in qr national arg livery at goomalling in october 2013 industry railway operator successor qr national founded 17 december 2000 defunct 30 june 2011 area served western australia parent aurizon website www.arg.net.au australian railroad group arg was an australian rail freight operator . it began operations in western australia on 17 december 2000 following its purchase of the westrail freight business . it was purchased by qr national in june 2006 . the main commodities hauled by arg included grain mineral sands alumina bauxite coal woodchips quartz nickel and iron ore around western australia . in june 2011 it ceased trading as a separate brand and became part of qr national . contents 1 history 2 locomotive fleet 3 west australian facilities 4 references history edit arg logo from 2002 until 2006 in 2000 the australian railroad group was formed as a 50 50 joint venture between united states rail operator genesee & wyoming inc and australian rural services company wesfarmers to bid for the freight operator westrail which was being sold by the western australian state government . genessee & wyoming already had an australian presence having purchased the south australian freight operations of australian national in november 1997 and rebranded the operation australia southern railroad . 1 2 3 in october 2000 australian railroad group were announced as the successful bidder for westrail with operations commencing on 17 december 2000 . under the deal 95 locomotives 2 500 wagons freight terminals and customer contracts were purchased with the infrastructure remaining in government ownership and leased to arg for 49 years . 4 5 as part of the deal the joint venture assumed ownership of genesee & wyoming s south australian operation australian southern railroad . 4 initially trains in western australia operated under the australia western railroad name with awr logos being applied to locomotives in the orange black and yellow of genesee & wyoming . with arg s involvement with the asia pacific transport consortium building the alice springs to darwin line resulting in some locomotives operating construction trains on the line receiving australia northern railroad logos it was decided to rebrand all anr asr and awr operations under the australian railroad group banner from august 2002 . 3 in june 2006 the joint venture was dissolved with wesfarmers selling its 50 % share in the south australian operations back to genesee & wyoming . the above rail operation in western australia was sold to qr national and the below the rail westnet rail infrastructure business to babcock & brown . 6 7 8 in june 2011 it ceased trading as a separate brand and became part of qr national . 9 locomotive fleet edit dfz2401 leading ab1504 at thornlie in september 2009 2208 leading a cl in newport in september 2006 q4004 in the original genesee & wyoming arg livery with qr national at kwinana in march 2009 lq3121 in qr national arg livery passing through thornlie in september 2009 with the introduction of the arg name and corporate colours arg began a gradual process of standardising the locomotive classification based on horsepower with a progressive and still incomplete renumbering . as of february 2006 new letter classes will be used in conjunction with the new horsepower based numbering system the z on the end of some class letters refers to locomotives fitted with ztr . 700 class ex sar 700 class 830 class ex sar 830 class da 900 class ex an da class ck 1000 class ex an ck class a class ex wagr a class de 1300 class ex bhp de class ab 1500 class ex wagr ab class nj 1600 class ex cr nj class gm 1800 class ex cr gm class da daz 1900 class ex wagr da class dc 2200 class ex nswgr 422 class db dbz 2300 class ex wagr db class d 2350 class ex wagr d class p 2500 class ex wagr p class cl clz 3000 class ex an clf clp classes l lz 3100 class ex wagr l class alf 3200 class ex an alf class s 3300 class ex westrail s class q 4000 class ex westrail q class ac 4300 class new build ugl rail c43aci west australian facilities edit forrestfield yard forrestfield suburban perth kwinana yard kwinana avon yard northam west merredin yard merredin picton yard bunbury west kalgoorlie yard kalgoorlie narngulu yard narngulu geraldton esperance depot esperance wagin depot wagin albany depot albany collie depot collie references edit an sale private owners go from zero to three railway digest october 1997 page 8 genesee and wyoming starts up with new name railway digest december 1997 page 8 a b peter attenborough october 2005 . australian railroad group . australian model railway magazine . pp. 26 29 . a b australian railroad group buys westrail freight railway digest december 2000 page 23 company history wesfarmers sale of australian railroad group wesfarmers 14 february 2006 arg on board queensland rail the age 31 march 2006 qr closes national rail freight deal qr national 2 june 2006 aurizon australian railroad group retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title australian railroad group & oldid 738057074 categories defunct railway companies of australiagenesee & wyoming inc.rail transport in western australia2000 establishments in australia2011 disestablishments in australiahidden categories use dmy dates from november 2012 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 6 september 2016 at 17 42 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view