INLAND Rail’s proposed train line will “cut the head off” the Corderoy family’s 3240 hectare Narromine aggregation, separating 304ha, or the 10 per cent on which their infrastructure is located.
It has taken since the 1901 purchase of 120ha for three generations of the family to build the aggregation, but one foul stroke of a purple line through a map has jeopardised their cropping and grazing business, Imac Ag Pty Ltd.
Cowal Park is the base of the business where the family runs centre pivot and travelling irrigation on that 10pc of prime land.
“Actually, we farm only 185ha of this, as the rest is part of the Backwater Cowal which floods so regularly we can’t farm the area.” Anthony Corderoy said.
“We stopped because we kept losing crops to floods, but the Inland Rail wants to go through these cowals. It doesn’t make sense.”
Mr Corderoy said the “purple line” (proposed route) would run through the narrowest point of Cowal Park, the aggregation’s most northern point.
The properties spread close to 15 kilometres, but the train line would run through at 2km from the northern end of the holding.
“Most of our infrastructure has been built on, or placed, at Cowal Park and that includes the shearing shed and yards, machinery sheds, irrigation bores and infrastructure, grain silos and storage of our trucks and big machinery,” Mr Corderoy said.
“From this base on a weekly basis throughout the whole year, if the train track runs through where they have the purple line, we would cross that line at least 15 to 30 times a day.
“And that’s an estimate of the total movements everyone who works here would do daily. This area is our heart and our head. It’s a vital part of our whole farming and grazing programs.”
Extracting information
Extracting information from the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which has been assigned the task of designing and constructing the rail route from Melbourne to Brisbane, is near impossible, according to Mr Corderoy.
“Everyone I’ve talked to is complaining about lack of information as well.
“We first heard that the southern option study was being proposed at a meeting in Narromine in November or December last year,” he said. “We then had a meeting with ARTC representatives at my brother’s home in town sometime in the first two months of this year.
“Not one ARTC person has set foot on our property at this point.”
Mr Corderoy said one ARTC representative said they were not about cutting farms in half.
“I said they better have a look on their map and the bloke’s face looked troubled as I showed him how our property spreads 15km and that the purple line would cut the head off it.
“We’re still waiting for more detail.”
As far as the cowal floodplain is concerned Mr Corderoy said for the past 100-plus years people who had tried to do something about surface water had underestimated the problem.
“If the line was moved further south they wouldn’t have to cross the floodplain of 800ha that becomes knee-deep in water, but rather two water courses and a creek.”
Family
John and Janet Corderoy settled on Cowal Park on February 25, 1901, after leaving the blacksmith’s shop at Borenore (now next to the Australian National Field Days site).
Their son, Malcolm, now runs the family settlement with his two sons, Ian and Anthony, with their families.
It has taken 117 years for the family to build its holding to the current acreage.
“But now that security is threatened,” Mr Corderoy said.
We're still waiting for more detail
- Anthony Corderoy
Currently the family is running a 300-head Shorthorn herd and dryland winter cropping on the majority of the holding.
For many decades the Corderoys grew sweet corn for the Edgels and Simplot cannery, but have turned their pivot irrigators to strip-till cotton.
This year they are growing 136ha of BRF748 cotton, sown on October 15 at 14 to 16 plants per metre.
First sod turned on Inland Rail
WITH shovels in hand, six dignitaries dug deep in the official first sod-turning last week at Parkes to mark the beginning of construction of the “game-changing” Inland Rail line.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack with Inland Rail CEO Richard Wankmuller, and others, set the scene in what Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on video moments prior, was the beginning of significant investment creating 16,000 direct and indirect jobs and a $16 billion contribution to the national economy.
Construction of the Parkes to Narromine section, one of 13 sections along the 1700 kilometre Melbourne to Brisbane track, would begin almost immediately with the first train travelling on the new line by 2025.
Mr McCormack said the project was a “game-changer”. “This will deliver jobs, not just during the construction phase, but permanent jobs through increased freight.”
Chair of the Australian Rail Track Corporation, Warren Truss, said already more than $630 million worth of contracts had been let and thousands more to come over the next six to seven years. When acknowledging landholders present, Mr Truss said many of whom were likely to be impacted by the project, “but have been willing to work alongside us to deliver the best possible Inland Rail”.
“Many though – have been concerned, perhaps needlessly, because the current two-kilometre-wide study area is being refined to 60 metres and the majority of properties that are currently concerned will not actually be affected.”
