From time to time I have stood on the platform of the small, yet restored railway station at Deepwater, NSW and looked down at the slowly rotting sleepers covered with long grass and weeds and thought about all of the men and women who working on the Main North Line (Maitland NSW to Wallangarra QLD/actually one half of Wallangarra QLD is Jennings NSW. The border of the two States runs right along the platform of the station dividing the overall township into two towns)...about their dreams and their hopes and the sweat and the hardship they went through to build and maintain this once vital link to Queensland (when you look that deep, you can get quite teary. Men and women suffer heaps on such rugged bush endeavours).
I am also inclined to say, "What a total waste of time and effort and pain if we dont continue to look after these national heritages, as true treasures".
With so many young couples having to move to the country, just to buy a reasonable house, do these old railway lines offer the possibility of encouraging growth into country areas? In unsettled regional times are these railways of importance to national defence? As oil gets scarce is there a value in polishing up the old coal burning railway locomotives to help one day service regional areas...maybe even build a few new "clean" coal burners for the task? Do you have a railway story?

Gotta agree with you on this one Gibo. The old railway station at Wallangarra's pretty priceless, and if you've visited the weekend markets they hold there you'll know what I mean.
There's definitely scope for some of these old tracks to be used for a tourist route, though getting the costings to stack up would be a formidable task.
I'm hoping they proceed with the Melbourne-Brisbane railway line, and that somehow as an offshoot of that, restoring these old lines becomes a viable proposition.

Instead of increasing truck numbers on our long-suffering roads (many of which were not built to withstand the loads that they now carry), rail would be a sensible option for bulk freight in many areas. use trucks for domestic area delivery, rather than for long-haul purposes. Might even help to reduce the road-toll. The latest proposition in NSW is B-triples - ridiculous when most of the road surfaces cant properly handle B-doubles, and the driving population struggles with handling B-doubles.

Wallangarra is a beautiful railway station as you say TurnRightThenleft. Was there recently, in the museum attached. They have even got a Dr. Who police box to show the differences between the different ages. My main concern about preserving the old railway lines is national defence. If an invader lobs at sometime in the future, soldiers will have to travel on something and fuel maybe short. People might also have to move south on something. Im a bit prejudiced on this need to preserve lines for national defence because of the number of visions and prophecies I have collected on an invader. Though many christians believe in an invader; Gods Allowance because of the sins of the people, Id still like to see northern residents to have a fair chance at escaping south. As with all prophecy we just have to wait and see if these revelations actually come to pass. From what Ive observed I still think christian revelation is more reliable than old Nostradamus. I think he was working for the dark ones of the spirit world. His prophecies are chaotic and many almost impossible to understand.

Youre right about the trucks on the roads Country Gal. Rail is looking more viable each year. Lets hope the penny drops with State governments. A massive injection into rail would keep many country towns from dying. The truckies always seem to be doing 120 plus k's when they pass and police never seem to be much around when its going on. I see a day coming when the roads become so clogged with trucks and cars that panic will set in as economies collapse. Rail would be handy then.

Rail will make a major comeback over the next 20 years.
The track itself and station building is not where the value is but the
permway itself. The right of way into towns must be preserved as they
will be badly needed and it would be a shame to have to start
demolishing homes. All those branch lines that were scrapped were in
place before cars and trucks for a very good reason and those reasons
will be valid again.

The global oil supply/demand situation, on top of likely carbon pricing, would certainly point towards rail becoming far more economic within the next decade, so the question is whether it makes more sense to keep the railways maintained in readiness for a likely rebirth of rail transport, or just let them lie idle and fix them up when they're needed. I would suspect the latter, given that the current lines are probably not really suitable for supporting modern high speed trains that would be the logical replacement for road-based transport (further, ideally they would be electrified).
As long the rails aren't getting actively ripped up, and the land devoted to other purposes, it may not matter too much.

As fuel prices go up rail transport will become a more economical option.

Gibo, I dont know about visions and prophesies - generally wouldnt be mentioning those unles you want to be treated like a raving looney. BUT basic maintainance of a system in the anticipation of future defence requirements is not a bad idea. Dont see much immediate threat, but that said world situations can change fairly rapidly, and it would certainly be a prudent and conservative consideration. And given the money that we spend on new fighter jets, the basic maintenance of existing rail networks wouldnt break the budget. Ideally we would have more than 1 north-south line, otherwise we leave ourselves wide open to easy sabotage in the event of the worst case scenario.

Railways are not very useful from a military perspective. They are too easy to destroy, which is why they are among the first things to go in a war. How many helicopters, trucks and offroad vehicles does the army own? Compare this wtih how many trains they own.

Being labelled a raving looney wouldnt bother me at all Country Gal. Theres a world out there that hardly any of you folk on this forum site have even heard about (no offence of course). Its a world of born again christians who are completely on-fire for Jesus Christ every moment of their waking day. Of born again christians filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in "other tongues", of born again christians receiving visions and Words of Knowledge from God and prophecies about future global events, of miracles and healings and even the occasional raising of a dead person. Its the world of Gods Holy Spirit and how He Communicates to people. Its more real to born again christians than the (supposedly) real world you folk live in. Its in this world, amongst the committed christian churches, many of them pentecostal, that visions and prophecies of an invader because of the sins of the people have been coming. The first vision I came across was in Pastor Jack Burrells book WHAT WILL BECOME OF AUSTRALIA 1975 which travelling greatly through the Assembly of God churches during the 70's and 80's. Yep, I believe an invasion is likely in the next 10 years or so. And it will happen fast with a sudden drastic change in the worlds military climate. Those railway tracks are vital to those days.

While sitting on a committee concerned with transport for people with disabilities I was told by one state government official that the ultimate aim was to close down the passenger rail service on the Adelaide Hills Line. They cut it back to Belair and then tried to cut it back to Blackwood when there was a fire at the Belair station. The service has to use a single track working because of the difference in gauge and it runs late so frequently we are all used to catching the train before the scheduled one.
They would still like to close it and passenger numbers are dwindling except at peak hours...dwindling because the service is unreliable and too infrequent.
The problem is that for some people, especially people with disabilities it is the only service which can take wheelchairs and gophers - and then the drivers grumble about having to put the ramp down.
The service is not there - delinerately so. But, is the railway line worth keeping? Absolutely! If it once again ran to Bridgewater or, better still, Mt Barker and did so frequently and on time people would use it. This would not suit the government which is propping up the car industry in this state, or the car workers or the oil companies.

Travel in the country will go back to rail as the price of oil rises.
ex Shell CEO says $100 a barrel by next year and $150 later.

People are already complaining loudly about the cost of driving to work.
They will be forced onto the train by cost pressures.
Country rail bus services will become uneconomic and require too many
busses and that will force the return of rail, even diesal powered
trains will be more efficient.

Its coming, its just we do not know how soon.

Freediver, the main role that I could see for the rail system in the case of national defence is not one that would involve the army, but a system to move masses of people south, west or east. Assuming that the price and availability of petrol would make it impossible for individuals to travel far under their own steam, rail is the best bulk option. Of course it is very vunerable, and the reason it is normally the first thing to be targetted in war is due to its usefulness. Despite the army not owning many (any?) trains, trains could easily be commandeered for military purposes, and could play large role in helping shift supplies to where they are needed. Again, I dont see any immediate threat, but prudence is always wise.

Bazz you make a good point about transport and the rising cost of fuel.

The good thing about an invader is that if he is coming en masse he has a problem with supply lines. If its China, then they have a long way to come with supplies before the first soldiers, they would probably parachute in, would get their back-up ammunition and food. Though Australia is open she's a long way to come from the Far East, which gives us time. If its Indoesian then their syupply lines are not so long. An army friend says that some years ago defence dept. people found a large pile of automatic guns and ammunition under camorflage just in behind one of the beaches up the Northern Territory way that they thought might have been a prelude to an invasion; but the invasion never happened. For a surprise invasion from Indonesia that kind of pre-dumping thing would probably have to occur. Theres time for Australia yet with those railway lines and their maintanence. War is coming. We can see it building with all of the regional unrest, Islam and their frenzy and Chinas build-up isnt for nothing...its just a matter of time. Sure hope they put some guns in the Defence cupboard for the citizens.

But what if the invaders arrive by flying saucer?

Seriously, I'm in general agreement that rail transport will come back into its own once road transport becomes too expensive - but it will have virtually nothing to do with defence. Instead, rail will replace the scandalously wasteful road transport of freight, and mass air transport of passengers.

In a time of crisis we want resilient systems, not complex fragile ones. Rail lines, power stations etc are all soft targets for attack. A more resilient system would be more modular and distributed. For power, this means solar on our roofs or small wind farms. This is going to be especially important as future wars are far less likely to have identifiable front lines. It will look more like coordinated terrorist attacks.

While there are plenty of good reasons for maintaining our railways, potential invasion is not one of them. If a railway line is not being used at the moment, it certainly won't be used in a time of war.

I don't think an invasion will be in the form of a conventional army.
I notice the Federal Police Commissioner Kelty stated what must
certainly be government belief in that he said "they" will come as a
mass of people looking for food.
Thats what he believes is the big security risk.

The risk with China is if we don't sell them the coal and gas they might just come and get it.
At present they are running around the world buying all the oil, gas
and coal they can lay hands on.
We will have oil problems quite a bit earlier because of China's long
term contracts.
It is obvious they have heard of peak everything, they didn't need
Richard Heinberg's book to tell them about it.

So to sum up, start building steam locos and refurbish all those
branch lines.

Come on people...some more railway stories. Railways are like "Wind In The Willows. We never tire of them.