Milestone reached in project to improve grain transport

New infrastructure at the Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH) Broomehill grain receival facility supported by the Agricultural Supply Chain Improvements (ASCI) program is boosting the efficiency of Western Australia’s grain to port transport.

The Department of Transport (DoT) manages the $200 million ASCI program, which is funded by the State and Federal Governments to deliver rail freight infrastructure upgrades in the state’s grain growing regions.

Broomehill is the first of 11 grain receival sites to have a fully complete and operational upgraded rail siding funded through ASCI, with complementary state of the art rapid rail loading infrastructure funded by CBH.

The improvements have come online in time to manage outloading of the 2024-25 harvest – the third largest crop in WA history and will halve the time taken to load double the volume of grain onto train wagons.

“The Broomehill project is a great demonstration of how ASCI infrastructure will improve grain handling and ensure more grain gets to port during the peak pricing period,” said Sue Hellyer, DoT’s Director of Freight.

“We look forward to working with CBH and other partners to roll out more of these projects that will benefit grain growers, regional communities and the economy by making our supply chain more efficient and reducing the number of trucks on our roads.”

ASCI rail siding upgrades at Brookton and Konnongorring are already complete and work is underway at Cranbrook and Moora, with the infrastructure future-proofing regional rail freight so it can handle WA’s increasingly larger crop sizes.