QRNational is a rail freight transport company in Australia, an operating arm of the Queensland government owned and based operator QR. It was established in the 2004/2005 financial year with the charter to operate freight services in Queensland and around Australia, expanding though the winning of contracts and the acquisition of other companies.

History

The company grew out of QR's Coal and Freight Services Group, along with QR subsidiary Interail. In late June 2005, rail operator QRNational announced it had acquired the assets of the CRT Group, which became a separate operating entity of QRNational in July 1 2005. This was followed in 2007 by the acquisition of the rollingstock, depots and customer contracts of the Australian Railroad Group in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia for $446 million AUD.

In Queensland, the major traffic is coal, both for export and domestic power generation. QRNational commenced the transport of export coal in the New South Wales Hunter Valley coalfields in 2005, and by November 2007 the QRNational network covered the entire mainland (except the Northern Territory) with the operation of their first Melbourne to Perth intermodal container service.

In July 2008 QRNational took over the Melbourne - Horsham container service for Wimmera Container Lines, after the withdrawal of Pacific National.

See also

• Queensland Rail
• Australian Railroad Group
• Pacific National

References

External links

• QRNational