The two Councils are proceeding with the planning for the NE rail trail. Both Councils have now received funding (ARC partial funding thus far and waiting for the next part). Given the fact that both Councils have a majority who support the NERT, the only option available for us is to request the NSW State government and opposition parties to explore various other options for the northern rail line before closing it to construct the rail trail. We are writing the Premier and ministers as well as opposition parties on this. We do not believe both Councils have investigated other options such as tourist trains, passenger trains, or freight transport before deciding to go ahead with the Rail Trail.

Rail Trail is a tourism project with short term objectives.  Re-developing the northern rail line to connect with Inland Rail to the north and South East Queensland can give us far more benefits not only in terms of population and economic growth but also better connectivity, social and human well-being, easy travel for educational,employment or health purposes.  Air travel from Armidale to Sydney is not cheap if you want to book travel in a short lead time. Cost of repairing NE highway for the trucks to transport goods are not cheap either. Many accidents happen on the highway involving trucks as well.  Please write to your local member and the government Ministers concerned with regional development, infrastructure and transport and ask them to examine other uses of northern rail line before voting to close it.

We do not have much time before the legislative amendment can come to the parliament. Please consider this as a priority.