CONGRATULATIONS to Gilgandra council for the successful rail meeting on October 21 seeking the best rail path for a trunk rail route Melbourne to Brisbane, to serve the interests of rural Australia that will provide cohesion and a life of its own for rural Australia away from the coastal cities.



The Gilgandra meeting will prove to be a circuit breaker for people of rural Australia who have for too long been without a fast trunk rail service to serve the needs and aspirations of rural people who need fast transport co-ordinating the already extensive rail links that are by definition branch lines that at present, have little or no relationship with each other.

The Brisbane-Melbourne trunk rail will pick up the ends of the existing rail network, give rural Australia a choice of other destinations and least-cost paths to new opportunities for export and industrial development and exploit the tourist potential of rural Australia.



The defence potential of the proposed trunk route is significant.



It will lay the keel of decentralised industries in rural Australia and provide export opportunities for decentralised manufacturers away from the overcrowded coastal cities.



The Snowy scheme will not reach its potential without the western trunk rail service linking the river valleys to export destinations by the least-cost path.



The Melbourne-Brisbane trunk rail foreshadows a Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin link through western Queensland and the Tableland.



The Gilgandra meeting wisely suggests avoiding towns and built-up urban areas. They will be served by service loops.



Australias flat plains are ideal railway country and we should have the worlds best railway.



KEVIN ONEILL,



Progressive Rail Association,



Tocumwal

The Border Mail