Well,
We are here on holidays in Collinsville and surrounds, so naturally I took the liberty of having a sticky in the two real estate office windows over the past few days, along with having a drive by Scottville, Bowen and Proserpine.
Collinsville appears to be a one horse town, with the coal mine going gangbusters and the coal trains whizzing out to the coast.
I've been fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law in the coal industry and he was able to get me a guided tour of the working mine, with two big draglines removing the overburden (up to 50m) to expose the coal seams to be removed by the trucks and diggers (up to 2m thick).
Trains going by are horrendously loud...big loud diesel thumpers with 4 locomotives up the front and 78 coal trucks following behind. Each truck holds about 80 mT apparently.
Thats 6,500 mT of coal leaving the town every 2 hours. Coal is apparently worth $ 120 / mT, so each train has about 0.75M worth of coal on it. 12 trains a day.
9 M / day.....not a bad business.
Dunno what the cost of production is to get it out, but obviously it would be high, but not that high. Xstrata owns the mine but the whole show is run by Theiss mining contractors.
On the RE front, most of the high set houses are for sale for about 280K up to 360K. There are some lovely homes, with good folk tending to their garden. The empty ones look hideous....and there are quite a few for lease.
The BIL tells me that 6 years ago the houses were worth between 25 and 35K for a good one. They've seen a 10x growth in that time. Rents are about $ 250 p.w. for average stuff or more for good stuff. Very neg.
The SIL wants to sell up while the prices are high, before the coal industry goes belly up and the town reverts back to a backwater (maybe it is now ??)
Scottville was a real eye opener. Tiny little town, but because it's close to the mine site they are commanding high prices also.
Services are minimal, but the mine is building heaps of single man accom. which takes the sting out of the local leasing market.
Everything is centred around working men and their 4WD's, pig dogs and their beer. Fishing and boats are big here also, with lots of creek and crabbing activities. All good healthy activities to get you away from the TV. Internet and computer literacy is way way down. Most in the town cannot drive a computer.
The big thing is to own your house, own your 4WD, the boat and the caravan, have enough for your dogs and beer.....and that's it. Life and finances doesn't extend beyond that.
Fuel prices dominate, and thankfully for my industry, they consume heaps of it, thinking nothing of driving 2 hours to go for a swim, and then driving 2 hours back again. Doesn't seem right to me, but hey, that's what you need to do.
I cannot understand why people feel the need to talk as if they have no education at all, and there is a competition amongst men to sound less educated than the next man, clipping words off and basically not giving a stuff about anything. Doesn't matter what the subject, everyone's final comment on the subject is "yeah, I don't care about that".
Anyway, enjoying my time out here but feel very much a fish out of water.
We are here on holidays in Collinsville and surrounds, so naturally I took the liberty of having a sticky in the two real estate office windows over the past few days, along with having a drive by Scottville, Bowen and Proserpine.
Collinsville appears to be a one horse town, with the coal mine going gangbusters and the coal trains whizzing out to the coast.
I've been fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law in the coal industry and he was able to get me a guided tour of the working mine, with two big draglines removing the overburden (up to 50m) to expose the coal seams to be removed by the trucks and diggers (up to 2m thick).
Trains going by are horrendously loud...big loud diesel thumpers with 4 locomotives up the front and 78 coal trucks following behind. Each truck holds about 80 mT apparently.
Thats 6,500 mT of coal leaving the town every 2 hours. Coal is apparently worth $ 120 / mT, so each train has about 0.75M worth of coal on it. 12 trains a day.
9 M / day.....not a bad business.
Dunno what the cost of production is to get it out, but obviously it would be high, but not that high. Xstrata owns the mine but the whole show is run by Theiss mining contractors.
On the RE front, most of the high set houses are for sale for about 280K up to 360K. There are some lovely homes, with good folk tending to their garden. The empty ones look hideous....and there are quite a few for lease.
The BIL tells me that 6 years ago the houses were worth between 25 and 35K for a good one. They've seen a 10x growth in that time. Rents are about $ 250 p.w. for average stuff or more for good stuff. Very neg.
The SIL wants to sell up while the prices are high, before the coal industry goes belly up and the town reverts back to a backwater (maybe it is now ??)
Scottville was a real eye opener. Tiny little town, but because it's close to the mine site they are commanding high prices also.
Services are minimal, but the mine is building heaps of single man accom. which takes the sting out of the local leasing market.
Everything is centred around working men and their 4WD's, pig dogs and their beer. Fishing and boats are big here also, with lots of creek and crabbing activities. All good healthy activities to get you away from the TV. Internet and computer literacy is way way down. Most in the town cannot drive a computer.
The big thing is to own your house, own your 4WD, the boat and the caravan, have enough for your dogs and beer.....and that's it. Life and finances doesn't extend beyond that.
Fuel prices dominate, and thankfully for my industry, they consume heaps of it, thinking nothing of driving 2 hours to go for a swim, and then driving 2 hours back again. Doesn't seem right to me, but hey, that's what you need to do.
I cannot understand why people feel the need to talk as if they have no education at all, and there is a competition amongst men to sound less educated than the next man, clipping words off and basically not giving a stuff about anything. Doesn't matter what the subject, everyone's final comment on the subject is "yeah, I don't care about that".
Anyway, enjoying my time out here but feel very much a fish out of water.
