Tuesday 31 August 2021

Bomen Intermodal Freight Hub

 Bomen Intermodal Freight and Logistics Hub

As I plan to model Bomen as it was in the 1970s, I take an interest in anything railway related to do with that location.  Previously, I have shown the 1970 vintage sidings being removed to accomodate the new roadworks supporting the Bomen Intermodal Freight hub, and earlier this year, the derailment of a freight train just north of the station building. This blog post is showing the trackwork being laid.


 

Artist overview of the site.

More information with a video, on this website

https://committee4wagga.com.au/riverina-intermodal-freight-and-logistics-hub

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Lockdown in NSW means that any unnecessary journeys cannot be made, however, car servicing is considered an essential activity, so on my way back to Junee after having my car serviced, I travelled via Bomen.  The following pictures of the site are from that trip.

New point is ready for installation

Signalling is ready - the signal post is pivotted to enable easy access to the head without a ladder. 



A short freight pulled by NR104.  This is to service the existing Bomen container traffic

Heading towards Bomen

The short freight crosses the out of use level crossing, and the Bomen Station building.  To access the Bomen Container tracks will involve the train reversing over pointwork from beyond the curve in the distance.  

Track is laid on the intermodel yard.  The foreground tracks are the long Bomen passing loop.  Note too the lack of wires on the telegraph post - something else that is disappearing with modern radio communications


With the inland rail project, facilities such as this will help keep the economy moving.  Assuming we come out of lockdown....

Stay safe.  A modelling blog post is being prepared, and will appear shortly

 


Stop press.  

After I had finished the blogpost, I was sent some Drone images of the site prior to the region entering lockdown.  It shows the graded formation for the shortly to be laid track.  My thanks to Phil and Josh, volunteers at Pete's Hobby Railway for the images.  


Looking south towards Bomen.  The large building on the right is a concrete sleeper manufacturing plant, some of their products are seen stacked like bales in the foreground.  It has its own railway siding

Looking north from the previous picture location shows the new track alignment. Byrnes road on the RHS of the mainline has been relocated to the east, and this segment is no longer in use

Looking south towards Bomen. The new underpass over Merino Road was made 3 tracks wide

looking north from the previous location. What looks like a lake in the distant RHS is a massive solar farm.

Looking north again.  The industry on the right hand side is a canola oil factory, and vegetable oil reprocessing plant.  Whilst not directly connected to rail, some output is shipped in containers, and some get loaded onto railway wagons at Bomen container railyard. Some of the oil ends up in Europe as biodiesel

4 comments:

  1. Rob,
    Seems like your car was well serviced in the end. Good idea to test it out on the way home just to be sure. Thanks for the railway update.
    regards,
    Brad

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  2. Great post. Good to see so much rail development in Australia.

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  3. These new intermodal yards with 1500 metre plus sidings are a stark comparison to the small industry served sidings of yesteryear. Visited the Fletcher's siding in Dubbo a couple of years back, and Bomen looks like it'll be the same thing, purpose built for full trains in and out. I'm just glad that there are big rail projects such as this going ahead to keep freight trains a viable option for decades to come. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Additional images added Sept 18.

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