pretty good indicator of the standard of health of a rail company,'' Mr White said.
``I think people are starting to see that we can be relied on as a contractor to get their freight to market.''
It has been a tough haul for the former South Australian rail industry executive and his team since December 2009 when the Tasmanian government finally bought the business assets of Pacific National.
It had taken on responsibility for its infrastructure two years earlier.
Mr White has only this week decided that he is confident to start sharing the story of the rebuilding of a rail company.
He is preparing to sign contracts that will double TasRail's carrying capacity, is more than halfway through replacing ageing infrastructure and looking forward to the delivery of 17 new TR-class US-made locomotives worth more than $60 million.
When TasRail took over the state rail freight service, the community had become used to a derailment a month.
``Our reliability is now at a level that customers expect,'' Mr White said.
That has been established by a massive, ongoing $400 million capital works program.
TasRail still has $70 million to spend from its funding for track restructure.
About $20 million of it will go for the construction of four bridges at Blythe, Forth, Leven and the Don River Railway, on the North-West Coast.
The other $50 million will be used to insert 100,000 concrete sleepers around all the tight bends on the company's track network.
``We've never had concrete sleepers in Tasmania so this will be the start of a concrete sleeper program beyond this funding round,'' Mr White said.
The New Zealand-made concrete sleepers, weighing about 300 kilograms, each will be be laid along nearly 70 kilometres by subcontractor Downer EDI.
``In Tasmania, we have tighter curves than most other railways,'' Mr White said.
The timber sleepers become unstable on the corners in hot weather and have been one of the reasons for so many derailments in the past, he said.
TasRail has already fitted 300,000 new steel sleepers along 200 kilometres of track.
The critical work remaining is replacing ``life-expired'' rail, Mr White said.
``We have rail that was the original rail on the Nullabor - that was in 1913. It was probably brought here in the 1980s.''
Mr White is already looking ahead to reopening tracks.
``In the next 12 months we will have an assessment of the (North-East) Scottsdale line and the Wiltshire line - what the likely traffic and volumes of those are in the future,'' he said.
``If a pulp mill got up, that would be one thing that might cause those lines to be reopened.
``The other thing is the significant growth in agriculture on the far West Coast that might be another factor.''
TasRail already carries more than one million of tonnes of cement from Railton to Devonport.
It also transports mineral concentrates on the West Coast line from Rosebery to the Burnie port for export.
It carries paper for Norske Skog and coal from the Fingal Valley.
``In the past six months we've also started carrying freight out of Launceston for the first time in more than five years,'' he said.
``That's a combination of beer (from Boags).
``And the opening of Statewide's warehouse at Breadalbane has been another reason for growth in that traffic.
``We carry domestic consumables in containers.''
As well as the new contracts to be finalised with timber and mining companies, TasRail has plans to grow existing business.
``In the main, more containers - it's the traffic that is under-utilised and we are now proving that we have the capacity and reliability to provide the service,'' he said.
Mr White said that TasRail's move to the Brighton transport hub in the next 18 months would revolutionise the way rail container traffic was handled in Tasmania.
Freight customers will no longer have to bring goods by road from their site to the rail transport site.
``The customers will already be there (at the hub) so the current disadvantage of road compared to rail is removed,'' Mr White said.
TasRail facts
Total federal and state investment from start-up of TasRail from December 1, 2009 to June, 2016 is $412 million.
TasRail will replace 36 ageing locomotives with 17 US-made locomotives at a cost of $60 million. They are due to arrive this time next year.
TasRail has 632 kilometres of operational track and 211 kilometres of non-operational track being assessed.
The company carries about 2.5 million tonnes of freight a year and plans to double the business with new contracts being negotiated..
It has 210 staff.