The old timers invested heavily in rail. Memories of the people and freight moving constantly between states and through towns by rail are still held sentimentally in the minds and hearts of many Australians. Today rail is still used extensively but many rail links are now not in use as the cost of running and maintaining isn't very economical compared to moving freight by road. Road freight using large b-double trucks or single trailer trucks is more favoured instead of rail transport. Although rail freight is still important to keep supplies of many goods between cities for distribution throughout regional Australia.
Proposals that fell through for the rail link
Since services were suspended in 2004 many people throughout the region want the trains back that linked towns such as Casino, Lismore, Ballina, Lismore, Byron Bay and Murwillumbah. The hope that rail will service the area once again and link up to the Gold Coast and onto Brisbane is favourable within the Northern Rivers community.
Rail Trail Fail
A proposal to turn some of the link to a rail trail in the hope that it would stimulate tourism with visitors walking and cycling along the stretches couldn't receive the vital funding and lost support of council.
Alternative Solution
Billions of dollars and mass amounts of time are currently going into driverless car technologies. Four universities in Australia alone are developing the technology not to mention all the other universities throughout the world working on the development of driverless technology. Volvo, Google and many other large organisations are trying to speed the progress of this technology. Driverless trains are now becoming a reality in Europe.
https://www.facebook.com/MechanicsAndEngineering/videos/1865236933760921/
The Tweed, Byron and Ballina shires should be approaching these organisations to test and use driverless trams along these unused corridors. Driverless trams/buses could be a viable passenger transport system or it may be just a novelty tourist attraction that only uses part of the existing disused rail system. Driverless trams/buses have wheels and will not need rail and electric lines to run and instead run on wheels on a level paved track. This would save millions on infrastructure costs and ongoing maintenance costs of this utility.
Funding doesn't need to be sought from the government as much if the large organisations that back the research take to funding a driverless tram project through the historic Northern Rivers Rail link. The attraction for these organisations is to be seen as the innovators of this type of transport being prototyped through one of the countries most beautiful tourist destinations. Images of driverless tram-bus type capsule transport travelling throughout the rail link would be good exposure for both the concept developer and the region, attracting visitors. Visitors love to ride through remote areas on novel transport. Councils should begin to contact these organisations to grow interest into this type of technology to be used in this way along the Casino-Murwillumbah link. Even bringing some representatives out for a look or at least sending images with a report may stimulate further interest to get the link working again as a commercial/tourist or research project. As organisations such as Google and Volvo and the many universities working to driverless technology into the present day, this may be an opportunity for the region to benefit from this currently unused asset.
These images below were taken recently on the Coromandel Peninsula region of New Zealand were hundreds of tourists board this small tram (for $35) that runs a small distance into the forest showing were the potter used to retrieve his clay from to do his pottery. This location is actually a pottery themed successful tourist destination.
Visitors love to ride through remote areas on novel transport
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