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Railway operator in Queensland, Australia

Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining rolling stock and approximately of track and related infrastructure.

Queensland Railways was the first operator in the world to adopt a narrow gauge (in this case 1067mm) for a main line, and this remains the systemwide gauge within Queensland today. The colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, and the new government was keen to facilitate development and immigration. Improved transport to the fertile Darling Downs region situated west of Toowoomba was seen as a priority. As adequate river transport was already established between the capital Brisbane and the then separate settlement of Ipswich, the railway commenced from the latter locality and the initial section, built over the relatively flat, easy country opened to Bigge's Camp, at the eastern base of the Little Liverpool Range, on 31 July 1865. Called the Main Line, the only significant engineering work on that section was the bridge over the Bremer River to North Ipswich. Tunneling excavation through the Little Liverpool Range delayed the opening of the next section to Gatton by 10 months, but the line was opened to Toowoomba in 1867, the ascent of the Main Range being the reason for the adoption of narrow gauge. Built by the Queensland Government to the unusual (for the time) gauge of 1067mm, the line largely followed the alignment surveyed by a private company, the Moreton Bay Tramway Company, which had proposed to build a horse drawn tramway but had been unable to raise funds to do so beyond an initial start on earthworks. The adoption of a narrow gauge was controversial at the time and was largely predicated by the government's desire for the fastest possible construction timeframe at the least cost. This resulted in the adoption of sharper curves and a lower axle load than was considered possible using the standard gauge, and an assessment at the time put the cost of a narrow gauge line from Ipswich to Toowoomba at 25% of the cost of a standard gauge line. In a colony with a non indigenous population of 30,000 when the decision was made, it is understandable. The network evolved as a series of isolated networks. It wasn't until the completion of the North Coast line in December 1924 that all were joined. The exception was the Normanton to Croydon line which always remained isolated. At its peak in 1932, the network totaled
Changing transport patterns resulted in the closure of many development branch lines from 1948 onwards, but at the same time the main lines were upgraded to provide contemporary services, and from the 1970s an extensive network of new lines was developed, particularly to service export coal mines.

In September 1999, Queensland Rail was rebranded as QR. In March 2002, Queensland Rail purchased Northern Rivers Railroad and rebranded it Interail, fulfilling a long held ambition of expanding beyond its state borders. In March 2003, Queensland Rail entered the Hunter Valley coal market when Interail commenced a contract from Duralie Colliery to Stratford Mine. Another coal contract was won in late 2003 for the haulage of coal from Newstan Colliery, Fassifern to Vales Point Power Station. In 2004, Interail began running Brisbane to Melbourne and Sydney to Melbourne intermodal services. In June 2005, Queensland Rail acquired the CRT Group. In June 2006, the Western Australian business of the Australian Railroad Group was purchased.

QR was responsible for all Queensland freight services, and from 2002 operated interstate services under the Australian Railroad Group, Interail and QR National brands. These were all spun out into a separate entity in July 2010, and later privatised as Aurizon. In June 2009, the Queensland Government announced the privatisation of Queensland Rail's freight business. This resulted in Queensland Rail's freight assets being transferred to QR National (now Aurizon) from 1 July 2010. In April 2013, the Queensland Parliament passed the Queensland Rail Transit Authority Bill 2013 that restructured Queensland Rail. The explanatory notes published for the bill outlined that the existing Queensland Rail Limited entity would remain although no longer be a government owned corporation and that entity would become a subsidiary of a new Queensland Rail Transit Authority (QRTA), in effect creating a Queensland Rail group. Under the revised arrangements Queensland Rail Limited retained assets and liabilities and staff were transferred to the QRTA. As a result of transferring the staff to the QRTA, the government moved those employees from the federal industrial relations system to the state based industrial relations system, giving the state more control over industrial arrangements. In November 2013, five labour unions commenced legal proceedings in the High Court of Australia alleging that the QRTA was subject to the federal industrial jurisdiction rather than the state system.

+NameTenureNotesVincent John O'RourkeJuly 1991 – December 2000Bob ScheuberDecember 2000 – April 2007Stephen CantwellApril 2007 – November 2007Lance HockridgeNovember 2007 – 30 June 2010Paul Scurrah1 July 2010 – 2 December 2011From formation of revised Queensland Rail entity following Public float of QR National. Previously Executive General Manager of QR Passenger subsidiary.– January 2014Helen Gluer3 April 2014 – 27 October 2016Neil ScalesOctober 2016 – March 2017Nick EasyMarch 2017 – December 2021 Katarzyna (Kat) StapletonApril 2022 – present

QR operates urban and interurban rail and bus services throughout South East Queensland as part of the Translink network. Rail services operate on twelve lines; Beenleigh, Caboolture, Cleveland, Doomben, Exhibition, Ferny Grove, Gold Coast, Ipswich Rosewood, Redcliffe Peninsula, Shorncliffe, Springfield and Sunshine Coast. QR operate these with the Electric Multiple Units (EMU), Suburban Multiple Units (SMU), Interurban Multiple Units (IMU) and New Generation Rollingstock (NGR) class electric multiple units. Due to low patronage, the Corinda to Yeerongpilly and Doomben to Pinkenba lines have had their services replaced by buses, while due to track capacity constraints, services on the Sunshine Coast between Caboolture and Nambour are supplemented by a bus service. However, track duplication is currently underway, to improve the efficiency of the Sunshine Coast Line.

From its inception, QR's primary workshops were the North Ipswich Railway Workshops. It was replaced by the Redbank Railway Workshops in the 1960s. The Mayne Yard rail precinct is now the forefront for the repairs and maintenance of the fleet.

In December 2014 the Queensland Audit Office published a report about QR's Sunlander 14 project. The Sunlander 14 project had a scope to acquire a total of 25 carriages to replace The Sunlander passenger train with a new Diesel Tilt Train, purchase additional luxury cars, for the two existing Diesel Tilt Trains and refurbish their existing carriages. The project was initially costed at $195 million and allowed for the operation of five services a week. However, costs had risen by 2012, and the Queensland Auditor General reported that the eventual cost would be from $358 to $404 million, because QR had failed to take into account the requirement for upgraded maintenance facilities, as well as en route provisioning. The Auditor General also believed, due to issues with the business case that QR had overestimated how popular the new service would be, and had a mistaken belief that the 'luxury' component of the train would attract more high paying customers. In 2013 the project was scaled back, with the train length being reduced to nine cars by removing the luxury sleepers and restaurant cars. That resulted in a revised project cost of $204 million. The Auditor General's report in particular highlighted that due to the fixed price construction contract the cost per train car increased and that opportunities were missed to pursue broader long distance train fleet renewal. Queensland Rail did not have sufficient traincrew to operate the increased services. On 21 October a substantial interruption of service occurred involving the cancellation without notice of 167 services (12% of the scheduled services for the day) due to compulsory rest periods required for the train crew (a break of at least 32 hours required when a crew member has worked 11 consecutive days or 14 consecutive shifts). and an interim timetable implemented that reversed the increase in services and demand for traincrew. It was announced on 27 October 2016, that the Director General of the Department of Transport and Main Roads, Neil Scales, would replace Helen Gluer and that an inquiry known as the Queensland Rail Train Crewing Practices Investigation would be led by Phillip Strachan into the events. On 25 December 2016 another substantial service cancellation event occurred due to a lack of available traincrew to operate the services. On that day 261 services, or 36% of scheduled services did not operate. who had been appointed following the resignation Michael Klug. A Citytrain Response Unit was established within the Department of Transport and Main Roads to oversee the implementation of the recommendations from the Strachan inquiry. The Citytrain Response Unit subsequently commissioned a whole of business review into the organisation that was conducted by Deutsche Bahn and delivered in July 2017 and published reports tracking the progress of the implementation of the recommendations. Executive bonus payments were also suspended for 2017.