Cost-cutting on the Sydney to Melbourne line

The ABC’s PM with Mark Colvin aired a report on the announcement of the inquiry into the southern rail line last Friday (Aug 26).

It featured interviews with the RTBU National Secretary Bob Nanva and a prominent railway engineering consultant, Jim Matijasevich, who confirms that he advised the ARTC in 2007 not to use the side-sleeper insertion method and that if it did, the result would be “within a short period major work will be required on the new concrete sleepers and the introduction of new ballast will be needed”.

He also alleges that the ARTC had instructed the resleepering consortium that “the object was to get the sleepers in at the cheapest price without consideration of the ramifications.”

For those of you who missed the show, you can download the transcript here: ABC Radio pdf