THE derailment of a CBH grain train locomotive at Miling last week has reignited concerns from locals about the state of the Tier 2 railway line.
The locomotive, carrying 1400 tonnes of barley on 30 wagons, derailed close to the Miling CBH bin.
Arc Infrastructure said the locomotive was commencing its journey towards Toodyay on the Toodyay to Miling freight rail line and derailed at low speed in the Miling rail siding.
The wagons being pulled were unaffected, Arc said.
Nobody was injured in the derailment and Arc said investigations had commenced and a number of teams were working together to resume rail network operation as quickly as possible.
"As the derailment occurred in the Miling rail siding, the only customer affected by the derailment was CBH," Arc said.
"We are liaising with CBH and their above rail operator, Watco, to resume operations."
In a statement released last week CBH said a locomotive, operated by CBH's rail operator Watco WA Rail, derailed on the Miling line near Miling about 2pm on Wednesday, June 26.
"The train was carrying about 1400 tonnes of barley on 30 wagons, with its final destination Kwinana Grain Terminal," CBH said.
"There were no injuries in the incident.
"Support is being provided to the Watco team members on site at the time of the incident
"Watco and Arc Infrastructure representatives are investigating the incident and will determine the safest manner to remedy the situation, with support from CBH."
CBH has access to the Miling line under an interim access deal while moves to try and develop a long-term access deal with Arc Infrastructure are stalled in an arbitration process.
April marked the third anniversary of CBH and ARC entering an arbitration process conducted under the Arbitration Act 1996 - as the final requirement of the access regime - aimed at resolving their differences over a 10-year rail network access agreement.
Discussion between CBH and Arc is mediated by retired Federal Court judge Kevin Lindgren QC.
Under the Arbitration Act, the negotiations and even any eventual resolution is strictly secret unless all parties agree on precisely what can be made public.
Locals are concerned that there will be more grain trucks running on local roads in the area if the Miling line is not kept open or maintained.
Shire of Moora president Ken Seymour said concerns regarding the condition of the Miling line were raised back in 2014, and little had changed since then.
"We have been asking for more money to be spent on this line for a number of years now," Mr Seymour said.
"As a shire we must continually spend money on roads to maintain them and the same should apply to rail as well.
"There has been maintenance carried out from time to time but basically $40 million needs to be spent on that line.
"I am not sure how that stands with this arbitration process that is going on and we are increasingly frustrated with how long that process has been running?"
Mr Seymour said with CBH looking at its network and investing in upgrading certain sites, there was the potential for more and more grain trucks to be placed on country roads.
"This means there is more requirement for local country shires to fix up the roads," he said.
"A lot of these roads are wearing out and are going to need Federal and State funding to replace and improve them."
Mr Seymour said a planned upgrade of the Miling bin had been put on hold by CBH several years ago due to the uncertainty surrounding the Tier 2 Miling line.
"Now we have growers in the Miling district carting to Moora and having to travel to other bins to deliver certain varieties," he said.
"This is also contributing to more trucks on the road and increased wear and tear on those roads."
Mr Seymour said it was frustrating that they had been calling on some form of resolution to the rail network for over five years now.
The Nationals WA Member for Moore Shane Love said "the whole rail access agreement needed to be worked out between CBH and Arc Infrastructure to get some action happening on the lines such as Miling".
"I understand a significant amount of investment is required and until there is certainty about the future use of the line I can't see anybody wanting to make that investment," Mr Love said.
"Where the money comes from would have to be worked out between various levels of owners and users and government.
"The bins on that route, apart from Miling, are on pretty light duty roads mostly, and you have to run on local road infrastructure before you get on the highway and that puts a burden on communities as well."
Mr Love said the arbitration process had been shown to be ineffectual to this point.
"It is frustrating and I believe the government needs to do more to ensure these negotiations reach an end point so we can get on and make the type of decisions that need to be made to keep the lines open," he said.
"If it is not going to be kept open then the government needs to accept that there are costs being diverted to the road network that will need to be picked up and not thrown on the local community."
In response, Arc Infrastructure general manager commercial and development Nathan Speed said it had made substantial investment (more than $2 billion) in the network since taking over its operation in 2001.
"This has supported the freight task in more than doubling - from around 30mtpa to 64mtpa," Mr Speed said.
"Arc Infrastructure continues to support CBH in safely and efficiently moving grain on rail.
"Current projections indicate close to nine million tonnes of grain will be moved on the Arc Infrastructure rail network this harvest, the largest quantity of grain we have moved annually in more than a decade.
"As well as supporting CBH through this near-record harvest, we continue to support our other customers.
"Over the past five years, Arc Infrastructure has moved an average of 70 million tonnes of resources and containerised freight per annum on the rail network, including WA grain.
"All areas of the network have their maintenance and investment plans tailored to support these freight levels and ongoing safe operation and the network continues to operate safely and Arc is subject to a very high level of safety regulation by a national safety regulator."
In terms of the Miling to Toodyay line maintenance, Mr Speed said Arc Infrastructure completed annual and regular maintenance on the Miling to Toodyay main line appropriate for its traffic.
"This year the Miling to Toodyay line has seen a total of 36 trains," he said.
"Arc Infrastructure maintenance activities on the Miling to Toodyay line over the past five years have included - localised annual re-sleepering programs, bridge and structures maintenance, replacement and "top up" of ballast programs, repair of washaways caused by weather events, maintenance upgrades and replacement of culverts and level crossing rectification works."
