FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 12/04/2025

Long time advocate of linking Toowoomba to Inland Rail Suzie Holt has been invited to establish and chair a taskforce to achieve the upgrade of the existing rail corridor from Toowoomba to Miles where it will link with the Greenlink Railway to be constructed from the Port of Gladstone to Goondiwindi and will link with Inland Rail at North Star in northern NSW.

Dubbed the Darling Downs Railway by Everald Compton, founding father of Inland Rail and Chair of Greenlink Australia, it will carry freight north and south via what will be a dual gauge rail track.

Suzie Holt’s Taskforce will work in partnership with Greenlink in seeking risk capital of 75 million dollars from Federal and State Governments to enable the entire project to reach financial close within 2 years, especially the upgrade of the existing Miles/Toowoomba rail corridor, thereby not requiring resumption of prime land.

The proposed standard gauge Goondiwindi/Gladstone Railway, with a linking dual gauge line into Toowoomba, will also avoid the currently planned and very expensive corridor route across the floodplains to the south-west of Toowoomba which would require the building of highly expensive long raised sections of rail track with deep foundations to reach bedrock for its foundations. It will also avoid adversely impacting on the many farms along the corridor that is currently planned to cut into valuable productive land on the Darling Downs.

Accepting Everald Compton’s invitation, Suzie Holt said;

“When Everald originated this project in 1996, his enthusiasm was contagious as he travelled along the then proposed corridor from Melbourne to Darwin promoting plans for significant rural development of communities along the line that would connect Queensland to Sydney and Melbourne as well as Gladstone and eventually Darwin. Inevitably, his vision was taken over by political parties that dangled a false carrot of prosperity in front of country people while an enormous amount of money was allocated to the Australian Rail Track Corporation for a railway that would reach neither the Port of Melbourne or the Port of Brisbane.

The original budget has been exceeded by 300% and now has seen it stalled at Parkes in NSW.

If the voters of Groom elect me as their Independent member, I will relentlessly pursue the task of having funding allocated and approvals granted by the earliest possible date. This will ensure that Toowoomba and the Darling Downs will have direct access to an upgraded deep water Port of Gladstone for exports and imports as well as becoming a strategic part of the national rail freight system via a fast, heavy duty, dual gauge Darling Downs Railway, standard gauge Greenlink Railway and Inland Rail.

I look forward to leading this taskforce to the urgent fruition of this visionary goal that will ensure that Toowoomba becomes the freight hub of South East Queensland.”