Bart Bear's Blog

Last Sunday we went for a drive to Bundanoon, in the southern highlands of NSW. Bundanoon is a pretty little town and is a place bushwalkers go to explore Morton National Park, just out of town. The park is a spectacular maze of gorges and waterfalls but it's a bit too hazardous for small bears, so the Oldies settled in for a Devonshire tea and I settled in to watch for trains. The town is on the main line between Sydney and Melbourne. I have been along the line in a train many times and I wanted to see one from the outside and wave to the faces in the windows. There were a couple of good places to perch and watch, but although I was there for an hour and a bit, no train came through. The last time I stopped in Bundanoon for a while, trains were coming through every quarter-hour or so. Maybe it was slow because it was Sunday. Actually, a very stupid thing is happening in Australia at the moment. Passengers and goods are being moved more and more by road and less by rail. The trains are being reduced and the rails are not being looked after properly, so rail is slowly dying. Even a small bear can see that doesn't make sense as trains are a much more energy-efficient way to transport things. Most of the rest of the world seems to be moving back to rail as the way to move things. Maybe common sense will prevail and we will see better Australian railways again in the future. I hope so, because I love trains.

Labels: New South Wales, train