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This is the text of selected sections and some of the reviews in ../letters.htm.
["CS track should not be removed:
Re Minister rebuts truckers' views, Oct. 7.
I congratulate David Collenette, federal transportation
minister, for his stated support of rail transportation.
It appears that environmentalists and politicians agree
that rail transportation is good and should be expanded.
So why are the governments of Canada and Ontario allowing
CN railways to rip out the tracks on the shortest rail
route between the border crossings at Fort Erie and
Windsor?
Here is a rail line that once served as the express
passenger route for elite travellers from New York City to
Chicago. It is the most direct, straightest and most level
rail route connecting Buffalo and Detroit. It boasts a
tunnel under the Welland Canal, no escarpment crossings and
is able to handlke trains running in two directions.
This outstanding facility was a line of the former Canadian
Southern (CASO) railway. Like so much of our rail
heritage, it has been allowed to go derelict over the
years. CN still uses parts of the route, but CN's
short-term business plan sees no use in restoring CASO. A
Sept. 30 deadline to protect the CASO line from demolition
has recently passed.
While Collenette is boosting rail in the media, CN went
ahead and pulled out the spikes along five kilometres of
CASO trackage just last week. Once the spikes are out, the
next step is to go in and cart away the rails. This could
happen within days. Collenette has the power to put a stop
to this shortsighted squandering of an irreplaceable
transportation facility. If he does not act soon, he will
condemn southern Ontario to a future of ever-increasing
U.S. truck traffic.
The cost to preserve an intact border-to-border rail
corridor is $9 million. A small sum that would get lost in
the budget of a single provincial highway project. The sum
is less than 1 per cent of the cost of the proposed
mid-peninsular highway boondoggle.
Several small towns along the route tried to come to a deal
to save the CASO line but did not make the Sept. 30
deadline.
This is clearly a big-picture issue and cannot be left to
well-meaning town councillors with few resources. Here is
a chance for provincial Transportation Minister Norm
Sterling to put Ontario's smart-growth monet where its
mouth is.
Here is also a very inexpensive way for Collenette to back
up all his talk on rail with some action."]
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(C) Copyright Ian McIntosh 2001, 2002, 2003. You may copy for your own personal use. All other rights reserved.