The contract includes the haulage of coal from the rail-loading facilities at Narrabri, Gunnedah, Werris Creek and the Maules Creek project, which is in the final stage of approval.

It also brings Aurizon into the Gunnedah Basin.

Aurizon will invest up to $280 million in addition to the planned $110 million train maintenance and provisioning facility at Hexham, which will support the fleet.

The company, previously known as QR National, will work with Whitehaven and Australian Rail Track Corporation to upgrade the network infrastructure in the Gunnedah Basin.

“The new agreement with Aurizon provides us with both the scale and flexibility we require to ensure the best outcome for our existing mines and the new projects we have scheduled to bring into production,” Whitehaven managing director Tony Haggarty said.

Aurizon managing director and chief executive officer Lance Hockridge said Aurizon’s entry into the Gunnedah Basin would bring competition to a market that had previously had just one operator.

“In both New South Wales and Queensland we’ve proven we can expand capacity to match our customers’ growing operations,” Hockridge said.

“We intend to leverage our experience and performance in the Hunter Valley supply chain to maximise coal throughput for Whitehaven.”

Whitehaven last week announced the financial completion of its $1.2 billion senior secured bank facility, which provides the certainty and flexibility to develop Maules Creek.

Maules Creek is located in the heart of the Gunnedah Basin and is one of Australia’s largest coal deposits, with 362 million tonnes of recoverable reserves.

Subject to the delivery of approvals, it is expected commercial coal production will start there in 2014, with saleable tonnes exceeding 10Mtpa at full production.