1955
6 January 1955
Cross Country Railway
According to city press statements, the Government intends to abandon work on the Mary Vale-Sandy Hollow railway line. However, the Minister for Transport, has stated that no decision has been made in the matter. The whole question will be reviewed by Cabinet following a conference to be held at Gulgong on Saturday, February 51
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10 January 1955
Cross-Country Railway
The Deputy Leader of the N.S.W. Opposition, Mr. R. W. Askin, feels the State Government can be expected soon to drop the Mary Vale-Sandy Hollow railway from its list of uncompleted public works. In a press statement yesterday, he said the Government had prepared the public for that by selecting a senior Labour Member to foreshadow in the Sydney press on January 1 that it was unlikely to do any more with the railway. “If this rail link goes overboard, it will be one of the most treacherous blows this Government has given country districts,” said Mr. Askin. “It will also mean that £2½ million spent on it will be a dead loss to the State.” The speaker added that by repeated promises to complete it, Mr. Cahill had deceived the country people, who needed it so badly. If it was considered uneconomic he should have told them, instead of leading them to believe they would get it2
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20 January 1955
Cross-Country Railway is Burning Question of the Day;
Big Conference to be Held in Gulgong
The burning question of the day is that of the completion of the Mary Vale-Gulgong-Sandy Hollow railway.
The Co-ordination Railway League has been organising for some months for a big conference to be held in Gulgong for the purpose of seeing what steps can be taken for a resumption of work on the line, and through Mr. Leo M. Nott, M.L.A. (Mudgee) has now been successful in arranging for the Minister fro Transport (Hon. E. Wetherell, M.L.A.) to attend a conference on Saturday, February 5. Subject to his consent, the Minister will first of all be flown over the route of the partly-completed line in an 8-passenger plane owned by Mr. Loneragan, of Mudgee.
The conference is expected to be the biggest ever held in Gulgong.
“The long range plan to build a railway line that would avoid the heavy hauls across the Blue Mountains and link the south and west with the north is becoming more and more of a plan and even longer in its range,” says the “Narromine News.”
“The line, the much-discussed link between Mary Vale, near Wellington, to Sandy Hollow, is again in the news.
“A couple of years ago it was in the news. It was reported that the Government would if re-elected, do something about the line. That is a very bad thing to have said about any Government proposal because cynics will assure you that if a job isn’t started before an election it certainly won’t be started after.
“The latest report says that the proposal will be dumped altogether. It would be too expensive to build, the rumours say, and would only run at a loss even if it was completed.
“If Governments could only be as ruthless with all non-paying Government undertakings.
Vital Link In Defence
“The completion of the Mary Vale-Sandy Hollow line would complete a vital link in Australia’s defence against aggression,” says the “Western Stock and Station Journal.”
This 124 mile stretch of railway would make a standard gauge link across Australia from Perth to Brisbane.
It would also provide a much needed link between the Northern and Western railway systems.
A Glaring Example
An editorial in the “Northern Daily Leader” (published at Tamworth) gives the case for Federal intervention.
“Now we have the most glaring example ever seen in Australia of the State attitude to national railway enterprise”, the “Leader” says.
“After muddling away well over two millions of loan money, the Government of N.S.W. is in the mood to abandon the Sandy Hollow-Mary Vale line of 124 miles across country between the northern and western railway systems.
“The actual reason given for the proposed stoppage is that at least another £5 million will be required to complete the work.
“Labor Ministers, who nowadays show little interest in railway construction outside the County of Cumberland, argue that the cost is too great in consideration of the benefits likely to accrue to N.S.W.
“Colonel Bruxner, who as Minister for Transport before the last world war was mainly responsible for starting this ill-fated project, insists that from the defence angle, the line is one of the most essential ever contemplated by an Australian State.
“Obviously, he is not exaggerating the real merit.
“It would actually link up four major States by a single gauge-surely an aspect that is of vast concern to the Australian nation.
“Seeing that the Cahill Government is seriously thinking of abandoning this partly-finished line on the ground that the cost of completion is beyond its capacity-there seems to be no other valid reason- the Opposition parties in the State Parliament should appeal to the Federal Government to provide the money as a contribution not only to national security but to the general economic development of the Commonwealth.
“The case for Federal intervention to save the line appears to be unanswerable.”
Treacherous Blow
“If the Mary Vale-Sandy Hollow rail link goes overboard, it will be one of the most treacherous blows ever given to country districts.”
This was stated by Mr. R. W. Askin last week.
Mr. Askin is Deputy Leader of the N.S.W. Opposition and the N.S.W. Liberal Party.
He said that the State Government could be expected to soon drop this railway from its list of uncompleted public works.
Mr. Askin continued:
“It has prepared the public for that by selecting a senior Labour Member to foreshadow in the Sydney press on January 1, that it was unlikely to do any more with the railway.
“It would, however, suit big Sydney interests, whose conception of a progressive State is a bigger centralised metropolis, whose trade should not be endangered by a railway connecting western and northern parts of the State with Newcastle.
“Railway officials were reported in the Sydney press that day to have advised the Government that the line would cost an extra £4 million to complete, and therefore would lose money when it came into operation.
“But Railways Commissioner Winsor stated recently that it would be a valuable addition to the railway system.”
Premier Cahill, in the metropolitan press, credited him with saying that.
“Who are country people supposed to believe?” continued Mr. Askin.
He said a decision not to complete the rail link would mean that £2½ million spent on it would be a dead loss to the State.
By repeated promises to complete it, Mr. Cahill had deceived the country people who needed it so badly.
If it was considered uneconomic he should have told them, instead of leading them to believe they would get it.
Should the Government now sweep it from the board, the countryside would be entitled to assume that Sydney interests had had their way again.
Western and northern wool, wheat and other rural products would continue to be hauled over the Blue Mountains to Sydney, instead of going 124 miles across country to reach a railway feeding Newcastle Port.
“Thus centralisation on Sydney would again be served by a Government that had pledged itself to decentralise,” concluded Mr. Askin.
Severe Blow
Referring to the reported statement that the State Government will abandon all further work on the line, the “Muswellbrook Chronicle” says:
“For many years pleas, conferences, etc., to urge the completion of the work have all been in vain. The reported decision of the Government to abandon the job will be a severe blow to all northern and western organisations which have worked for the completion of the line for many years.”
May Be “Kite Flying”
Mr. W. A. Chaffey, M.L.A. (Tamworth) said last week that the Premier (Mr. J. J. Cahill) during the recent session of the State Parliament, indicated, in an answer to a question without notice, that some authorities were of the opinion the work should never have been undertaken.
“The Premier did not say who the authorities were and it may be that he was only flying what is known as a “kite” to see how the public would react to any suggestion that the project should be completely abandoned,” said Mr. Chaffey.
“Millions of pounds have already been expended on the work and members of the public should endeavour to make a trip, if possible, by car along the route of the line to see the tunnels, the earthworks, the large concrete structures and other completed sections to realise the crime of even stopping the work temporarily.
“The McGirr and Cahill Labor Governments have been pulling the wool over the eyes of the electors of Mudgee and surrounding areas for years, and the recent statement-perhaps a slip of the tongue-will undoubtedly be a shock to many people.
“Apart from its importance from a defence point of view, to avoid the bottleneck at Sydney and the vulnerable crossing over the Hawkesbury bridge, the Mary Vale-Sandy Hollow line would offer an alternate route to the seaboard for the central and far western districts, as well as parts of the far north-west.
“With standardisation of the line from Broken Hill to Port Pirie, it would be a valuable link in nearly 2,000 miles of standard gauge line from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Brisbane in Queensland.
“The people of the areas directly concerned should ‘stand up’ their Labour members as the people of the north-west did over the closing down of the Keepit Dam last year, but they were very vote conscious,” Mr. Chaffey added.
Starving The Bush
In a letter to the Press, Mr. Keith McKenzie, of Mudgee, states:
“The Cahill Government has been finding millions of pounds and plentiful supplies of materials to push ahead with projects in the metropolitan area. Could you find anything more sectional than Labor’s policy of starving the bush to feed the big city?
“If the Cahill Government would do the right thing and say frankly. ‘We are not going to complete the Sandy Hollow line, then the people would know where they stood3
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