Railway station revamp

I read with interest the letter by Rick Walker in The Weekly Advertiser, March 8, which outlined the views of Horsham and District U3A on the possible return of passenger trains to Horsham.

I, like many other Horsham and district residents, certainly support the revival of regular train travel, however I haven’t been encouraged by the silence of our State Government on any moves on this happening going forward.

In fact, I don’t believe there are any plans to return train travel to Horsham after more than 30 years since it was replaced with a coach service to Ararat.

In the lead up to last year’s state election, the Coalition released a statement that if elected they would instigate a business case for the return of passenger rail travel.

In my opinion, I don’t believe U3A president Rick Walker and his wonderful organisation have anything to worry about in regard to their occupancy of the railway station.

Mr Walker’s suggestion of a new separate building to service rail passengers is excellent and even though there is no guarantee of the Horsham-to-melbourne service, there is an immediate need for Overland train travellers’ facilities.

At the moment, travellers and families waiting for the Overland do not have toilet or waiting room facilities.

This is not satisfactory in 2023 and needs to be fixed as we need to encourage our residents to at least use the twice-weekly Overland service that operates between Melbourne and Adelaide.

But who is going to build a new facility at the station? That is a big question. As someone who has been advocating for the clean up of the Horsham railway yards for more than two years without success, I also agree with Mr Walker’s suggestion that owners, Victrack, hand over the station building to the Horsham Rural City Council.

Victrack is a bureaucracy that has done no maintenance on the building for years and in fact does not appear to care about the rail precinct in Horsham.

That is simply not good enough for a city that has great pride in its ‘Tidy Town’ status throughout the years.

Although we have been frustrated with very little clean up action of the rail yards, Friends of Horsham Railway Station will soon be looking for volunteers to work with Horsham Tidy Towns and U3A on improving some garden areas and appearance of the station building.

Daryl Dower, Horsham