Also, CLF might well have driven KWG 'into the ground' if they hadn't got an $18 million payment from someone who bought the NSR for the Bid Daddy & Black Thor deposits from KWG.

The failure to pay part of the costs of the rail engineering wasn't the cause of the bad blood, just a significant indicator of how things were going.

One big reason for the preference for a road, I think, is that communities near the proposed route envisage a road as being better for themselves as individuals (able to drive freely to town anytime) and as communities,(easier to get medical people, ambulances, pump technicians etc there by road than on a freight railline). Those communities envisage a 'normal' road where anyone can drive at any time, and not a private haul route where private access is limited and likely dangerous. CLF would have no hesitation in getting their road built with Govt money and backing from certain chiefs & their people, and then saying 'sorry, you can't use it. Show us where we promised you could, in writing.'

NOT's proposed east-west road on the other hand will be usable by private people, govt services, and some freight hauling, though probably very little chromite, which has low margins.