MEDIA RELEASE A Regional Rail Strategy for NSW
Lismore, 24-feb-2024:

NSW Governments, from both ends of the political spectrum, started dramatic cuts to our regional rail services 2 - 3 decades ago. The amount of money invested in regional rail since then is scandalously small compared to the tens of billions invested foolishly by LNP governments led by Mike Baird, Gladys Berejiklian and Dom Perrottet for the unaffordable WestConneX tollways and the badly conceived Sydney Metro.
Why would you invest rebuilding the 8 year old Chatswood - Epping line to take only single deck trains, as part of the new line Sydney - North West Metro Line? It’s like the 3 incompatible rail track gauges of QLD, NSW and Victoria in the 19th century! Why would you spend billions more converting the fully functional T3 Sydenham - Bankstown line to Sydney Metro load gauge, and forecast the complete removal of train services from Yagoona and Birrong Stations, because they don’t fit the LNP’s master plan for helping their developer mates along the proposed South West
Metro line Bankstown - Liverpool, where they will have tied up land ownership or options already along the unannounced route?
Literally dozens of local community groups in country NSW have been advocating vigorously for 12+ months for the next NSW Government to reverse decades of zero or negative investment in regional rail services. Under the umbrella groups of Voice of Northern Tablelands and Voice of Northern Rivers they are now attracting the attention of Independents and minor party candidates, in both the Upper and Lower Houses, who will support their demands for far better regional rail services.
The former Great Northern Railway line, from Armidale to the QLD border at Wallangarra represents a vital economic investment for the whole of NSW, not just the travel comfort of residents in Armidale, Guyra, Glen Innes and Tenterfield for freight and passenger services. The reopening of the Casino - Lismore - Murwillumbah line, plus a future extension to meet existing QLD rail services near Gold Coast Airport, can only have great benefits for the liveability and economy of the Richmond Valley and Far North Coast, including
Byron Bay, Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads.

Local community groups have now got behind a Regional Rail
Strategy for NSW, that is a realistic summary of NSW Government decisions that can be taken in the short and medium term to make regional and rural NSW a much more productive part of the NSW economy.
It will also help relieve the huge pressure to build more housing on the Hawkesbury River flood plains, or in native bushland near Appin, that represent the last safe habitat for koalas in NSW who have not yet been infected by Chlamydia.
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For more information and a copy of “Regional Rail Strategy for NSW” John Young EcoTransit 0407 940 943 yindi1951@gmail.com