A CHORUS of people voiced their concerns about the proposed Melbourne-to-Brisbane Inland Rail corridor between Narromine and Narrabri, seeking answers as to why the particular route was selected.
They were among 90 people at a NSW Farmers community forum focused solely on the rail corridor and included local farmers and town residents plus landholders between Peak Hill and Narromine.
Tomingley West resident, Sara Cannon spoke about being just 50 metres from a proposed inter-modal terminal site.
“I’m quite concerned about that and on hearing a train passing every hour, they (the ARTC) haven’t communicated with us,” she said.
Narromine’s High Park rural-residential estate resident Bob Meadley, said that while not a member of the farming fraternity, he fully appreciated NSW Farmers taking up the fight.
“Last June it looked like the rail was going west of town, then in December it turned to an easterly route,” he said.
“Maybe it was done to reduce noise to the town, but it now affects another residential estate.”
Alan Channell, High Park, Narromine, who worked on the railways building the Broken Hill to Parkes line in 1999, said there were better, obvious, options than the proposed route.
Walgett farmer Ed Colless, “Ashantee”, asked what the strategy was for the current GrainCorp assets on existing rail lines.
“It doesn’t seem they are going to get trucks off the road,” he said.
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Neville Roberts, north of Narromine, said lanes connecting major road links within the shire were going to be closed.
“Just how many? This is not acceptable and we are getting different versions from different blokes who were supposed to come back to us, but haven’t,” he said.
David McBurnie, “Weealla”, Balladoran, whose house is within metres of the proposed new line, said what he was hearing from the meeting was that the crowd would like the corridor to go back to the existing rail line.
“If we stick together, we can stop them from coming onto our properties, making them go back to the existing line.”
