Archive for June, 2012

Busselton to Flinders Bay Rail Trail Development Plan

Monday, June 18th, 2012

After 8 months of solid work, the draft of the Trail Development Plan for the proposed Busselton to Flinders Bay Rail Trail has been submitted to the Steering Committee. The report is in two volumes: Volume 1 deals with all the background material, works lists and estimates of probable costs. Volume 2 contains all the trail construction cross sections, road crossing concept plans (58), trailhead concept plans (16) and 28 plans (using aerial photography) depicting the location of the many hundreds of construction elements. The draft Trail Development Plan will be made available for community review. The construction works lists take into account the numerous wishes of adjoining landowners who have a need to cross the former railway reserve, either to access residences or farm sheds, or to move stock and machinery from one side of the corridor to the other. During the preparation of the plan, 40+ meetings were held on-site with adjoining landowners to discuss practical issues that may ensue following development of the rail trail and to come up with an acceptable solution. In addition to the on-site meetings, another 40+ telephone conversations were held with other adjoining landoners to discover any issues they had with the development of the rail trail. Construction of the trail will require the numerous (and mostly unauthorised) encroachments into the corridor to be removed. These encroachments include several dams, bluegum plantations, hay bale storage, driveway crossovers, fencing, rubbish piles, log dumps, animal carcases etc. The 109km rail trail will result in a much improved corridor with a concerted effort to be made to eliminate the fire hazard that has developed over the 57 years since the railway became disused.