VOICE of BYRON regular, Raphael Lee Cass, shared this quite telling extract from This week’s edition of the Tweed Valley Weekly, regarding the ongoing debate re viable uses for the Shire’s rail corridor.
Raphael says, “From The Tweed Valley Weekly 22 February 2018, an objective view of the Byron Train.
“The Casino to Murwillumbah trains were stopped 20 years ago because they were not viable …
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“The trainline … was built to transport local agricultural produce to the Sydney market. …
“To quote the success of the solar train at Byron Bay as a segway [sic] for the return of trains is a misrepresentation.
“This line is only 3km long, is privately funded, has only operated for 7 weeks and runs between a 5 star resort and one of the busiest holiday towns in Australia.
“It is terrific, but a fun novelty at best.”
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For too long rail services have been diminished by successive governments. One of the main causes of reduced demand for rail services and line maintenance has been the very silly move to replace rail freight with road freight. This move has resulted in more pollution, increased road congestion and a marked increase in road deaths. Now there seems to be a glimmer of hope of re establishing rail freight services… to that end, we should be doing all we can to restore and protect our local rail infrastructure… and hope that passenger services will again rise to prominence – and provide affordable travel for “everyone”: ,further reduce traffic on our main roads, and as a result reduce road fatalities and trauma. Lets get behind supporting our local railways and re establishing those which have been closed by inept governments