Fixing Country Rail

Fixing Country Rail is a $400 million NSW Government program providing targeted infrastructure funding from Restart NSW for regional freight projects.

Fixing Country Rail aims to relieve bottlenecks by upgrading parts of the regional rail network constraining efficient freight movement.

Regional NSW produced an estimated 216 million tonnes of freight in 2016, and this is expected to increase by 13 per cent to 245 million tonnes by 2036.

Economic growth in rural areas is critical to NSW to ensure the food, produce and raw materials that feed and power the state are able to move to market efficiently.

Fixing Country Rail supports jobs, growth and economic productivity of regional NSW by reducing the cost of getting goods to market. As costs come down consumers benefit at the till of their local supermarket and exporters become more competitive.

Projects funded under Fixing Country Rail include sidings, passing loops and network upgrades, allowing the use of faster, longer or heavier trains.

Applications for Fixing Country Rail can be made at any time and any organisation can apply but funding can only be awarded to rail infrastructure owners and managers.

Projects are prioritised with clearly articulated freight benefits, solid business cases and industry support.

Fixing Country Rail aligns with and complements Fixing Country Roads by improving regional freight connectivity and reducing the cost to market for regional businesses.

Fixing Country Rail 2018 application information

The application process for Fixing Country Rail changed in 2018.

Applications can be received at any time, taking the pressure off applicants to meet set deadlines for funding rounds and better aligns to other NSW and Australian Government grant funding initiatives.

The guidelines and application forms for 2018 funding are currently in review. In the interim, the criteria and application forms for Round 1 of Fixing Country Rail should be used for any new applications. See below, for the links to the Program Guidelines, the sample application form and the Benefit Cost Analysis Input Sheet.

Not all technical documents on this page are WCAG 2.0AA compliant. If you have trouble accessing information in a document, please email freight@transport.nsw.gov.au, or contact us.

All applications must be lodged through the Freight Funding Portal. Transport for NSW will undertake periodic assessments throughout the year by grouping batches of current applications together when a sufficient number have been received. The number of applications in each batch will depend on a range of factors not limited to quality of applications, geographic dispersion, timing and scale of projects, contributory funding sources identified and alignment to NSW Freight and Ports strategic deliverables.

The Technical Panel and the Regional Independent Assessment Panel (RIAP) will then be convened to review the applications. This will enable a competitive assessment process to be undertaken. Infrastructure NSW will then recommend projects to the NSW Government for funding.

If you have a question regarding the changes or the application process please contact freight@transport.nsw.gov.au.