22/2/2010
- A Happy New Year for Daylesford Railway Volunteers
Media Release
22 February 2010
A Happy New Year for Daylesford Railway Volunteers
Daylesford Spa Country Railway volunteers were buoyed yesterday with the announcement of $300,000 in Bushfire recovery funding by Geoff Howard, Member for Ballarat East. The funding from the Community Enterprise Foundation
TM, an initiative of Bendigo Bank, will repair the damage suffered in last Februarys Muskvale fire which burnt out 1.5 klm of track between Daylesford and Musk. The project name will be
Community Enterprise FoundationTM - Repair of Fire Damaged Railway Track.
DSCR director Barry Fell said “This funding, along with additional work by our volunteers and the railways contribution of $30,000 will hopefully see trains return to Musk, with any luck by the middle of this year. With their significant experience in the rail heritage sector Puffing Billy Railway will be appointed as works managers for the project. This will see the monies remain in and benefit the non profit volunteer sector”.
The next month will see the sourcing of material and engaging local contractors and labour with work to projected to begin in March.
Mr Fell went on to say “Unfortunately this funding won’t see the railway reopen to the terminus at Bullarto. Due to our volunteers inability to access the line past the bushfire damage to undertake any maintenance and with the higher rainfall this past winter and spring the track has fallen into disrepair and is no longer fit for traffic. We are hopeful that an application to round 2 of the Federal Governments Jobs Fund program that would see the line repaired and Bullarto restored to as it was in the 1930s will be successful”.
Although DSCR carried record passenger numbers last year despite the bushfire damage, revenue is down almost $36,000 due to the curtailed train services.
For further information regarding this media release contact:
Barry Fell on 0418 540 152
