Re: Wodonga Rail could this be the endof an era? & Lets Standardise!!

["Grahame Ferguson" <grahamef@users.mcmedia.com.au>]

Referring to Rod Young's original comments of 7th December-

It seems to me that the Wodonga Council is a little niave in their decision.
firstly if Wodonga is 'off line' for a time then people will eventually go
the way of other transport.-REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENNED TO THE 'OVERLAND'?
Where exactly is any new station in Wodonga going to be built, and if it is
will the existing station be in service until the opening of the new
station??


As of for standardising, lets do it now.  Too many opportunities have been
lost over the last 140 years because Australia kept to its colonial
isolationist policy where each colony persisted in keeping its railways and
gauges 'soveriegn'.  To the extent that it has made the railways of today
weak and uncompetative.

Remember- the enemy is Road Transport not another Railway Company.  The
present compentition thinking of governments has focused on competition
between railway operators rather than between all modes of transport. It
does bring costst down, but can result in each other slashing their
collective throats.

So now the thinking from what has been written in this thread, is that FA
fear competition from other operators if all Victoria is standardised.  This
sounds very much like the 19th century thinking that has got us in this mess
we are in now.  If that is the thinking then why are FA now competing
interstate on SG?  Basically you can't have it both ways.

For rail transport to survive in  Victoria it has to convert to SG.  Road
transport has no barriers, and because of a constitutional anomaly can trade
over state borders without paying a road tax.  Road transport does not have
to come to a halt a state borders because of a change in gauge it goes where
it wants unimpeded.  Even when a train can travel interstate on the same
gauge, it is them impeded by ownership rights on different sections of
track.  A truck driver going from Sydney to Perth does not have to negotiate
with 3 authorities and pay them access rights, no, he just loads up and
heads west.

The time is now.  If wheat growers in the Goulburn Valley want to send wheat
to Sydney or Adelaide to  truck it presents no problems, but to do so by
rail it all becomes a physically slow and bureaucratically painful affair,
and probably ends as an impossible fiasco.

As for reconnecting Ararat, why not reintroduce a service back to Dimboola
using the SG.  If the BG service to Albury is to be SG, then NX/VLP will
have to convert some rolling stock to SG.  To re-open the BG connection from
Ballarat to just one town borders on lunacy, rather you have to re-introduce
a service to a few towns of substance to make it in the realms of a viable
subsidy.  Not to mention the Ararat platform is only accessible by SG.  If
the Mildura line was standardisedf then it would be viable to convert the BG
connection to SG, and this would also give an alternate to the Cressy route.

Let us think what is the real cost in not moving the rail 165mm closer,
easily less than the cost of a Collins class submarine or a freeway tunnel
through the Adelaide Hills!

Think why we should do it, not why we should procrastinate to expect certain
extinction.

Regards,

Grahame.