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Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
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Author:  Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/sout ... y-to-close

Quote:
Following a Special General Meeting at the railway's headquarters in Korumburra, the membership have voted to close the tourist railway after 21 years of operation.

Reasons? Cited:

*Lack of adequate volunteers: " South Gippsland Railway has 82 members, of these 42 are 'active' volunteers. Active means that they come here and do something. Of the 42 active members, 27 came here to perform operational duties i.e. drivers and guards. The remaining 15 members were actually running the railway, performing track work, mechanical work, vegetation control, drainage, restoration, cleaning, bookings and administration."

*Too much bureaucracy and government regulation: "While there were people attending to these matters; our accreditation manager spent many hours per week working through the documentation and our civil manager was studying track infrastructure and geometry (both of these men have full time jobs), there were not enough people available to assist these people.
Re-writing the safety management system document required 6 safety meetings over the course of a year. A couple of these meetings were postponed due to the outside commitments of our volunteers so the process took 15 months. Transport Safety Victoria had given us 12 months to complete the task. I'm guessing that the fact that the document was presented 3 months late indicated to TSV that we were struggling."

*Violent attacks on the railway and its volunteers in early 2015:
"THE Korumburra community has been shaken by two violent attacks on three volunteers of the South Gippsland Tourist Railway on Saturday night.
Richard Davies of Korumburra is fighting for his life in hospital after being bashed with a baseball bat. Yesterday afternoon (Monday), he was not well enough for surgery, suffering two fractures to one arm, suspected broken ribs, bleeding on the brain and a fractured skull."

More:
The official last newsletter: http://www.sgr.org.au/newsjan2016.pdf
Just before the final meeting: https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/sout ... our-future
http://thestar.com.au/blog/vicious-atta ... orumburra/
https://www.railpage.com.au/news/s/a-hi ... ilway-line

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Author:  tom moungovan [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 11:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
Sad to hear, but likely the powers that be explored the closing for some time before making the decision.
Author:  G. W. Laepple [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
A couple of friends in Australia provided this information with the news of the closure. "The South Gippsland Tourist Railway operated a 36-mile line about 75 miles from Melbourne, though in recent times it was only able to operate on about 19 miles of line due to track conditions. It is in a very scenic area, but there is very limited population and few amenities for visitors. In addition, the right-of-way suffered from many years of deferred maintenance, and bridges and fills were a particular problem. Disposition of the equipment has not been determined, as the connection to the Victorian Railways system is no longer available."
Author:  p51 [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
I just read about the attacks on their people. Glad they caught the little twerps who caused it, though.
Man, I wouldn't volunteer at any place where this was a possibility, especially where it's already happened. Youths are imitative by nature; once one of them thinks of something, plenty of others follow suit.
Sad as it is, I can't blame the volunteers for calling it quits there. I can imagine the sign at the boarded up depot:
Quote:
Thank you, people of Korumburra, for providing an environment of apathy and danger. Have fun trying to find something else to bring people to this one-horse town now!
Author:  Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 3:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
p51 wrote:
Man, I wouldn't volunteer at any place where this was a possibility, especially where it's already happened.


I hate to break it to you, but unless you operate within a secure facility such as a prison, military base, or theme park, it's a "possibility" anywhere. (And even at Disney World, Fort Bragg, or whatever, it's not impossible either.)

Your odds of such activity may be higher in densely-populated urban areas simply because there are more people, and thus greater odds of a pathological miscreant being present, but this Australian railroad itself was not exactly in an urban setting. Korumburra has less than 5,000 people, according to Wikipedia.

Any further discussion of the related issues delves into discussions of political and sociological issues which tend to end up loaded with acrimony and illogical emotional arguments, so I'm not going there. But suffice it to say that these issues affect places like Sacramento, Baltimore, etc. and their railroad museums somewhat disproportionately.
Author:  p51 [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 6:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
I was referring to somewhere that you would more likely expect or worry about it than in other locations.
We all have been places where it seems more possible that something bad might happen than in other places.
Let's see, how about getting mugged or rolled in the street? How would someone feel about the possibility at:
-Parking lot across from Strasburg RR's main depot? Possible I guess, but not much so
-Parking lot at the B&O RR museum? More possible, for sure
But, this being the internet, semantics is always something people get bogged down into.
Author:  Dave [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
There are lessons to be learned from this, and one of the least is the possibility of personal attack, which can happen to anybody anywhere there's an unhinged individual around. Sustainability, location, defining a critical mass........ all more important and universally applicable to us all.
Author:  tomgears [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 8:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
What a sad story for a line that sounds like has a lot of potential. Best wishes to everyone there.
Author:  Dennis Storzek [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 9:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
My opinion... No steam, no potential.
Author:  G. W. Laepple [ Mon Jan 18, 2016 9:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
While it is reprehensible that some punks attacked several of the volunteers, that is not the main reason the railway closed. I call your attention to this sentence in the president's article in the final newsletter: "The other two key drivers to SGTR’s situation are the
unsustainable low number of active members and finances are such that it is impossible to maintain aging infrastructure, buildings and rolling stock to standards required into the future."

There have been some "what if" discussions on these issues on this forum in the past, but I believe this may be the first time that such a scenario has actually presented itself. Agreed, the inability of the railway to meet government regulations may have been what tipped the scales, the bottom line remains, as it does for many a volunteer operation, that without volunteers willing and able to spend their money and offer their labor, we're all facing this at some point.
Author:  Rick Rowlands [ Tue Jan 19, 2016 12:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Australian Heritage Line Calls It Quits
Looks like we just lost one here in the US:
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/companies/article55359600.html
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