The Moorebank Intermodal Terminal is an intermodal terminal in the south-western

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

suburb of Moorebank. Moorebank has two intermodal terminals. The first to be operational was the IMEX (Import Export) terminal to transfer containers to Port Botany. The second is the Interstate terminal.

History

In 2010, the

Department of Finance and Deregulation The Australian Department of Finance and Deregulation was a federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, stat ...

conducted a feasibility study into the development of the intermodal terminal at Moorebank in south-western

. In April 2012 the

federal government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

committed to developing the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal with private sector involvement. In December 2012 the Moorebank Intermodal Company (MIC) was formed as a

Government business enterprise A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a business entity created or owned by a national or local government, either through an executive order or legislation. SOEs aim to generate profit for the government, prevent private sector monopolies, provide goo ...

to oversee the development of the terminal.History
Moorebank International Company The MIC conducted an expression of interest process to identify suitably experienced and qualified organisations to build and operate the terminal. The Sydney Intermodal Terminal Alliance of

Qube Holdings Qube Holdings is a diversified logistics and infrastructure company in Australia. History In July 2006, following the takeover of Patrick Corporation by Toll Group, Toll Holdings, Chris Corrigan and some executives departed and teamed with Kapl ...

(67%) and

Aurizon Aurizon Holdings Limited ( ) is a freight rail transport company in Australia, formerly named QR National Limited and branded QR National. In 2015, it was the world's largest rail transporter of coal from mine to port. Formerly a Queensland G ...

(33%) was named as the preferred proponent with an agreement signed in June 2015. In August 2016, Qube Holdings bought out Aurizon's shareholding. The terminal is built on 240 hectares of land formerly occupied by the

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia. It is a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army ...

. The site is connected to the

Southern Sydney Freight Line The Southern Sydney Freight Line (SSFL) is a freight-only railway line in the south-western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The line was built to segregate freight trains from the Sydney Trains network. It forms part of a dedicated freight only c ...

near Casula station providing access to Port Botany. It is also close to the

M5 Motorway The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...

and its junctions with the M7 and

Hume Highway The Hume Highway, including the sections now known as the Hume Freeway and the Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of t ...

. Residents who are opposed to the terminal say that

PFAS Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS, PFASs, and informally referred to as "forever chemicals") are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 millio ...

, firefighting chemicals, were used on the land, which can bio-accumulate. Planning permission was granted by the Department of Planning & Environment in June 2016. Construction began in April 2017 and was initially expected to be completed by September 2022. The Interstate terminal had operations launched by Prime Minister Albanese on 5 April 2024.

References

{{Reflist Transport infrastructure completed in 2019 2019 establishments in Australia