VOICE of BYRON regular, Cheryl Woodlands, read a Daily Examiner letter to the editor which gave another perspective regarding our Railway corridor.
Cheryl says, “This is maybe the way Byron Shire should go with the rail trail. Saw this while in Hobart in The Daily Examiner.
DEB COLLINS (Letters, The Examiner, January 18) is right to be concerned about the preservation of the North-East railway.
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So is the government, as it has sensibly ensured through legislation, that the rail corridor will be available for any future ‘strategic’ transport use.
When considering a transport corridor set aside for potential future use all the sunk investment and retained value lies in the land and the civil works (cuttings and embankments etc).
The surface infrastructure (rails) have no value other than scrap.
This for the simple reason that no future transport system using the corridor could reasonably compete with road transport if required to adopt an obsolete, superannuated and seriously degraded track of the existing configuration.
The recreational ‘rail trail’ proposal would see the rails removed and the ballast converted into a sound base.
With the civil infrastructure preserved and maintained in good order this will further the goal of a future transport link by reducing the eventual cost of any required conversion.
In the meantime, a recreational trail will allow residents and tourists alike to get out and enjoy the beautiful North-East in ease and safety in their own time and at their own pace.
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I got frustrated with this conundrum years ago and am not up with all the facts.I read that the tracks are unusable cos in bad condition. I don’t think the very few years unused would make them so. Was this new elements train just an element project? Any for thinking person would have made it extend to the cavanbah centre where the bus station could be relocated to and it could have been extended to back of Woolworths so people from Sunrise could come in to do shopping if they wanted to come into the heart of town and not just stay at IGA also to all the doctors and specialists and library and nightlife. Hopefully the train can travel at night as well. Oh but is that disturbing the peace?
https://www.gympietimes.com.au/news/millions-involved-in-latest-rattler-blowout/3289667/
I hope your council is very financial after seeing the financial blowout out in Gympie with their Red Rattler Tourist Train . Started at $4.9M ,then $9.5M , then asked for more up $14.5M and may end up being $20M .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/korumburra-tourist-railway-folds/7103948
Or it will lose volunteers and fold like Korumburra .
Or close like Lady Capella up at Ravenshoe.
Good luck with your initiative, you will need a multi millionaire like the Byron Bay Heritage Train to keep it afloat
More misinformation being peddled by the ‘rail trail’ lobby, as usual. Katie Milne stood up for the rights of the majority of residents and ratepayers in her shire when she eventually was able to have an agreement, with the help of the General Manager’s suggestion, that tenders could be also allowed to see if it is possible to have BOTH a bike trail and retaining the railway tracks as well, which by the way are still in very good condition!
The pro rail trail councillors were assured by the Department Head David Oxenham that this would not endanger in any way the utilisation of the $13 million in grants and they have till mid 2020 to fulfil the criteria. To say that it will threaten the money is an obvious devious lie by the rail trail lobby once again to bring fear into the process. They still base their arguments on the fact that having a so called ‘rail trail’ (without the rail) will save the corridor – in fact it is the reverse and will destroy the current protection of Legislation 99A and open it up for development. A local railway engineer did the sums on creating both together and came up with a cost of $11.9 million for the whole Tweed section of the line (well under the $13 million on offer).
How few people will use the bike trail in comparison to the millions who stand to gain by having a viable comfortable means of public transport through our beautiful region! The number of supporters for the option of retaining the tracks was vividly shown on Thursday during the march and rally outside the Tweed Council Chambers – the vast majority of passers by in cars, trucks and buses tooted their support! It was very inspiring to see just how many people want trains back on our tracks, not just a few benefitting from a corridor that our forefathers built by hand with ox carts because they knew we needed it here in our region even back in 1894. It was called the ‘Line from nowhere to nowhere’ because it didn’t join to anywhere else, even the main line for many years – it was enough to service our region with our own produce. When the service was changed over to the XPT in 1980 it was the most profitable service in NSW, taking in $22.5 million a year (and only costing $11 to run it).
The fact that the Byron train is so popular really scares the rail trailers as more and more people are asking – “Why can’t we have rail services as well?” Bike trails may be good in remote Victorian towns but not in a high population, aging demographic, high tourism area like ours!
Let’s work together on this guys – we can have both!
Cheryl Woodlands, I applaud your thinking.
Thanks for being a supporter of the Rail Trail, being the best community transition in preserving our valuable corridor regional asset.
Here’s my take on the recent Tweed Shire meeting..
“Tweed Rail Trail Conundrum”
The mind boggles at the desperate and frantic thought bubbling that appears to go on at the local council meeting level, with regard to the rail corridor resolution, at least.
The Tweed council meeting last Thursday night (15th Feb), had an absent rail trail supporting councilor, which meant that the pro rail group had the Mayor’s vote, plus her casting vote to block the $13million NSW and Federal governments’ funding for the construction of the 24kms long Tweed Valley Rail Trail.
This of course would have been a huge loss of economic potential to the Tweed Shire, and so last minute frantic vote changing concepts had to be thrown in to get the funding accepted. These included “alternative tenders” for an engineering firm to build the trail alongside the decaying rail line, where possible, to somehow “protect the status of the line”. Also, to give Elon Musk a call, to see if he could offer ideas for driverless rail transport!
The Mayor, Katie Milne, is prepared to commit her shire’s ratepayers to any additional costs beyond the $13million, to keep the rusting tracks rusting for an unforeseeable future, until, well, who knows what might happen?
Of course, the reality is, that the tracks are useless; a sacred cow, very like the facade of the Byron Bay Community Center that was religiously and expensively propped up to appease the objectors, then finally replaced with a brand new lookalike, prior to the grand opening.
But for Tweed’s section of the rail corridor, they are now looking at 24 kilometers of very expensive facade, to “protect” the steel tracks, which replacement value would likely be a fraction of the costs in building the trail alongside them.
These costs would have to include the complex design terms of reference, then the engineering design, then the costs of constructing the actual concrete retaining walls and highly involved drainage for the now, two formations, not just the original one. The new trail formation will need expensive ballustrading to protect the public from falling off the retaining wall edges, where applicable. Then there’s the built in safety requirements, in case the mythical train service ever materialises. But what about the 475 meter long Burringbar Tunnel, do I hear you ask? With 100 metres of ridge above the tunnel, that would likely involve expensive removable decking over the tracks, which would then thwart rust mitigating ventilation of the very tracks intended to be “preserved”.
You’d be forgiven if you thought this all resembles a rats’ picnic, but I’m afraid this is what the poor Tweed Shire engineers are now faced with.
It’s going to be very interesting to see how this complex issue develops.
The big plus, is that the train dreamers will finally start on their journey of realising what things really cost in this world.
That in itself, has been sorely missing for 14 years.