Dreaming Rail for Kuranda

20-18 Vision - Report from a Better Kuranda

Today is March 15th 2018.

The high-speed Cairns to Mareeba 'Camel' has been operating for four years.

Already, it's hard to imagine life in Kuranda without the Camel. It has revitalized the place and made it much more fun to live up here in the Kuranda area. Mareeba people report much the same thing.

Kuranda is the first stop on the tablelands and a busy little station. The Council-owned underground car-park across the road from the station is often nearly full.

The carpark wasn't built very large, but planners expect it won't need to be expanded. Increasingly, people use minibus shuttles to connect with the rail station. The first hydrogen-powered minibuses arrived from Melbourne two years ago. They are very popular: quiet and pollution-free. Kuranda artistry on the walls is a nice extra touch.

It's easy now to rely on shuttles between the major settlements, camping grounds and hotels around Kuranda, most hours of the day and night. The drivers love their work - many of them are real experts about the area's culture, history and environment. Tourists love the shuttles!

Once at Kuranda Station, passengers have a choice.

They can zip down the hill and be at Smithfield in 10 minutes, central Cairns in 20. Or they can head the other way. There are a few stops: Fairyland, Mantaka, Kurowa, Oak Forest, Koah, Bilwon and Eastern Mareeba. These stops slow down the trip to Mareeba, making it 35 minutes in total. But there are occasional express services that shave 15 minutes off the journey.

Of course, for residents of the communities along the way, the rail service is a real blessing. It connects them with the outside world, without the bother, stress and expense of using cars.

An increasing number of middle and high-income earners are giving up car ownership. Why pay the Federal greenhouse tax and rising fuel prices when comfortable, stress-free and fun transport is so accessible and cheap? For these people, cars are things they hire occasionally to visit the places not yet connected by minibus shuttles to FNQ's growing 21st century rail network.

For the poor, elderly, infirm - and for young people under the driving age - these new public transport services are a dream come true. At last, they can visit nearby communities easily, safely, fast and at low cost!

Along the corridor between Kuranda and Mareeba, rail has changed the development pattern. Village-style living is starting to blossom around the major stops. Each village has a different character and offers different attractions. Some tourists find the journey from Cairns to Mareeba takes a week!

Funnily enough, even motorists enjoy life more than they did in the old days. The roads are much less crowded. The scenic Kuranda Range Road is still used, although it now costs a small eco-fee, introduced once the rail-link was operational. Motorists moan when they pay it - but driving the range road is more of a special treat these days, rarely if ever a necessity!

Because Mareeba-Kuranda-Cairns residents can more easily share culture, events, entertainment and facilities, this part of the tablelands is flourishing. For example, workers at the Koah's expanding permaculture gardens can zip off to a reggae dance at Kurowa after work, then grab a bite to eat in Kuranda - and whether they live in Mareeba, Kuranda or Cairns, get home fast and safely afterwards. Life seems so much easier and more fun!

The train itself is a tourist attraction. Designed by a committee of locals and transport experts, it combines elements of modern rail facilities elsewhere - but it's also unique. There was a lot of skepticism that a committee could design anything that works, but skeptics seem to have been proved wrong. Even so, they got their revenge in the name competition. The full name is the 'Cairns and Mareeba Electric Line'. But everyone calls it the 'camel'.

A surprising proportion of components could be sourced within Australia. That was a key element of the joint Tablelands Regional Council/Cairns Regional Council submission to the Rudd Government. The Feds provided the funds to build the new rail link under Ministers Wong, Garrett and Albanese's Greenhouse Emergency Infrastructure Program. It was once of the first major pilot projects to get approved.

Opponents grumbled that a request to Minister Garrett to come out of musical retirement and stage an Oils revival concert at the amphitheatre on the opening day was really the clincher. The Environment Minister dismissed suggestions the invitation had influenced his decision to back the camel and made a jocular and light-hearted remark.

Back in 2008, sceptics had said that rail in FNQ was finished - and the guy who wrote the first proposal was nuts.

But a major change in awareness was underway about that time. More and more people in FNQ - and around the world - were waking up to the fact that business-as-usual car transport growth simply could not continue. The real choice was to go back to using donkeys - or to use our brains.

It only took one or two progressive Councilors on the new Tablelands Regional Council to work up an initial case. Almost immediately, public support was huge. Soon, any Councillor who didn't back the proposal risked becoming terminally unpopular in the Kuranda and Mareeba. The Cairns Regional Council got involved and a modest budget for an initial feasibility study was approved. The rest is history.

One design finally won approval and was put out to tender. Once a lead contractor was chosen, the construction phase was remarkably fast. It helped a lot that this proposal - unlike others in the past - had support from the environment movement. The Environmental Assessment Process, while thorough, was swift.

The camel looks rather like a monorail, but holds cabs or containers firmly yet with low friction between two heavy-duty parallel steel lines - one above, one below. Most of the route it's a dual line so camels can pass in opposite directions.

Every kilometer or so there's a passing place where the rail expands to three, requiring a wider easement. This is used so express camels can overtake regular services.

Most of the way, the rail-cabs zip along, amazingly silent, well off the ground so wildlife passes safely underneath. The cabs are sleek, electric and very comfortable inside. The pavement underneath is mainly used as a cycle track. It's disconcerting at first for cyclists to see a train whoosh overhead - but after a while it gets to be fun. Some folk prefer roller-blades to bikes.

A few metres above the ground, the scenery, as everyone who live around here knows, is remarkable. From Kuranda to Mareeba by camel is a chance to view the transition from rainforest to drier terrain in about half an hour. Much of the camel casing is thick, strong glass - providing spectacular panoramic views.

Locals who commute using the camel have seen the view so many times they are blasé. Some log on or tune in while they travel. Others switch off and snooze. Some passengers play games, read a book or enjoy a meal in one of the frequent privately-run camel eateries.

At peak times, within the span of an hour, you can hop on a choice of five camel eateries, which are like traveling restaurants. I always enjoy breakfast on a camel. The Indian vegetarian camel on the 5.30 from Cairns to Mareeba won the 2017 award for FNQ culinary excellence. It uses only local, organically-grown vegetables, fruit and spices and meals are always prepared with zest. Its so tasty that gourmets go all the way to Mareeba and back just for a long meal!

The electric monorail does all the sensible things one would expect from expensive transport infrastructure designed for the new century.

Potential energy loss on the way down the range is converted to electricity with high efficiency. Careful sheathing means the trains run well in very wet and windy weather. Robust steel supports above and below camels make them very safe. A state of the art, computerized triple-redundant sensor and switching system prevents collisions; the risk of a head-on crash was estimated by independent safety assessors as less than a one in a trillion years.

Small containers are also transported easily, and may be attached and de-coupled at stations along the line. The maximum container size is not as big as some commercial interests wanted, but it's a remarkably efficient way to move most goods along the corridor.

Bulk goods from Cape York heading towards Brisbane and beyond (or vice versa) now use the heavy rail line direct to the south, by-passing Cairns. It's not much of a change from Cairns' point of view. Ten years ago, they mainly used the Palmerston Highway as the main freight corridor south, also by-passing Cairns.

Specialized camels are all the rage. I already mentioned mobile restaurants. Renting commercial camel space has become popular, as local entrepreneurs and small businesses take advantage of the new opportunities. There are tourist sight-seeing camels with single-language or multilingual guides, live performance camels, ambulance camels, games camels - even supervised schoolwork camels. Private camels are free to set their own charges, as long as they contribute a minimum fee per journey. Some schools and clubs book camels specifically for student and member use.

Once the decision to build was taken in 2011, the camel only took 36 months to build. Costed at 2.5 billion dollars (Smithfield to Mareeba), initially the bill seemed unrealistic. Then an extended cost-benefit analysis was completed. It helped change minds quickly. More and more people came to believe that the region couldn't afford NOT to build new rail infrastructure - either the Camel or something very like it.

The new Kuranda to Smithfield tunnel accounted for a lot of the cost. Just over four kilometers long, the tunnel was built wide enough and high enough for two parallel monorails at ground level as well as a maintenance easement. Even so, it's a lot smaller in sectional area and cheaper to build than the 4-Lane Highway (road) tunnel evaluated in 2000 and rejected at the time as too expensive. The latest tunneling technology was used in construction, once surveys and assessments had been completed. The first time someone experiences the tunnel gradient, it's a bit of a surprise - but after a time locals barely notice. Make sure you play magnetic backgammon!

It's a shame camels don't have a spectacular view of the rainforests and coast as they cut through the range. But compared with going overland through World Heritage rainforests, the tunnel is faster, safer, more direct and has a much lower environmental impact. As one of the tunnel proponents pointed out in the debate at the time - if you want to appreciate the range views, take SkyRail!

Just before the decision to start building, in 2009, there was a fierce debate about ownership. Conservative Councillors on both the Tablelands and Cairns Regional Councils argued for private ownership, claiming governments could never run anything efficiently. Others wanted a 'public-private partnership', which had been a big fad in the 1990s.

Unexpectedly, the case for public ownership prevailed. Once enough people considered the dangers of a private monopoly of essential transport infrastructure and realized the benefits of full public control, the debate was over.

A joint TRC-CCC-Commonwealth Government-owned corporation was established. The Commonwealth underwrote all initial capital investment. In return, it sought a small levy per person per trip for the Federal coffers for 50 years. The corporation then set prices based on recuperating running and maintenance costs - plus growing a nest-egg for further expansion of the service.

Why wasn't the State Government centrally involved?

It was supportive, but lacked much of substance to contribute. For as long as anyone could remember, its transport budget had been so excessively weighted towards building Main Roads and supporting private cars and trucks that it had little to contribute by way of skills and initiatives to the development of FNQs 21st century rail network. The State retained the main roads function - but had increasingly less work to do over time.

The Commonwealth has been able to progressively reduce funding to the State of Queensland as new main roads projects have tailed off. Instead, it has accelerated investment in greenhouse-friendly regional and national transport infrastructure. Economists worked out that the figures balance over the course of a generation. What's saved on main roads building and maintenance matches expenditure and maintenance on new rail infrastructure.

The difference, in the end, was not in the transport bill.

It was in the quality of life.

MY Vote was Crucial!

Oddly enough, back in 2008, the course of history came to hang on a single vote in Division 8. My vote made all the difference!

The pro-rail candidate for Council who stood for election in Division 8 of the TRC, and then began pushing for a new rail system from within Government, only won by a single vote, after three recounts.

The vote was close partly because some of the local media parodied this bloke as a fool who lived on a hill not far from Fairyland.

It's true that at the time the idea of a new transport system based on rail seemed radical. But over time, the idea of a modern rail link was embraced, modified by expert opinion and community input and turned into what we now know as the Camel.

I must say I'm glad that I got out of bed on March 15th, waded through three creeks, paddled to the polling booth and cast my vote for Syd Walker on March 15th 2008!

Life around here became that bit more interesting from then onwards…

A. Oncebawd Vota
Kuranda/Mareeba area,
March 2018