Is it the same in your part of the world? Railways are dying and this one is all but dead. Our State Government is proposing to sell this line as scrap metal and to remove this bridge. The roadway passes between the pylons. (Our grandfather told stories of wild goats, left overs from the gold mining days, sleeping out on the ledges on these pylons to escape dingoes.) But it is the human effort that went into the building of the line that pulls at my heart strings and the rugged beauty of the area it passes through as it drops down the range using 7 tunnels built with pick and shovel in the 1920s. A group of us were trying to preserve the section from the base of the range to the top for a tourist rail using little people movers that carried four people each. But it is looking as if our proposal is falling on deaf ears. We have an investor very interested in the project but a government that will not listen. But the fight is not over yet. Time will tell if the voice of the little people will be heard.
This is a beautiful scene, but a sad story. Charlie always equates stories like this to the buggy whip industry--it can't be propped up. There is a small train travel industry in the US, subsidized by the government. Cargo trains are still common. Of course, in metropolitan areas, there are commuter rails and subways, which are always crowded.
Nice shot Margaret.
One of the things that really struck me when travelling in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada was the extensive use made there of the railways for transporting goods and the disproportionately small number of semi trailers, B-Doubles etc clogging up the highways.
The country in those two provinces is far less suited to railways than Australia's flat open countryside and yet they manage to have a thriving railway network and we don't. Why??? We prefer to clog our highways with transport trucks and all the inherent problems that goes with them. It is very easy to get bloody angry at the complete lack of vision displayed by governments in Australia.
And don't get me started on the internet speed we had in city and rural Canada when compared with the plodding speeds we have to put up with In OZ. Uploading three 6mb files to 365 was taking about a tenth of the time it takes here in Brissy.
I understand how the railway business isn't what it was--just like the newspaper business is dying. But it would still be a shame for that lovely old bridge to be destroyed. It's nice to have reminders of another time around.
One of the things that really struck me when travelling in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada was the extensive use made there of the railways for transporting goods and the disproportionately small number of semi trailers, B-Doubles etc clogging up the highways.
The country in those two provinces is far less suited to railways than Australia's flat open countryside and yet they manage to have a thriving railway network and we don't. Why??? We prefer to clog our highways with transport trucks and all the inherent problems that goes with them. It is very easy to get bloody angry at the complete lack of vision displayed by governments in Australia.
And don't get me started on the internet speed we had in city and rural Canada when compared with the plodding speeds we have to put up with In OZ. Uploading three 6mb files to 365 was taking about a tenth of the time it takes here in Brissy.
Gee I feel better now :-)