Re: Rail services return to Cooma

[petan@ion.com.au (petan@ion.com.au)]

Hi,

The bus could take you directly to your snowfield accommodation and
you probable would get there a lot faster than the train to Cooma than
try to organize a bus to the snowfields.

Cheers
Peter Cokley

On 12 Dec 98 21:34:58 GMT, "David Bennetts" <davibenn@pcug.org.au>
wrote:

>
>
>David Bradshaw <alkdrmc@ozemail.com.au> wrote in article
><3673614F.5739@ozemail.com.au>...
>> For what reason was the Cooma line closed in the first place? It would
>> appear to service a large area of Southern coastal NSW. 
>> 
>> Furthermore I understand a weekly train used to run to Cooma during the
>> snow season - surely this (albeit seasonal) service would be a passenger
>> drawcard, considering the drive and the nature of the roads to the snow
>> (although admitadly a road journey is still required to get from Cooma
>> to say Jindabyne.
>> 
>
>Passenger services were withdrawn because there were only a handful of
>people using the service.  The daily DEB set service would typically carry
>about half a dozen people in either direction.  With snow season services,
>running one train each weekend for possibly eight weekends a year (now
>there's no carriages to make up a train anyway) wouldn't help much. 
>Freight lingered on for a few months on the line with a once a week
>service, until one of the wooden bridges was condemned.
>With virtually no passengers and no freight, there was really no reason to
>spend millions on rebuilding life expired bridges.
>
>David Bennetts
>Canberra
>