A group of Queensland coal companies this week urged QR to urgently investigate using the hundreds of disused wagons, which they said could be hauling 9 million tonnes of coking coal a year onto ships at the port.

The coal producers lay some of the blame on QR for the ongoing shipping queues at Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal that are costing them millions in demurrage fees.

Cantwell told International Longwall News that many of the idle wagons had not been used for coal traffic since the late 1990s and were no longer suitable for coal.

“Other stored wagons include ‘VAO’ type wagons which are 30-plus years old and … are not suitable for heavy haul coal traffic and would need some major modifications including kwik drop doors and a major maintenance program before any consideration for use in coal traffic,” he said.

“This is likely to cost $50,000 for each wagon. They also only have a carrying capacity of 56 tonnes, ie low productivity as well as having difficulty in discharging the finer coals that are now produced by the mines.”

Cantwell stressed that QR wanted to help ease the major bottlenecks at the state’s coal ports and to haul more coal for its customers.

“Reintroducing smaller wagons and locomotives that are in excess of 25 years old is problematic, not cost efficient and may have the opposite effect of clogging up the system,” he said.

“Saying that more wagons is the simple solution fails to recognise the constraints such as loading at the port and track capacity.”

South Korean steelmaking company Posco, which has a stake in a number of Queensland coal mines and relies heavily on the state’s coal for its own operations, told The Australian today it was developing other overseas contacts because of ongoing delays and unreliable deliveries by the state-owned railway.

"Frankly, Queensland is the very worst of our suppliers (throughout the world) right now," Posco executive vice-president YT Kwon told the newspaper.

ILN was unable to contact Posco for comment this morning.