Logs Moved via Rail for First Time in Decades to Help With Australia’s 2020 Bushfires Recovery

In 2020, bushfires in Australia burnt more than 45,000 hectares of pine plantation on the southwest slopes. Nearly half the pine plantations supplying timber to mills in Turmut and Tumbarumba were burnt in those wildfires.

To help meet the demand for sawn timber and to keep mills in operation, logs are being transported more than 900 kilometers by rail from northern New South Wales as part of the bushfire recovery, according to a report by “ABC News” (4-21-23). Over the next three years, about 270,000 tons of logs from government-owned plantations at Walcha on the northern tableland will be diverted from the export market to supply the mills.

Dean Anderson, Forestry Corporation NSW Snowy region manager, told “ABC News” it was the first time in decades that logs had been transported by train in the state. “Because it’s been a long time since people have transported logs on open rail carriages we had to go and build the cradles and them fitted to the carriages,” he said. Forestry Corporation NSW says transporting logs via rail instead of over the road will save up to 300 million liters of diesel.

The first trainload arrived in Wagga Wagga last weekend and was hauled by truck the final stretch to the mills to be processed for use in housing construction.