[5] The trustees of the Wheat Board of Western Australia and Wesfarmers registered the company together with capital of £100,000 divided evenly into 100,000 shares.

CBH merged with the Grain Pool of WA in November 2002, after the Parliament of Western Australia passed legislation allowing the merger to go ahead.

[9] During the early years most grain movement was by rail over the Western Australian Government Railways network, with sidings and branch lines specifically serving wheat growing areas.

[10][12] CBH settled on a business model that saw it invest in new locomotives and grain wagons, with day-to-day operations contracted out.

[24][25][26] Because of a delay in the delivery of the rolling stock, QR National continued to operate some 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge services until October 2012,[27] while to operate standard gauge services, locomotives were hired from Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia and SCT Logistics.

[38] CBH received a new record harvest of 14.7 million tonnes from grain growers in Western Australia during the 2003/2004 season.

The company expected over $5 billion to have been pumped into the Western Australian economy as a result of the record harvest.