Re: [SA] Renmark

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

Unfortunately Garry, when the lines were there the
"farmers" preferred road, yet they were very vocal when
line closures took place, of course it did not matter
they did not use them in SAR days as well as when ANR
came along.  
SA politicians watched for years as the losses kept
mounting and thats why they sold the SAR to the Feds.
  
Take it from somebody who has been around for a long
time.  The railways in SA like elsewhere were in real
trouble after WW2 from road competition.
  
Even WA Webb knew that BEFORE the war.!  As matter of
fact some of those lines should NEVER have been built
in the first place.

Question to all crowies, do you seriously believe that
the SAR would still be running dinky loss making trains
on the broad gauge branch lines.?

Easy to say now that the lines should still be there.

....Tell


>"Garry Hoddinett" <hoddos@netspace.net.au> wrote:
> 
> A railway ran from south of Loxton east to almost the Victorian border then
> north to Paringa where it crossed the Murray River.  From Renmark the
> railway went to Berri and ended at Barmera.  I think it served most of the
> fruit co-operatives in the area.  If I can recall right the section beyond
> Paringa was closed and ripped up in one of the infamous Australian Nation
> purges on branch lines in the name of economic rationalism some time before
> the mid eighties.  I went through the area in 1987 and there was very little
> obvious evidence of the railway beyond Paringa.  At that time the railway
> still served the big wheat silos at Paringa.  (As an aside, another railway
> still served the silos at Waikere - but I think the service had been
> suspended by then). The section back to the Loxton line was closed and
> ripped up in another laterAustralian National purge on South Australain
> branch lines which also included the closure of the remaining section of the
> former Waikere Line.
> 
> When one thinks of the enormous agricultural output of the area it is a real
> shame that the railway was removed.
> 
> 
>