(Ashbury, further along the route, 1960s. Copyright The Rail Thing)
The excellent Launceston Steam Railway is having problems with its local council which seems to have lost the plot big time!
The railway has been working with Cornwall County Council for some time with the intention of extending to Egloskerry - and on the strength of this purchased land in Egloskerry for the new line.
But now the council is planning to build a multi purpose route (walking, bikes, horses) which the railway fears may make it's future unviable if they can't get through to Egloskerry. Personally I don't believe anything - least of all a mere trailway - will stop the huge rail revival in the UK, but all the same it will make extension more difficult if too many users object to the railway returning, not an issue at all now but could be in the future.
To this end I think we should ALL sign the petition to CCC to get them to rethink this plan. the petition can be signed here.
2 comments:
Here we go again.
The same argument has been raging on the Portishead line for some.
There are certain pressure groups behind this sudden change of position.
Did LSR buy the line extension on the strength of assurances from CCC?
Might be worth a look.
It does appear from what I've read that the LSR bought this extra trackbed purely because they thought CCC fully supported the extension.
I do think they are being slightly hysterical that a trailway will 'block the route for trains forever' as surely it will be an easy job to simply relocate (or indeed remove) the trailway when the time comes for the line to have to be replaced. In my view it will eventually be a standard gauge route anyway, much as I'd love to see a network of two foot gauge routes serving the villages and resorts of North Cornwall I suspect that traffic will be far too heavy for that to work!
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