The $15 million contract will create over 100 construction jobs for Hillery and the local Bowen region which is serves.

Bowen Rail Company chief executive officer Trista Brohier said Hillery’s local experience of 30 years was a significant factor in awarding the contract.

“We’re pleased that we can now share with the Bowen community how our commitments on jobs and contracts for the Whitsundays are coming to life,” Brohier said.

“Partnering with Hillery is a perfect example of this and we couldn’t have picked a better local company to do the job considering their strong technical expertise and knowledge of the region,” she said.

Hillery supplies materials for similar jobs across regional Queensland, working four quarries while providing civil construction and plant hire.

Hillery chief executive officer Luke Hillery said his namesake company was excited to take on this important workload.

“We’re really proud to have been given the opportunity to deliver this critical piece of infrastructure for Bowen Rail,” Hillery said.

“We see the value that this business will bring to our region for the long term and it’s great to be one of the first cabs off the rank to win a big contract of this nature.

“It’s not often we see contracts to build rail yards in Bowen, so we were excited at the opportunity to partner with the Bowen Rail team.”

The Bowen Rail Company launched in August 2020 and has quickly become an important cog in Queensland’s Bowen Basin for freight transport.

Brohier said the team had been working hard towards reaching this point.

“We’ve been busy setting up our systems, team and infrastructure, and we’re looking forward to sharing our ongoing progress with our fellow community members as we work towards running trains with our first customer’s coal product from the Carmichael mine later this year,” Brohier said.