news, local-news, north-east, railway, launceston, rail, rail trail, examiner, 2017, brown

Victorian railway engineer Bob Vanselow has labelled the North-East railway line all but fit for purpose, saying it would be a ‘crime’ to remove the track. Mr Vanselow, who has been inspecting the track since Sunday, was one of about 90 who attended Launceston and North-East Railway’s public meeting at Lebrina Hall on Wednesday night. The rail group - based in the state’s North-East - has become increasingly vocal in voicing its plans to run a tourist train on the disused line, which has also been earmarked for use as a cycle trail. Launceston and North-East Railway vice chairman Clynton Brown said Mr Vanselow had been mostly impressed with the state of the railway line. “He hasn’t done his full report yet but he’s getting to the end of the track at the moment and he said it’d be a crime to remove this infrastructure as it is,” Mr Brown said. “He said except in a few places he’d run a train over it tomorrow - that was met with a round of applause.” The majority of questions posed at the meeting involved the state of the track, the cost of repairs and potential train ticket fees. Mr Brown said while there were some questions the group couldn’t answer until the project gathered steam, he had been pleased by the public response to the meeting. “We had a lot of people sign up and give us donations... so it went quite well, there was a lot of interest.” The track inspection report is expected to be completed over the next couple of weeks.

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