TRANSPORT Minister Troy Buswell has indirectly pointed the finger at CBH in response to last week's horrific truck crash east of Beverley.
A driver was trapped for almost four hours when his truck rolled over near the intersection of the Quairading to York Road and Balkuling Road, parallel to the Quairading to York Tier 3 rail line at 9am on Tuesday, January 10.
The truck driver was employed by CBH contractor Cropline and was taken to Royal Perth Hospital by helicopter.
The accident prompted WAFarmers president Mike Norton and Wheatbelt Railway Retention Alliance (WRRA) president and Narembeen farmer, Bill Cowan to call for Transport Minister Troy Buswell to re-consider the case for Tier 3 lines.
Mr Buswell said until full details of the cause of the accident were established, it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the particular incident.
Shadow Transport Minister Ken Travers said the road between Quairading and York wasn't allocated money for upgrades and suggested the Barnett Government intended to close the parallel Tier line and Mr Buswell was unable to deny Mr Travers' claims.
"The York to Quairading rail line is currently open but unfortunately CBH has been unable to arrange suitable rolling stock to cart the grain," he said.
"The Government is concerned in regard to CBH's ability to deliver replacement rolling stock and the potential for this to exacerbate this situation."
When asked how many accidents it would take for the State Government to reconsider the argument for Tier 3 lines and adequately invest in Wheatbelt road and rail infrastructure, if the State Government had ultimately put a price on lives by refusing to spend sufficient funding on Wheatbelt transport footing and whether or not the Government would re-visit the Tier 3 rail issue, Mr Buswell said the State Government had invested an "unprecedented amount" of more than $350 million to provide WA farmers with an effective grain freight transport system.
"This includes $187.9m of upgrades on the most competitive grain freight lines as well as $118.3m of improvements and maintenance to Wheatbelt roads," Mr Buswell said.
"The Government is committed to retaining all the economically viable sections of the grain rail network as indicated by our significant investment in these lines.
"Any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous and quite simply untrue."
But CBH was quick to defend its transport options and said the co-operative had come up against some unique challenges this harvest in regard to rail.
While CBH couldn't comment on the cause of the truck accident which occurred at east Beverley because it was still under investigation by the Police's Major Crash investigation unit, its rail contract manager Andrew Mencshelyi said the State Government's earlier decision to keep Tier 3 lines open for another 12 months, although welcome, came late and in turn created issues for QR National which had already deployed its additional rolling stock elsewhere.
"As a result of the reduced availability of trains and subsequently experienced train drivers from QR National, this harvest CBH has had to allocate reduced rail resources where they can be used most efficiently to move grain to port," Mr Mencshelyi said.
"This is largely on standard gauge lines therefore it has not been practical to fully utilise Tier 3 lines this harvest."
Mr Mencshelyi also said the movement of grain via rail was always a preferred option regardless of the location, provided it was commercially competitive with road.
He admitted it was a safer and more efficient option with regard to fuel, wear and tear on the roads and the amount of grain that could be moved and said the use of some road transport would always be necessary, especially in a large harvest like this season.
"As harvest progressed it became apparent the 2011/12 harvest could rival the largest harvest on WA record so the use of additional road transport to complement the trains moving grain to receival points and ports became inevitable," Mr Mencshelyi said.
"But a reduction in the number of locomotives and subsequent management issues securing train drivers for use by CBH have hindered our ability to move as much grain on rail as we would have hoped."
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