In response to last week’s letter ‘Rail line’s future’, Mike Yarrow mentions Mayor Michael Lyon’s apparent change of mind regarding his support four years ago for rail in Byron Shire.
When it closed 19 years ago in 2004, I thought rail should be reinstated, but after a couple of years I, along with many others, saw increasingly diminishing chances of this.
Mayor Lyon would appear to have advanced his thoughts, probably due to the extraordinary costs of rail per se. and is likely watching, as most of us are, the wonderfully successful Tweed Rail Trail, with smiling faces on cyclists, walkers and business owners and their staff, as opportunities have, and continue to, flourish. Hardly ‘an insignificant minority group’!
It may be worth noting too, that prospects of rail are diminishing exponentially, with not only the neighbouring LGAs’ keen interests in their rail trail sections throughout most of the 132km length of our old rail corridor, but that a major impediment to a rail service rebuild, is the micro 3km length already committed to the Solar Train, which will likely never be extended an inch further, due to many reasons.
Rail trails are very conducive to natural ecological protection, as much more bush is allowed and encouraged, and rail trail users are magnets for wildlife observing. It’s a big part of the experience.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
