TASMANIAN freight and business heavyweights have rallied behind the safety and reliability of the state’s rail network in the wake of a derailment in the North-West.
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The Sunday night incident sent 10 wagons crashing from the tracks at Kimberley, carrying about 20 containers of general freight.
It is the second derailment in the past three months, causing the Western Line to shut down for the entire day as workers cleared and repaired about 100 metres of track.
A handful of TasRail customers were affected by the crash, who were yesterday working closely with the company to minimise service disruption.
The cost of the derailment has not yet been calculated, but TasRail chief executive Damien White described it as a regrettable but relatively minor incident.
Mr White said nobody was injured in the derailment, which occurred at low speed and appeared to be track related.
‘‘This area of the network had not yet been upgraded but was scheduled for track resleepering in coming months,’’ Mr White said.
‘‘Our track engineers will carry out further inspections once the track is cleared and we will download and review all available train data over coming days.’’
Mr White was confident that a new, multimillion-dollar train control system – the Advanced Network Control System – was operating at the time of the incident.
The Tasmanian Logistics Committee, representing the state’s mining, agricultural, manufacturing and smelting industries, said that while the derailment was unfortunate, the state’s rail network was vital.
Committee chairman Steve Henty said that ‘‘if something like this had have involved a truck on a long weekend there’s a good chance a car or motorbike would’ve been caught under it’’.
‘‘Although it’s really unfortunate this has happened, it proves why balancing road and rail freight transport is so important from a safety aspect.’’
Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Michael Bailey said TasRail had spent tens of millions of dollars in recent years to rejuvenate vast stretches of tracks.
‘‘Exporters understand derailments, they get on with it, they cut TasRail a bit of slack and they recognise the company’s efforts to investigate the cause of the incident to learn from it and improve their services,’’ Mr Bailey said.
The incident comes just days after the release of an interim report into a Colebrook train derailment in November last year.
It found the train involved in last year’s crash had been travelling twice as fast as the recommended speed, with the incident causing $4 million damage.
