AUSTRALIA: Queensland Rail has reached an in-principle agreement covering more than 270 train controllers, but a rollingstock maintenance backlog means South East Queensland passengers will remain on a reduced timetable.
AUSTRALIA: Three international construction consortia have been shortlisted to design 35 km of twin tunnels for the Newcastle–Sydney High Speed Rail project between Berowra and Ourimbah.
AUSTRALIA: The part of Aurizon that doesn't haul a single tonne of coal — it just charges other trains to use its tracks — grew its earnings faster than the company's freight operations did in the past fiscal year.
AUSTRALIA: Nine outer-Melbourne councils have a blunt pitch for the Victorian government on its multi-billion-dollar Suburban Rail Loop: run high-frequency buses along the corridor now, and worry about laying the actual rail tracks later.
AUSTRALIA: Nearly a quarter of all the coal Aurizon hauls across Queensland moves for a single customer — and that relationship just got locked in for potentially the next 14 years.
AUSTRALIA: Railway Supply reported in June on regional mayors' first reaction to the federal government's decision to cancel Inland Rail north of Parkes; three months later, the local MP is turning that anger into a formal compensation claim.
AUSTRALIA: Overhead wires came down onto a Sydney Trains service for at least the third time in 15 months on Friday evening, trapping passengers between Redfern and Erskineville — and this time, officials say it wasn't the wires themselves that failed.
AUSTRALIA: ARTC will deploy more than 250 workers across 43 sites during a 46-hour Hunter Valley and North Coast shutdown on 22–24 August, with ARTC’s finalised work documents showing a maintenance program that reaches from bridge and culvert repairs to signalling defects, ballast work and rail-condition repairs.
AUSTRALIA: Sydney Trains is using August possessions on the Blue Mountains corridor for a multi-system renewal programme, with official community works listings identifying Blackheath embankment work alongside rail, signalling, overhead wiring and other asset maintenance.
AUSTRALIA: Sydney’s Western Harbour Tunnel has entered its final 1.5km harbour-boring phase after the second 4,350t TBM, Barangaroo, joined Patyegarang, while tunnel fit-out and North Sydney connection works continue in parallel ahead of the planned 2028 opening.
AUSTRALIA: Translink is introducing line numbers across South East Queensland’s train and tram network during August, adding them beside destinations to make services easier to identify without changing routes or timetables.
AUSTRALIA: This concise weekly review presents a selection of Australian rail news published from August 6 to August 12, 2026: passenger services, rolling stock, metro construction and freight infrastructure.
