NSW Country Regional Network Tender

The Country Regional Network (CRN) is owned by Transport for NSW, with its operations and maintenance undertaken by John Holland Rail, under a 10-year, circa $1.5 billion contract since 2011.

This contract was opened to market for the operations and maintenance of CRN for the following 10-year period, commencing from January 2022. 

The CRN covers more than 5,000 kilometres and 27,000 hectares of land and rail infrastructure across NSW, including:

• 2,386 kilometres of operational passenger and freight lines
• 3,139 kilometres of non-operational lines
• 1,312 (of which 300 are active) level crossings
• 1,200 property assets (of which 356 are heritage listed)
• over 900 bridges (of which 600 are rail under-bridges), and
• 996 kilometres of branch line track predominately used for grain haulage.

Beyond operations and maintenance, the contract will also include: 

• the implementation of a new signalling system
• asset management
• safety, access, performance, and environmental management, and 
• a new Network Control Centre. 

UGL Regional Linx, the winning bidder, has indicated that it will implement its proprietary signalling system, Sigview, and will base the Network Control Centre in Orange. UGL is set to begin a 12-month mobilisation period to enable the smooth transition of the services in January 2022.