EAST from Toowoomba in southeast Queensland the Western Railway lumbers for hundreds of kilometres across the fertile Darling Downs, the track rolled out from the late 1800s to connect the produce of the land with the markets of Brisbane and beyond.
In an ironic twist -- not missed by many of the Downs farmers -- those tracks that for generations formed the backbone of farming in the region are now attracting miners seeking to dig up the land in the race to satiate the resources thirst of emerging Asia.
"You need access to rail and port -- without port and rail you don't have a mine," says mining consultant Robert Milbourne, a partner with Norton Rose Australia. "It's make or break, live or die."
The Australian (03 Sep)
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