Articles/Letters
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Trains, rails and questions of multi-use trails Vaughn Allan
T
he question of what to do with the disused rail corridor remains a hot debate 15 years after the last train ran. Rail trail, rail only, rail with trail; it seems the only thing people can agree on is that the corridor is being squandered while it sits unused. Council have backed a rail with trail vision, having commissioned a report; the Multi-Use Rail Corridor Study (MURC), to rally the community behind a vision, and to convince the State Government to back the idea. Unpacking any option that includes rail services, we’re faced with new questions: What sort of rail service do we want? How would it work? And, who’s going to pay for it? These questions remain unanswered, and until they are, the corridor is likely to continue its quiet degradation. Three different rail options continue to swirl around the debate. The first is returning regional services, like the old XPT services that ran before its closure. Second, is a desire for a commuter service that
replaces current transport trips between townships, potentially linking up with regional services at each end. The third option is a historic railway service that provides a unique tourist experience; an expanded version of the existing solar train service that runs between Byron and Bayshore Drive. All three options have vastly different service levels and operating models that make them ‘stack up’.
Only Byron Shire The MURC report is actually very explicit in what it’s assessing. It only looks at running services on 35km of track within the Byron Shire, with rail services running between 40–60km/h; therefore most of the patronage will come from tourists. This leaves us with a choice between a local commuter service or an historic railway service. You might be asking at this point, ‘Why can’t we have both?’ Here we come back to those two questions raised before; ‘How would it work?’ and ‘Who’s going to pay for it?’ A commuter service
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CHESS by Ian Rogers The arrest last week of former Moscow U/18 Champion Inga Ochneva (pictured right), who was present in the centre of Moscow during a free-Navalny demonstration, has generated barely a murmur from chess organisations. A friend of Ochneva reports she was part of a group ‘kettled’ by the police, put into an unheated paddy wagon and eventually taken to a police station. Grandmasters Alexander Grischuk and Daniil Dubov were also present at a protest but escaped arrest. A fellow chessplayer Vladimir Fomin approached the Prosecutor General to explain that Ochneva was walking through the centre of Moscow, came across the crowd and was then unable to extricate herself, to no avail. Three days later Ochneva was placed before the Solntsevsky District Court and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment for taking part in an unauthorised rally. (Around 11,000 people were arrested in Moscow over a series of days, with most sentenced to between five and 15 days.) Ochneva was taken to the
Sakharovo migrant detention centre – the jails were full – where secretly recorded video showed her in an overcrowded and unhygienic cell with 10 others. Her family and friends were thus able to locate her and provide her with food and drink. Ochneva, 22, is no longer a professional player, having turned to music. However, as she is a Women’s FIDE Master one might have expected the major chess bodies to offer support. Yet neither the world body FIDE nor the Russian Chess Federation have offered help or issued a statement. Unfortunately this is hardly surprising, since both organisations have close connections to the Russian government, with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich stepping down as Russian Deputy Prime Minister in 2018.
10 The Byron Shire Echo DĕćſƖëſƷ ǨǮǽ ǩǧǩǨ
requires high frequency trains, run by professional staff, with attractive fares to lure people to use the service. This requires subsidy from government to cover the costs. Train fares only make up 15 per cent of NSW Train’s operating expenses. The truth is that commuter rail services never make their money back. The reason why such services are provided is because they return a benefit to the communities they serve, not because they return a profit.
Lacks detailed costs The MURC report outlines a commuter-like service based on current regional NSW rail fares, mostly used by tourists. Patronage is forecast using capital city rail studies, including the figures that predict large proportions of the patrons to major festivals being expected to switch from driving to the rail service. Park and ride facilities are essential for tourists using the service. Nominal costs are provided, but details on the costs
Mullum’s green spine Regarding Council’s concept ideas for the Stuart Street ‘Green Spine Project’, I am strongly opposed to any change in the traffic arrangement in Stuart Street that might reduce access to the town or that reduces parking ability or that pushes parking out further from the town centre. Mullumbimby is a country town that provides essential services for a regional area; foodstores, doctors, chemists, dentists, post office, hardware, newsagent – and it is vital that residents have easy access to these necessary community services. We are not the Gold Coast and we don’t need a ‘pedestrian mall experience’. Street beautification that reduces parking availability, pushing traffic out onto some of the shocking roads in Mullum, mandating that we have to
required to meet the forecast patronage are lacking. A service with commuter levels of service, requiring peak capacity during festival periods, with cheap fares would only be possible with deep subsidies.
No funding support The report’s authors believe that the project would return a net positive benefit to the community. A net positive benefit, however, does not mean that it doesn’t require subsidies. Any proposal put forward by Council must have a reasonable chance of being supported by either state or federal funding bodies. This proposal does not. There is a further challenge for a commuter rail service in Byron Bay. Even with frequent and cheap services, it’s difficult to compete with decades of car-oriented development. Outside of a few peak periods when traffic on Ewingsdale and Bangalow Roads backs up, driving will likely remain quicker. walk a long way to access services is not serving the needs of the people who use this town for their everyday needs. People who are even slightly disabled – young or old – will then become reliant on others for help and/or transport. We have virtually no public transport, and all the residents of the surrounding rural areas who are reliant on cars, and can’t walk or cycle to these services, will be disadvantaged. It is busy now... imagine more gridlock! Fix up the shocking roads, put in a decent footpath and bike-path, plant some trees, but please do not reduce our access! M Green Myocum
Old tricks? After I wrote last week’s letter questioning Byron Council’s performance in a court case it lost I was handed a copy of the Commissioner’s written
When people do get to town, there’s enough free or cheap parking to make that small wait in traffic worth it. This is not an article about the car vs train argument, but about highlighting the challenge inherent to a rail service of competing against decades of prioritised car use. An historic railway service is a different beast, entirely. There are many successful rail services across Australia that operate this kind of service, including right here in Byron Bay. They’re able to achieve this by doing several things differently. First, they’re almost entirely volunteer run. Second, they use railcars that are cheap to operate (like the Solar Train!). Third, they charge premium fares that are able to cover the operations and maintenance costs. And finally, they use fundraising and government grants for major upgrades and track extensions. Despite these advantages, bolting commuter services onto an historic rail service comes with its own unique challenges. Bendigo, in regional Victoria, provides us with a timely example. In 2009, and again in 2018, they sought to expand their longrunning historic tram service to lure the town’s many drivers to commute using the tram instead. They offered reduced fares, increased services, and ran a public campaign. The experiment was short-lived. The network is too small to be able to effectively take enough judgement in that matter. I nearly fell over when I saw that Council had been represented by a firm called Wilshire Webb Wilshire Webb were Max Eastcott’s [former Council GM] personal lawyers when he appeared before ICAC in 1995. Not long afterwards they became Council’s lawyers, and they were still Council’s lawyers in 1998 when I was voted onto Council. In those days councillors took a direct interest in legal proceedings via the Legal Services Committee. We took note of costs and various stages of legal proceedings in which Council was involved, voting to continue or discontinue proceedings, whether to appeal or not, the merits of the various cases and so on. Former general manager (GM) Graham Faulkner contrived first to mothball the
people where they want to go more conveniently than their existing car commute. However, heritage rail services can provide increased services during holiday and festival periods, and with modest subsidies from council or festival operators. Tickets could be attractively priced, though admittedly delivering a service similar to the existing festival bus services.
Sustainable options A proper evaluation of where the rail and trail can coexist side-by-side and the operational limits of the Solar Train will be needed before determining if an extension of the service is possible. Currently, the Solar Train is unlikely to have the power to make it up a sizeable hill, like the one to Bangalow. Council should look to preserve the track where possible, to allow the Solar Train to extend, sustainably, over time. For the rest, Council should follow the surrounding councils in starting works to connect townships with the rail trail, allowing the tourist and community benefits to start flowing. A vision that recognises the political and economic realities of the rail corridor is needed; there is a chance for rail to play a part, just not the kind some may have been hoping for. Q Vaughn Allan is a transport analyst based in Melbourne who regularly visits Byron Shire.
committee, and later, to get rid of it altogether. I lobbied to reinstate the committee but Basil Cameron went public suggesting that said committee usurped the role of Council. That was rubbish. Every committee decision has to be ratified by the full Council. Wilshire Webb were highly controversial during their tenure and when I was on Council; I described them as ‘dodgy as hell’. I never received a summons, or even a threatening letter. Ross Tucker responded to my claims by sarcastically mocking them in his little rag, a right wing technique, later perfected by Donald Trump. Anyway, Wilshire Webb were finally kicked out about 20 years ago. They themselves might describe it differently, but within legal circles I heard it was ▶ Continued on page 12
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