Residents need to make voices heard

I WOULD just like to say that I must congratulate the people of Toowoomba with their attitude towards the proposed inland rail.

There has been no consultation to speak of, in fact the first we, the patrons of Southbrook, heard was from John McVeigh who informed us and could not believe that we had not received the letters in the post, and stated that no ground work had actually been carried out and the decision had not been made.

Then out of the blue, in less than two weeks, all the relative details and costings had been analysed and the route was decided upon.

The powers that be in Canberra had decided on a route across the flood plain, past the gates of the quarry and through multiple small holdings, making the areas cut off next to useless and then right past the proposed Wagner freight hub.

The arguments and aggressive questions put towards the “messengers” at the ARTC information sessions towards the positioning of the track were very heated and raised some very good points.

For example, one of our local truck drivers who drives to Melbourne on a regular basis.

He drives to a Melbourne freight hub, and many years ago he would have to wait less than a day for a return load to bring back up to Queensland.

Now he states that he has to wait up to two and a half days to get a full load for the journey back. Which begs the question, where is all the freight going to suddenly come from to load on to these double-stacked colossal freight carriers?

Unless it is going to be for coal as otherwise to build an expensive route with no freight defies logic.

In addition, these trains will take a huge number of trucks off the roads, resulting in job losses and hardship for the drivers and their families.

The government decided to place the line with the potential of coal carrying trains rumbling past our properties every few hours, despite there being a more sensible route through state forest joining up with the original track and disturbing very few people.

I would have expected the good, honest people of Toowoomba to actually show some indications of dislike for the way things have proceeded. But, as I drive past numerous properties that will be affected directly and indirectly by this ridiculous positioning, I see just a handful of protest signs usually stuck on the gates of the properties and even then hardly noticeable and certainly not much of a protest.

From this I can presume that either they are happy with the proceedings or they have rolled over and decided, “It’s not worth complaining, it won’t do any good”, or maybe they are hoping that someone else will sort it out for them.

I certainly hope that as people start to realise that this track will affect them and if it does not then they are not happy with the way it was decided upon, then they will air their grievances a lot more obviously than grumbling over a cold beer and shrugging their shoulders and saying, “well, it has to go somewhere”. — PAUL CLAPHAM,

Southbrook