Opinion/Sport
For North Coast news online visit
ƆIJşſƐ IJĶƆƐşſƷ şĪ şƖſ ſëĶō ĈşſſĶĎşſ ĎĕćëƐĕ 1/53 Tam
ar St, Ba
Story & photo David Lisle
llina
0431 122
057
Personal tech support for bamboozled bipeds
THE ONLY TO TION GUIDE
ACCOM MODA
BYRON
WHAT’S ON - THE VISITOR GUIDE 2020
BYRON
RIVER S NSW & NORTH ERN 0 2019/2
AND
www .byr onan i
dbey ond. com
www.byronandbeyond.com
www .byr onan
Beyond
dbey ond. com
CARPETS RUGS & VINYLS Ray Towers
Towers Drive, Mullumbimby PH 6684 2467 raytowerscarpets.com.au
CHESS by Ian Rogers ‘Don’t you think I could also be a Grandmaster if I put in one or two years of chess?’ Donald Trump asked GM Pal Benko while opening the Candidates matches at Trump Tower in New York 1994. Benko politely demurred, but the future US President did not take the comment well, with his revenge served cold. Three years later he was guest of honour at a fundraiser from an underprivileged New York primary school which was trying to raise $5,000 to send its chess team to the national championships. Trump offered a fake $1m cheque, before finally throwing in two hundred dollar notes. Fast forward to Trump’s 2016 election campaign and, when explaining his opposition to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he said ‘[to withdraw from it] you have to be like a Grand Chess Master – and we don’t have any of them.’ (At the time the US had 90 Grandmasters.) In 2016 President-elect Trump declined an invitation to attend the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and
Sergey Karjakin in New York. However, due to the high level Russian influence in both the world body FIDE and the organisers World Chess, the invitation was subsequently investigated by the Muller inquiry into Russian influence on the 2016 election. Trump responded to Muller: ‘I have become aware of documents indicating that in March 2016, the President of [FIDE] invited the Trump Organization to host, at Trump Tower, the 2016 World Chess Championship Match. I do not remember having been asked to attend the World Chess Championship and I did not attend the event… which was not being held at Trump Tower.’ Trump’s recent refusal to accept defeat has at least given some outlet for a chessplayers’ counterattack. Given the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit’s emphasis on resigning appropriately, the series’ chess consultant Bruce Pandolfini, asked about Trump, was less than flattering: ‘You don’t keep fighting when your situation is hopeless.… there are people you just don’t even want to play because they are such unpleasant losers.’
12 The Byron Shire Echo `ëŕƖëſƷ ǨǪǽ ǩǧǩǨ
The debate over our disused rail corridor has long gone stale. It is acrimonious, ideological, and exhibits a strong tendency to avoid key points. Everyone loves trains, but regrettably, train love will not return trains to our tracks. The development of railroads was a signal feature of the industrial revolution. A century and a half later, deep in the digital age, we still cling desperately to the idea of trains – the embodiment of nineteenth century progress. The Murwillumbah branch line was built in 1894; its closure 110 years later was viewed as theft, regional neglect perpetuated by corrupt, self-interested, city politicians. When the XPT ceased running between Murwillumbah and Casino in 2004, I missed, for a brief while, the train’s whistle as it passed the level crossing in Mullumbimby. But those of us who actually caught the train realised its replacement with a bus to Casino was no big deal. The train was certainly a preferable mode of conveyance, yet the effect was the same. You were reliably delivered to Casino and the Sydney train. The community was slow to react to the branch line’s closure, probably because of its trifling impact. A few train activists briefly waved placards and intoned slogans. Then the guns fell silent. The rail-trail debate was kindled in 2012 when a condition assessment, by engineers ARUP, determined that the train’s return required nearly a billion dollars’ worth of track works. A further report, by NSW transport, recommended enhanced bus services as the most effective means of improving public transport in the area. The corridor’s great promise as a rail-trail was also noted. The Sourdough Group, a local business consultancy,
soon began advocating for the disused corridor to become a cycle and walking trail (aka rail-trail). A year later, in 2014, the NSW government undertook a feasibility study which found the cost of building the trail could be quickly recouped. It ‘committed’ to funding the project but this commitment wilted in the face of community disagreement about the corridor.
şōĎ şǔ şſ ƆëưĕĎȃ The prospect of a rail-trail had reinvigorated the train lobby. Although a key concern of rail-trail proponents was preserving the corridor for future generations, they were accused of wanting the corridor sold off, and attacked for having ‘vested interests’, being ‘corporate backed’, pursuing ‘hidden agendas’, and being against public transport. At times it was as if rail-trail proponents had stolen the train, along with the hopes and aspirations of the denizens of the North Coast. The Nationals were prorail-trail and the Greens protrain. To many, this proved the rail-trail was a shonky deep-state conspiracy. The rail line’s closure was justified on the basis of low patronage and looming maintenance costs. These fiscal grounds hinted strongly at Macquarie Street’s reluctance to spend money. Yet the call to ‘bring back the train’ soon became ‘give us a commuter rail service’. Despite the clear signal that fiscal largesse
would not be forthcoming, the indefatigable soldiers of the rail renaissance decided this was the hill they would die on. Bringing the train back was never really about the worthy objective of public transport. It was always about bringing the train back. Nostalgia and symbolism were the paramount concern, not people’s material interests, such as transport access. Otherwise, these campaigners might have called for expanded bus services. A few years ago the deeppocketed resort at Belongil put a solar train on the line to convey its well-healed patrons three kilometres, at bicycle speed, into Byron Bay. The train lobby, including most councillors, rejoiced. This development was ‘movement at the station’ – evidence, that they believed, a commuter service was a fait accompli. Byron Council engaged Arcadis to report into the feasibility of reactivating the rail corridor within the Shire, and are now pursuing a project called The Byron Line. Arcadis evaluated six different multi-modal uses of the corridor. The report seemed skewed against track removal and towards novelty, although its terms of reference are illusive. Owing to the excessive cost of restoring the track, Council favours using either a hi-rail vehicle, something like a Toyota Coaster, capable of 25–35 km/h on rail, and road travel too; or a hyper-light
new rail technology for which a prototype is being developed in the UK. The report’s fine print reveals such minutiae as the need to replace the steel rail-bridge over the river in Mullumbimby with a reinforced concrete structure, an engineering and financial feat a rail-trail would not require. Council is ‘continuing to identify further funding opportunities’ for their multimodal extravaganza, while conceding ‘there is currently no funding for rail with trail’. They consider the rail-trail a plaything for tourists, yet downplay the low-key economic development it promises, and its potential to enable human-powered local transport. A bike and walking track is envisaged beside the rail ‘where feasible’ – wherever there is not a bridge, cutting, tunnel, viaduct or swamp. The Byron Line might become a railtrail, sans rail, and trail. An empty promise. After years of dithering, the other councils along the corridor have recently turned away from the train lobby. The rail-trail is now coming at Byron from two directions. Tweed Shire Council and Richmond Valley Council have shovel ready projects, fully funded by state and federal governments, currently out to tender or in design. Lismore Council is seeking funding for their section. Byron Shire may well become a laughing stock. The purist in the middle of the corridor whose quixotic mission, to bring the train back, hobbles the rail-trail. Politics may well be the art of the possible, but it’s also about compromise. Pursuing policy perfectionism is a most uncertain strategy. Occasionally, something good is better than nothing perfect. Our community has been offered a choice: either one bicycle and walking track or zero trains. We chose the latter.
mĕƱ ŕëŔĕ ëŕĎ ƆżşŕƆşſƆIJĶż Ďĕëō Īşſ Ʒſşŕ ëƷ D! Ross Kendall Long-time Club sponsors Ray White were on hand to support the launch of Byron Bay Football Club’s new club logo and team names, as well as announcing a new two-year community partnership. Established in 1963 the Club has grown to become one of the largest in the Northern Rivers, and has over 600 registered players
and volunteers. Over the past few seasons the Club’s committee has been driving a ‘one club’ philosophy of inclusiveness,
player development and social responsibility, and from 2021 all teams, across every age and gender, will play under a single club crest. Historically the male team has played as the ’Rams’ and the women as the ‘Wildcats’. From 2021 all teams in the club will play as Byron Bay Football Club. ‘While we respect our heritage, bringing all the teams at every level under
one banner is a really important step for the Club, as we continue to pursue a ‘one club philosophy’,’ said Byron Bay FC president George Roberts. ‘It’s important that our young people coming through the ranks feel they are at a Club that reflects the community they represent, which is a club united, not divided by gender, race or anything else,’ he said.
North Coast news daily in Echonetdaily www.echo.net.au