Australian Railroad Group

Infobox Company
company_name = Australian Railroad Group
company_
company_type = Subsidiary
foundation = 2000
location = flagicon|AUS
key_people =
area_served = Australia
industry = Rail freight
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees =
parent =
subsid =
homepage = [http://www.arg.net.au/ www.arg.net.au]
footnotes =
intl = yes

Australian Railroad Group (ARG) is one of Australia's largest private rail operators, operating across almost 10,000 kilometres of track and began operating in Western Australia on 17 December 2000 following its purchase of the Westrail freight business.

ARG is a Western Australian based wholly-owned subsidiary of QR Limited, the government-owned corporation of the Queensland Government. The main commodities hauled by ARG include grain, mineral sands, alumina, bauxite, coal, woodchips, quartz, nickel and iron ore.

History

The venture was formed in 2000 as a consortium of US based rail operator Genesee and Wyoming Inc and Australian rural services company Wesfarmers, to bid for the freight operator Westrail which was being sold by the owner, the Western Australian state government. Genessee and Wyoming had previously had an Australian presence, with their Australian Southern Railroad operations in South Australia acquired from Australian National in November 1997.cite journal | author = Peter Attenborough | year = 2005 | month = October | title = Australian Railroad Group | journal = Australian Model Railway Magazine | pages = pages 26-29 ]

Initially trains in Western Australia were operated under the Australian Western Railroad name, with AWR logs being applied to locomotives in the orange black and yellow of the parent organisation G&W. This was followed by the ARG's involvement with the Asia Pacific Transport Consortium building the Adelaide-Darwin railway, with locomotives construction the line receiving Australian Northern Railroad logos. With this expansion it was decided to rationalise the trading entities under the ARG brand and logo, which was implemented on August 1, 2002.

In February 2006 Wesfarmers announced it had reached an agreement with its joint venture partners to sell ARG for $1.3 billion. Babcock & Brown would own and run ARG's rail business in Western Australia, mainly track and infrastructure, while QR will own and run the rail haulage business and infrastructure. [cite web
url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/Business/Qld-Rail-buys-into-freight-market/2006/02/14/1139679576182.html
title=Qld Rail buys into freight market
work=The Age
publisher=www.theage.com.au
date=February 14, 2006
accessdate=2008-08-30] Queensland Rail would pay $446 million for the rolling stock, depots and customer contracts, making them move in order to become a national player in Australian rail freight. [cite web
url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/02/14/1569375.htm
title=Qld Rail 'goes national' with freight expansion
work=ABC News
date=February 14, 2006
publisher=www.abc.net.au
accessdate=2008-08-30] In March 2008 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said it would not oppose the takeover, competition would not be impacted due to existing competition between ARG and QR being limited. [cite web
url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/arg-on-board-queensland-rail/2006/03/30/1143441279693.html
title=ARG on board Queensland Rail
work=The Age
author=Philip Hopkins
date=March 31, 2006
publisher=www.theage.com.au
accessdate=2008-08-30] The takeover was completed in June 2006. [cite web
url=http://www.corporate.qr.com.au/Corporate/News_Room/Archive/Press_releases/980.asp
title=QR closes national rail freight deal
work=QR Corporate - Media Releases
publisher=www.corporate.qr.com.au
date= 2 June 2006
accessdate=2008-08-30] The SA below rail business was retained by Genesee & Wyoming as Genesee and Wyoming Australia.

Locomotive fleet

With the introduction of the ARG name and corporate colours, ARG began a gradual process of standardising the locomotive classification based on horsepower, with a progressive (and still incomplete) renumbering as follows:

Note: As of February 2006 new letter classes will be used in conjunction with the new horsepower based numbering system (The Z on the end of some class letters refers to locomotives fitted with ZTR) .

* 600 class (ex SAR 600 class)
* 700 class (ex SAR 700 class)
* 830 class (ex SAR 830 class)
* DA/900 class (ex AN DA class)
* CK/1000 class (ex AN CK class)
* A class (ex WAGR A class)
* DE/1300 class (ex BHP DE class)
* AB/1500 class (ex WAGR AB class)
* NJ/1600 class (ex CR NJ class)
* GM/1800 class (ex CR GM class)
* DA/DAZ/1900 class (ex WAGR DA class)
* DC/2200 class (ex NSWGR 422 class)
* DB/DBZ/2300 class (ex WAGR DB class)
* D/2350 class (ex WAGR D class)
* P/2500 class (ex WAGR P class)
* CL/CLZ/3000 class (ex AN CLF/CLP classes)
* L/LZ/3100 class (ex WAGR L class)
* ALF/3200 class (ex AN ALF class)
* S/3300 class (ex Westrail S class)
* Q/4000 class (ex Westrail Q class)CBH Forrestfield

West Australian facilities

* Forrestfield Yard, Forrestfield, suburban Perth
* Kwinana Yard, Kwinana
* Avon Yard, Northam
* West Merredin Yard, Merredin
* Picton Yard, Bunbury
* West Kalgoorlie Yard, Kalgoorlie
* Narngulu Yard, Narngulu, Geraldton
* Esperance Depot, Esperance
* Wagin Depot, Wagin

References

External links

* [http://www.arg.net.au/ Australian Railroad Group]