Saw a few videos on Youtube a while back on the former track between Hamilton and Newcastle, near the Australian city of Sydney. The last I saw was that apart from the track at the level crossings being covered over, all track, OLE and signals had been removed.
From what I've seen the plan is to convert it to a light rail system (trams?), anything much happened with that project?
Transport into the traditional city centre, the East End, has been crippled by the withdrawal of the heavy rail service for the last two years while at the same time the city authorities are supposed to be trying to promote 'transit oriented development' with much high density building going on but very little new car parking.
Much concern remains over the decision by the NSW Government to route the new light rail shuttle along the main shopping street for at least half its length instead of sticking entirely to the old rail alignment (very close by), despite the Government's own research backing the old rail route alternative. In addition to the extraordinarily high costs of the work being discussed, local businesses and residents are very worried about the disruption involved during two year's projected construction. Latest headlines suggest the Government may never actually reveal the true costs of the project which was one of a number supposedly funded through a privatisation lease deal for Newcastle's ports.
There's a suspicion the whole exercise has been about property developers seeking to exploit the old rail corridor for new high-rise buildings as it is rumoured to be the only local land in the city centre with a good solid bedrock spine beneath, not undermined by historic coal mining activity. Changed building heights permitted in the local planning policy seem to support this theory.
The new heavy rail terminus under construction at Wickham is some 2km short of the original and is in an industrial area the wrong side of a major highway which developers want to promote as the new CBD. It is over 1km from the civic heart of the old city, where museums, hospitals, courts, colleges, local government offices are. Wickham will have only 3 heavy terminal platforms plus 1 light rail track to accomodate all the city's future rail needs, and it will be hemmed in by projected new high rises so will no doubt be very difficult to expand in future if required. High frequency trams will all still have to cross the major highway on the level on entering and leaving the station, so will probably cause just as much, if not more, traffic blockage as the previous heavy rail crossing cited as such a problem in trying to justify the truncation in the first place.
Not the least of many criticisms of the entire scheme is the very notion of operating such a short isolated 2km tram service economically at all. Many of the politicians involved in decisions throughout the project have been mired in scandals, including corruption relating to land certain individuals own around Wickham. There have been resignations at state and local level and despite returning to power in 2015 in coalition withe Nationals, the ruling Liberal party (Tories in Australia) lost ALL their seats around Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. As part of their battle with the local 'Save our Rail' group, the Government changed the law to allow the transport minister to be able to unilaterally make a closure order on any part of a railway without any statutory consultation procedures or parliamentary oversight being required, after SOR had previously held up the removal of the rail infrastructure after passenger service ceased, on the point that according to the railway administration act of the time they needed an act of parliament to actually remove the physical railway (although not to stop passenger service). Not only did the Government change the railway law generally, they also appealed against the initial ruling that the infrastructure had to remain under the old law, and won and have been pursuing very large legal costs from SOR as a result.
The whole thing has been one of the most perplexing and depressing railway related stories I have had the misfortune to read about in recent affairs. In most cities of the World, railways are being extended and developed. Bizarrely in Newcastle by contrast the state government has deliberately set out to move the main line terminus not 200 or 400m, but 2 whole kilometers out of the city centre to relocate it in a run down area surrounded by cheap industrial sheds the wrong side of a major highway. Furthermore it is prepared to then spend hundreds of millions of dollars on recreating that final 2km link in light rail form. It makes little sense and has the whiff of the major passenger closures that occurred in Britain and the US in the 50s and 60s, especially with the ominous change to the railway administration act allowing the incumbent transport minister to unilaterally close anything he or she wishes. Reading the comments on local news media websites revealed a suprisingly large number of people who completely dismissed rail as a viable modern form of passenger transport at all. It is difficult to say whether that is representative of local opinion as I know for a fact that the local Liberal party and property developer interests orchestrated a very effective and vindictive social media campaign against the pro-railers, even stretching to sinister personal threats against particular activists. On the other hand a SOR rally just before the passenger service finally ceased brought out over 4000 people in favour of retaining it.
