At long last, a majority of Byron Shire councillors have acted. We’ve all been lagging behind our neighbouring councils’ successes in gaining funding to bring their rail trail sections to completion, or progressing towards completion. The 13 years of ‘Waiting for Godot’ are finally over. There would be high confidence that nearly 100 per cent of us had dreams of a rail service being reinstated, for the first couple of years since its closure 22 years ago, but then reality nibbled away as the facts rolled into our awareness over the ensuing two decades.
So the ardent faithful TOOTers managed only to forestall the inevitable, and are still trying and waiting!
That’s one for the psychology books.
So now, after congratulating the majority of our present-day councillors, with special leadership and thanks to Cr Asren Pugh, we can at least know that our state and federal governments will view us as at least in the ballpark, for consideration regarding rail trail funding applications.
Let us hope they act in urgency, as there have been so many years lost for our poor neglected corridor.
Here’s, finally, to better days ahead.
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. 
