Huge Investment Means More Jobs, More Freight On Rail

The Albanese and Andrews Labor governments have welcomed significant private sector investment to build and operate a $400 million intermodal freight terminal in Melbourne’s north.

Intermodal Terminal Company (ITC) announced it would soon start construction of the Somerton Intermodal Terminal, which will be a key node in the Australian and Victorian governments’ $58 million Port Rail Shuttle Network.

The terminal will create jobs, remove thousands of truck movements from suburban roads, reduce carbon emissions and increase efficiency as well as safety for producers, farmers, freight operators and exporters.

When at capacity, ITC expect the Somerton Intermodal Terminal to take 500,000 truck trips off Melbourne’s roads – equivalent to 454 million truck kilometres. Each year, it will also save 451 million litres of fuel and reduce carbon emissions by 189,000 tonnes.

Both Labor governments want to move more freight by rail in the state – by 2050, the Port Rail Shuttle Network is expected to move 30 per cent of Melbourne’s containers by rail from Somerton, Altona and Dandenong South to the Port of Melbourne, avoiding thousands of truck trips on roads each year.

The Port Rail Shuttle Network will enable trucks to deliver or pick up containers from these hubs in outer metropolitan Melbourne instead of driving to the Port of Melbourne, which is in turn investing $125 million for on-dock rail infrastructure to cater for these shuttle trains.

The Somerton Intermodal Terminal will be built at the Austrak Business Park and is forecast to create 190 jobs during construction and a further 50 permanent jobs for Victorians once the terminal is operational in 2025.

ITC was launched in December 2022 and is backed by one of Australia’s leading super funds, Aware Super, which last year also entered into a joint venture operation with the Victorian Government to operate the Registration and Licencing and Custom Plates businesses for VicRoads.