Dear Rail Supporters,

Yesterday several of us from Trains North went to Glen Innes to attend the Council Meeting held at the Libray conference room. 

There was a motion seeking council approval to proceed with preliminary work about the rail trail between Glen Innes and Glencoe(22kms).  This is a shortened version and it will not extend to Ben Lomond as previously planned.

Council was also seeking approval to use $170,000 from the General fund to carry out preliminary work.

3 Councillors voted for the motion with some amendments and 3 voted against. Mayor Banham cast his casting vote.  So the motion was passed.

While this shows the division of opinions among councillors, it will allow the council to progress the rail trail plan further.  If the funding agency allows it to use the BLER grant for the shortened version, and the council starts design and construction phase it will be a massive blow to our vision for convincing the NSW government to restore the rail line and re-start passenger train services north of Armidale.  It will also impact on current initiatives to operate heritage or freight trains.

Both councils have a fair way to go to obtain final approval from the relevant ministers for the rail trail plan.  They have to show that their plans comply with the requirements of NSW Rail Trail Framework(Google and you can see the details).

Rail Trail supporters have started a petition via change.org. It has received over 6000 supprters by now.  Please share the link for our petition among your friends, family or lists you subscribe to and ask them to show support for what we are seeking from the councils and NSW government. This is very important.

We cannot be complacent at this stage of the process.  We need to show the government that there are more people in the community who want the train services back to areas north of Armidale.

Siri Gamage