Re: Wodonga Rail could this be the endof an era?

[Tell <just@hate.spammers.com>]

Yep, thats "progress".  Not many places left in Oz
where rail has NOT been or about to be decimated.

Saw the Deputy PM Anderson in Question Time on ABC TV
t'other night, he was answering an end of year "Dorothy
Dixer" about what the Commonwealth has done for
transport.  Lots a dollars on roads, and a measly few
tax payer dollars for the Alice to Darwin line.  
He mentioned ARTC and how it would assume "control" of
mainline tracks.! (begs the question about NSW).
Government policy is,  private enterprise would run the
trains and the commonwealth would own and look after
the tracks.  Hmmmmm.

He did mention that the sale of National Rail Corp was
"well under way" with the approval of the other two
shareholders, NSW & Vic.

....Tell


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

> 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
>