page_title: El Zorro (railway)
section_title: Financial difficulties
hierarchical_section_title: El Zorro (railway) / Financial difficulties
caption_attribution_description: S311 - S302 - T357 - T413 - T376 on an broad gauge El Zorro grain train near Meredith, Victoria, Australia. S302 is their own loco, S311 and T376 are CFCLA, others are preserved heritage locos, hoppers from ARG and GWA.
context_page_description: El Zorro was an Australian railway operator hauling freight and intrastructure trains in Victoria and New South Wales that ceased trading on 4 June 2013. It was a private company founded in 1999 by Ray Evans who has a taste for things Spanish, El Zorro being Spanish for the fox. At the time of liquidation, the company had two shareholders: director Ray Evans, and ex-director Lisa Trezise. Geoff Tighe, a co-founder and past shareholder and director, was formerly chief executive of Great Northern Rail Services, a now defunct operator which provided locomotives and crews to other operators in Victoria until November 2002.
context_section_description: In May 2013 Consolidated Rail Leasing filed a petition in the Supreme Court of New South Wales to wind up El Zorro. El Zorro director Ray Evans said cash flow problems had been caused by agricultural products distributor Cargill refusing to pay his company for work carried out during the previous four weeks. Evans said that although El Zorro owed Cargill $2 million as a long-term debt, there was a repayment plan in place, which was not being fulfilled. Due to this Cargill had recently stopped all payments to the rail operator.
  Michael Vines president of the Victorian Goldfields Railway, which leased a locomotive to El Zorro through the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre, said in a newsletter that his organisation had not been paid for nine months for the use of the locomotive.
  At the same time, the NSW branch of the Rail Tram and Bus Union said it was talking to legal representatives over El Zorro's failure to pay full superannuation entitlements to its members since February 2013. The Seymour Railway Heritage Centre is reportedly owed more than one million dollars by El Zorro in relation to the hiring of the centre’s rolling stock to the company.
  The company ceased trading on 4 June 2013. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission listed El Zorro Transport Pty Ltd as being under external administration following the submission of documents on 14 June. The company subsequently entered liquidation with the liquidators, HoskingHurst, appointed by the Supreme Court of NSW.
caption: CFCLA's S311 leads a mix of hired and El Zorro locomotives on a broad gauge grain service near Meredith in January 2008
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