Wodonga Rail could this be the endof an era?

["Rod[comtrain]" <freight_man@hotmail.com>]

Letter to the Opinion column Border Mail Wodonga
Well Mr. Savidge,
             I saw you crowing about the loss of Wodonga's Railway. How sad
people can become, when they are bored and have insufficient things to
occupy themselves. I suppose living in your little fantasy world makes your
life a little easier.
            But I hope you will also share the responsibility for the loss
of the last 30 Railway Jobs in this Town. The loss of Fast Freight, another
7 jobs, and that amounts to about $15 million in wages each year that will
not be entering this town any more. You and your Council mates should also
take responsibility for the hundreds of extra trucks that will need to come
up the highway bringing cement and super phosphate to a siding no longer
serviced by rail. You should also clap yourselves on the back for the
Petroleum trucks already clogging our roads. Thousands of tonnes of  wood
products are just starting to return to rail, but not now, the new sidings
at West Wodonga (if they will ever be built), are not designed to be manned
at all. They will operate like Ettamogah, and main line trains will just
hook on to CRT and Uncle Bens loading, place the empties, and depart. I have
shunted Bandianna Siding many times, and CRT do not do enough business to
build a new yard, and if the Governments $57 millions will build their
container terminal, will it also be large enough to do the job that Coal
Sidings does now easily.
      Look at yourself in the mirror Mr. Savidge, Servicing Locomotives does
not give you the Social Skills required to ensure that the Community gets
what it deserves, especially when our paid Government Servants forget that
they are working for the People, not the Rich Multi-Nationals that take
everything, and give only what they have to.
      Wonder about the many people that use our trains every day, many
elderly and young people that do not drive motor vehicles. They lose their
protected Central Station and gain a concrete platform with a bus shelter on
it, perhaps. It is 4 km out of town in the Industrial area.
Perhaps Mr. Savidge you could approach Uncle Bens, who were also pictured
"jumping for joy" and get them to supply a free bus service to the new
Station, as a consideration for the Government millions that they are now
being advantaged with, just because they might send a few more rail trucks
to the wharves, than the ten or so a month they now do. They could run the
bus to Albury, because that is where the train will depart, until The Bracks
Government DOES go ahead and standardise the North East. And that is a
bigger thing than even you could know about. To standardise the North East,
you would have to do the whole State, think about it. V/Line Passenger
Services will need a BG access to Albury, but they will not put it in
because it will be soon standardised.They do not have any SG carriages or
engines, and so they will need to convert some to SG, and that will mean
they cannot be used elsewhere!They will not do that,so trains will terminate
at Wangaratta or Benalla. The XPT has only limited seats available locally,
so the busiest Rural Station in Victoria, will only have bus connections for
a long time coming. By the time the SG reaches Wodonga, the patronage will
have fallen off so badly, that a new Railway station may be deemed unviable,
with Albury so close.
 So hopefully you,and people that think like you,might rethink your shallow
victory,Mr. Savidge,like the rest of the ordinary people of Wodonga-Albury,
you might think it is a real shame that $57 millions will be wasted on
pulling down a perfectly good Railway Station and adding to the paddock of
Pattersons Curse that a previous Wodonga Council caused with similar wild
promises of jobs and investment. And for less thasn $57 million  we could
have had a second river crossing to compliment an external Albury bypass,
something that would benefit everyone.
Rod Young