Introduction
If you love trains and maps you've come to the right place. Explore the interactive maps below to find out more about the volume of rail freight and the average speed of moving trains along certain routes across the country.
These maps let users select the type of trains and origin-destination cities. Width of the lines in the tonnage map is proportional to either the number of trains or their total mass along the routes. The average speed map uses a colour scale to highlight the average speed of trains travelling on the network. You can click on the lines for pop-up metrics on each rail segment.
This analytical tool is designed to provide users with a general understanding of freight train movements in Australia. These interactive products can be used alongside the Freight Train Movement Analytics dashboard for greater insights to inform infrastructure planning.
Date range: 1/12/2022 – 30/11/2023
About the data
The underlying data is processed by combining GPS data from train transponders with train schedules and attributes from the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC). This is then assigned to a foundation rail map and aggregated at the rail segment level to calculate train count and gross mass for the interactive maps. Origin and destination is the first and last urban centre boundary the train makes a stop in. It can also be the intermodal terminal boundary assigned to an urban area.
This data product will always have the latest 12 months of available anonymised data. The number of trains and tonnage in the pop-up metrics are recoded to zero if fewer than 10 trains travelled on a rail segment. Tonnage is also recoded to zero if it comprised of only 1 or 2 train operators.
These interactive maps will be updated biannually. The NFDH team is working to establish an automated data feed to refresh the underlying data on a monthly cycle. The NFDH team also hopes to enter into data sharing agreements with other railway operators to expand the geographic coverage for intrastate rail freight.
For more information on the data, please see aggregated freight train movement datasets in the data catalogue.
Limitations
- A single origin or destination selected for each train service is often the first or last ping where the train stopped in an intermodal terminal (that is also in or assigned to an urban area). Trains travelling from one remote location to another cannot be isolated from the select "all" category.
- Some trains loop through a number of cities using a different train code for each leg of the journey. These are separate services and cannot be linked to show the path taken by the same train.
- Average train speed is the median of the monthly mean speed of GPS pings across one or more trains that travelled on a rail segment. Stationary pings are excluded and as a result, this may overestimate average speed on long segments.
- Speed is capped at 120 kilometres per hour as there are glitches in the GPS pings that result in spikes. This also overestimates the average speed as the actual speed for the spikes may be much lower than the cap.
- The train schedule includes mass and length information for each leg of a train's journey between locations on the ARTC operated network. Note train services can extend beyond the ARTC network where changes to its mass and length is not captured in these interactives.
- The interactive maps use train mass and length for the longest leg of its journey and extrapolates this for the entire trip. It does not factor in the loading and unloading of cargo at stops between origin and destination.
- Only trips with a minimum distance travelled of 50km are included.
- Train count is only representative for the interstate network which includes most "Intermodal+Steel" trains. Other commodity types are predominately intrastate services and they often run on different track gauges completely separate from the ARTC network outside of NSW. The interactive maps only include data for journeys partially or completely undertaken on ARTC operated tracks.
Feedback
The NFDH is working to increase its partnership with industry to collect and include more rail data. Please Contact the NFDH team If you are interested in being a part of our project, have any questions or suggestions for improving this interactive. All feedback is appreciated.