Since January 2022, UGL Regional Linx (UGLRL) has been responsible for the Country Regional Network (CRN), ensuring it is safe, well maintained and ready for use by all passengers and rail operators.
The CRN spans Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) and incorporates large areas of the state with more than 5,000 kilometres of operational and non-operational railway lines.
The largest geographical spread throughout the CRN is between the non-operational corridors of Tocumwal in the South and Crabbes Creek in the North. In a straight line, the distance between these locations is more than 1,100 kilometres, spanning the heartland of regional and rural NSW.
The CRN is supported by eight depots and offices across the state, where our people support a wide area of rail corridors, infrastructure and land. The CRN services operators who transport coal, grain, cotton, minerals and containerised freight to domestic and export markets.
Since the start of operations on 30 January 2022 until 31 December 2022, the UGLRL team has*:
- supported 20,638 train services throughout the CRN
- closed out 27,671 work orders to ensure the safe movement of these train services. The largest proportion of these have related to our signals team, closing out 17,424 individual work orders
- used 25,131 tonnes of ballast to ensure the CRN is equipped to carry and support the weight of locomotives and services
- installed 2,433 concrete sleepers, 3501 timber sleepers and 1693 turnout bearers to further strengthen the CRN.
Regional and rural areas of NSW saw severe weather events last year resulting in major track and infrastructure damage. It was all hands-on deck to respond to flooding and washaway events throughout the network. All repair works on operational lines were completed without incident, which is a testament to UGL’s safety culture given the site conditions, complexity of damage and time pressures.
As weather conditions continue to define our focus, where increasingly elevated temperatures require our work crews to implement WOLO⁺ conditions to protect the track infrastructure and increase the monitoring of the track condition through heat patrols. A heat patrol is undertaken throughout periods of high heat and the track is assessed, often resulting in speed restrictions and other protective measure being introduced to ensure the safety integrity of the Network. These activities form part of our varied approach to the operations and maintenance throughout the CRN.
UGL Regional Linx is the proud stewards of the CRN, a key piece of rail infrastructure that connects many important regional and metropolitan locations.
*Please note, some figures above have been averaged
⁺WOLO: rules for imposing speed restrictions in the network during hot weather, read more here.