Newcastle(AUS): Busy Newcastle inner-city rail looks to be ripped up

[Red_Rattler]

The anti-heavy rail people are trying to claim it will be used for light rail. I and others have personally seen a developer's Youtube video (before they hid one of them) and what it shows is the line being replaced with a large mass of buidings instead. To put it bluntly, the rail line sits on valuable real estate. And if you search for some Youtube videos, you will see that the line is well used by passengers, however the pro-cutters of the line, claim it is very underused.

And it is a very busy line. See http://www.cityrail.info and choose the Newcastle & Central Coast Line, and the Hunter Line from the drop down menus.

http://www.theherald.com.au/news/lo...-newcastle-innercity-rail/2388084.aspx?page=4

NEIL GOFFETT
10 Dec, 2011 04:00 AM

THE state government is poised to make one of the biggest political statements in the Hunter’s history by ripping up the inner-city rail line between Hamilton and Newcastle.
At least that’s been the talk of the town all week.

Woodville Junction at Hamilton is understood to be the preferred terminus, with a green corridor left, allowing for a future light rail service, into the CBD.

Premier Barry O’Farrell and Minister for the Hunter Mike Gallacher will not make an announcement until next year but there is a meeting on December 19 to examine the proposal.

Various business sources have told the Newcastle Herald they have been consulted about the plan.

Newcastle state MP Tim Owen was tight-lipped about the topic yesterday, leaving it for the Premier’s office to issue this statement: ‘‘We are having ongoing discussions with stakeholders to examine the options for transport in Newcastle and the Hunter.’’

Woodville Junction was identified by lord mayor John Tate as the perfect site for the city’s rail interchange in 2002.

Several other options have been explored since then, including cutting the rail line at Wickham and also at Broadmeadow station where the northern line splits from the inner-city line.

Former state Labor minister Jodi McKay was under pressure from Fix Our City advocates to cut the passenger line to the city to open it for future investors.

The GPT Group blamed the state Labor government’s inaction over the rail line as the main reason for withdrawing its $600million Hunter Street Mall development in August last year.

Mr O’Farrell said he was willing to work with development companies to deliver key infrastructure aimed at revitalising Newcastle’s CBD.

‘‘The future of the Newcastle rail line and CBD will be a matter for the Hunter Infrastructure and Investment Fund," Mr O’Farrell said in April this year.

The Hunter infrastructure investment board, announced last month, is working on the issue.

 

[Red_Rattler]

While ANY media organisation should have a neutral view on all their articles, it is well known that The Herald are in support of removing the rail line.

Along with that, they are quite biased towards one side when readers make a comment on their site. Quite often, for those that support keeping the heavy rail line, are heavily edited. Also those that support cutting the heavy rail line get away with what could be considered personal attacks towards those who support this vital heavy rail line. For example, the ones who support cutting the rail use the word "twits" towards the people in support of keeping the rail line. Yet when the exact same post was made from the supporters of this heavy rail line, the word "twits" was changed. This is not just a one off either.

Edit: Please note that their is a certain inner-city hobby shop where the manager supports the removal of this heavy rail line.

 

[JCitron]

I thought this was dead last year?

These people never give up, do they! It's all about developers and what they can do, rather than what's good for the rest of us.

Here's an interesting story.There's a line up in Maine called the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad. This short line railroad came to be way back in the 1920s. It was charted in 1836, becoming a Maine Central branch for quite some time then independent in the 1920s. It was built to connect Belfast, which is on the Atlantic Ocean to a place called Burnham Junction. The line never did make it to Moosehead Lake, which is quite a distance west from there.

Well normal passenger service stopped some time in the 1950s, and freight service soldiered on. The service was mostly agricultural, serving the poultry and fishing industries in the area. Passenger service became a side business, as a tourist service between Burnham Jct. and the downtown.

Well in the early to mid 2000s, the "city" wanted the railroad out. The excuse was the city gave up its share in the railroad then evicted the company from the waterfront. Essentially a developer wanted the land for "better" use with big plans for a condominiums, stores, buildings, walkways, etc., and did some convincing of the city officials to give up on the "money loser" train operation.

The railroad was banished from its home, where it had been in place since the 1830s. The railroad moved its, now tourist operation north, and abandoned the line into the city. The old yard was ripped up, and nothing was done with the land! There it sat fallow, no condos built, no stores and fancy shops, no yaht clubs, nothing but old ballast and rust! Developers are wonderful people, aren't they!

The good news is the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), has purchased the railroad line into Belfast, and is intending to restore service again.

Perhaps your city of Newcastle won't be as shortsighted. Being shortsighted with transportation costs a lot of money in the long run.

John

 

[paulzmay]

It truly is incredible. Most cities in the world (OK perhaps not all of the USA) would give their eye teeth for a rail link so close into the CBD. Cities spend many millions (remember the Sydney CBD metro plan?) getting rail closer in to shops and businesses in order to revitalise city centres and alleviate congestion. In most of the world, this kind of thinking went out over 30 years ago.

Truly staggering - what price democracy?

Paul

 

[H222]

It truly is incredible. Most cities in the world (OK perhaps not all of the USA) would give their eye teeth for a rail link so close into the CBD. Cities spend many millions (remember the Sydney CBD metro plan?) getting rail closer in to shops and businesses in order to revitalise city centres and alleviate congestion. In most of the world, this kind of thinking went out over 30 years ago.

Truly staggering - what price democracy?

Paul

Here in Melbourne we're lucky, we have Stations all over the CBD and our trams are on every second street

Jamie

 

[Red_Rattler]

See below for a type of comment that a newspaper allows

See my pictures here: & my video here, and tell me if you think it is well partonised? (Other photos that were on Fotopic to be added that shows EXACTLY what happens if you remove the train line. - Video in very low quality on purpose)

Also this is a video from one of the groups that support keeping the rail line.

Let's put this way:-
If you were a developer and you saw a strip of land that is next to the water, . . .?
To put it simply $$$$, sorry I mean $$$$, waterfront land, not undermined, etc.
(ADD: Actually, if I was a developer, I would use the line to the advantage of my customers, etc, and say “Why should I disadvantage my customers and force them to make an unnecessary change of mode of transport.”)

By the way, I was going to use a more appropriate word starting with "g" in the title, but the developer can find that offensive.

 

[Red_Rattler]

Some may find part of the following quote inappropriate
(That's why I've put it in a separate post.)

Moderators/administrators, please delete this post or quote in this post if you find it inappropriate for this forum, however it is the type of comment that the moderator(s) of the newspaper allows. (The part that starts off "will be")

It comes from this paper's link here

Well thank goodness these SOR trainspotters aren't in government or nothing would ever get done. Well lucky for us we have a government that does want things done, and even if the cynic in me says it's because of development money, well that's still good, as long as it gets rid of the ugly rail tracks that's fine by me. I am 21 and want a city to be proud of, these SOR people are stuck in the past and will be dead in 20 odd years whereas we have to live here for much longer......go on Bazza Rip her up....I dare ya, me and my generation will be very grateful at the polling booths, hint hint, lol.

And quite often, the comments towards those that support keeping the rail line, can be considered inappropriate.

Edit: I can not believe this, but this paper is publicly allowing swear words. Sure they're using asterisks & hashes, or close to words, but I'm talking about them using "that" word.

 

[Red_Rattler]

Lobbyist turns off light rail

Now surely this article proves what we have been saying all along. (See highlighted words & more underneath quote)

Lobbyist turns off light rail
BY MATTHEW KELLY
15 Dec, 2011 04:00 AM

THE former director-general of Transport NSW wants the Newcastle rail line cut at Hamilton, with no light rail connection into Newcastle.
John Lee, who now heads the Tourism and Transport Forum lobby group, has met with several of Newcastle’s civic and business leaders this week to discuss the rail line’s future.

Mr Lee advocated spending $30million creating a transport interchange at Woodville Junction while he oversaw the state’s transport system between 2003 and 2006.

He believes improving the bus service between Hamilton and Newcastle is a better option than light rail.

‘‘I don’t support light rail in Newcastle because you don’t have the density,’’ he said.

‘‘Light rail only works when it’s point-to-point, where there are two areas that can fill it both ways.’’

The Newcastle Herald reported last week that the business community believes the state government is poised to make a decision about the rail line early in the new year.

Woodville Junction at Hamilton is understood to be the preferred terminus, with a green corridor left, allowing for a future light rail service, into the CBD.

Mr Lee believes alternative land uses need to be found for the Newcastle rail corridor.

‘‘It is worldwide best practice now that integrated development, that is, a mixture of some retail, some commercial or some residential all within walking distance of each other is how you activate an area,’’ he said.

But before that could occur, the government needed to provide a clear direction for the CBD.

It is NOT world's best practice to take away public transport, ESPECIALLY from a CBD.

 

[JCitron]

Mr. RR,

Just as I said. This is developer speak, or some well greased palms by a developer speaking through a city official.

Unfortunately if your media, like ours, is controlled by the 1% with the money, because there's no way of proving that this is true until it's too late.

John

 

[Red_Rattler]

If it is suitable for this forum, when I can find it, I'll show you a letter that was in The Herald. Let's put this way, it could possible border on not suitable, but again, think that it needs to be shown. While they have cleaned up very slightly that is the style of post allowed to be approved.

 

[Red_Rattler]

Unfortunately if your media, like ours, is controlled by the 1% with the money, because there's no way of proving that this is true until it's too late.

No way of proving it?

I beg to differ. See the two pictures here: http://saveourrail.org.au/?p=193
The rail line runs right through those yellow & bright yellow solid cube things.

Please note I am not promoting their site. It was hard enough just to find the images.

At the moment, I can't find that questionable letter to the editor

 

[paulzmay]

Even more ridiculous - the most desirable land for development is between Civic and Central - the last 2 stops. Civic seems to be in a reasonably central location, so why cut the line quite so far back?

In ideal world, the developers would be able to develop this last stretch of line, provided that they paid to lower the line into the basements of their new buildings. They will probably excavate for underground car-parks anyway...

Elsewhere in the world, it's quite common for developers to be asked for contributions for infrastructure (both road and public transport). This could have been a win-win.

Paul

 

[Red_Rattler]

Don't want to spend too much time on this, unless the need arises.

This is interesting, the SAME developer (GPT) wants the rail line cut to get the rail land, yet the SAME developer is pushing to get a HEAVY rail link to their Rouse Hill shopping centre in North Western Sydney.
Oh and by the way, you are actually not permitted to say that GPT want the rail line as they are after the rail land on Graeme Gilbert's talkback radio show. At the time he talked over you, won't let you air you side (unless it agrees with his views completely, and eventually get cut off.

But it seems as though a decision could be made either next week or very early next year. In otherwords, when is the best time to announce bad news?

That's right, under the vale of Christmas or New Years Eve, when a lot of people are away. The government is trying to hide the announcement. They do the same thing all the time, try to announce things on a Friday, to make it difficult for people/groups to reply.

What I can't understand though is that a certain hobby shop that starts with "F", their manager is also one of the main people trying to get the rail line cut.