Thallon Grains

History  3 years ago… 3 farmers in the Thallon area joined together to purchase land and build grain bunkers next to the rail line just east of Thallon

Why store our own grain?  Speed of harvest – 3,500 tonnes of grain per day. The existing supply chain could not handle this quantity or pace  Difficulty of maximising the return from grain with the cliff face pricing in some years

Reasons for Choosing the Site  The site is most central to all partners  Access to rail

Achievements to Date  Construction of bunker storage, weighbridge and sample stand  Capacity to store up to 80,000 tonnes of grain

Achievements to Date  Due to domestic demand and pricing for the last 2 years, we have only been freight grain by road  With chickpeas in strong demand this year, we loaded 3 bulk trains of chickpeas from our depot into Fisherman’s Island. With greater rail capacity we would have moved significantly more by rail.

Plans for the Future  Build permanent infrastructure to enable us to quickly and efficiently load trains  We would prefer that the majority of our export grain to sent by rail to either the Port of Brisbane or to a container packing plant

Issues to be solved  Increased utilisation of rail assets to enable rail to become more competitive with road freight  Reduced rail access charges will attract more grain and cotton back onto rail  Increased competition for rail providers  Reliability of rail services