The Morven spelling yards has had its busiest year yet as large numbers head from north to south. Photo: supplied Watco

A RECENTLY developed livestock freight hub in South western Queensland is starting to find its place in the regular flow of cattle, with big numbers coming out of the north this year.

The Morven Freight and Livestock Hub finished construction in 2020 promising to smooth the flow of cattle from Central and Northwest Qld to processors in the south-east corner and feedlots on the Darling Downs.

Morven’s yards are run by Watco East West, which has the contract for the state’s cattle rail network. The company has been building more regular train numbers from Morven into processors and has even canvassed the idea of taking feedlot cattle to centres on the Darling Downs which it expects to commence trials in coming months

With southern processors heading as far as the Northern Territory for cattle and big runs heading into the Southern Qld feedlots, the yards at Morven have had their busiest year yet. The yards processed 20,000 head in July alone with similar volumes in August expected and the flow of cattle has continued ever since.

One of its main roles has been providing another option for triple road trains to deliver stock for spelling before they have to lose a trailer at Roma. Yards at Blackall and Roma also play this role.

Morven’s manager Mick Smith said the facility was starting to break some habits in the flow of livestock.

“The main goal in the first couple of years has been about getting people to try it, to see if it works for them and to make sure we are doing the job properly for them,” Mr Smith said.

“There have been some customers that had a go at using the facility early in the piece and have stuck with us since.”

Mr Smith said there were a lot of good uses for the yards.

“A lot of the cattle that come into Cloncurry tend to use Morven on their way down. The truck drivers seem to like it because it is about where their logbook cuts out,” he said.

“We are also starting to pick up a lot of business with our scales.”

Trains ramping up from Morven

One of the main ways Morven has been aiming to smooth the flow of cattle has been through loading large numbers onto trains headed into high traffic areas in south-east Queensland.

Regular trains are moving out of Morven. Photo: supplied Watco

Watco has also been hosting studies comparing MSA results from cattle heading into processors on trains vs cattle on trucks – with the results yet to come.

Director Chris Hood said the rail head at Morven was having a busy year, currently sending two trains/week until the end of September and is booked out until the end of October.

“By the end of October, we will have run at least 30 trains ex Morven to Brisbane and hopefully by the end of the year the Morven rail hub will be close to averaging one train/week which is a huge number of trains compared to the previous decade.,” Mr Hood said.

“With all of the chain-of-responsibility regulations for truck drivers, Morven rail is a really good strategic location for rail because it takes so much pressure off the truck drivers. That has to drive traffic onto rail, which can carry big numbers through to busy parts of the state.”