I WAS there when the first XPT from Sydney made a dramatic arrival in the Byron Shire 30 years ago this month (February) – and I was there on the platform at Byron Bay for the last one in May 2004.
And both events could not have been more different.
In 1990, there was a dramatic bid by a group of protesters to STOP the XPT coming to the shire and the reverse was the case in 2004 when there was an emotional fight to get the State Government to KEEP the XPT and change its decision to terminate the train at Casino.
The fight in 1990 to stop the North Coast XPT service to Murwillumbah was led by Dr Ian Paterson from New Brighton, who was a candidate in a Byron Shire Council by-election set down for March that year.
Dr Paterson, along with other groups on the North Coast, was protesting about changes to rail services which would see the XPT replace the Brisbane Limited Express and the Pacific Coast Motorail.
It meant the end of sleeping and dining cars and reduced seat numbers.
Dr Paterson said the changes meant extra hardship for pensioners and mothers of young children who would have to sit up all the way to Sydney.
He said he wanted to get the government around the negotiating table on the issue.
That never happened.
Dr Paterson said he intended to take direct action by stopping the first XPT in its tracks – and that’s what he did.
As the train approached Mullumbimby station at 8.25pm on March 12, 1990 – it was 40 minutes late – Dr Paterson stood on the walkway across the tracks at the end of the platform, held up his arms and spoke through a loudhailer.
He asked the driver to stop the train ‘in the name of the people’.
The XPT’s crew responded with a loud blast on the train’s air horns.
Dr Paterson continued to talk through the loudhailer as the train came to a halt several metres in front of him.
As television crews and newspaper photographers jostled for pictures and with more than 200 people watching on, police, led by Mullumbimby’s Sgt Adrian McDonald, moved on to the tracks.
Sgt McDonald told Dr Paterson he had been requested by State Rail to remove him.
Dr Paterson, who earlier told the crowd he respected the law, did not resist and was led away.
As he moved away, activist, Rhonda Ellis, a spokesperson for the Mullumbimby-based Citizens Against Rail Cuts and who was holding a placard, took his place in front of the train.
She was joined by several other protesters.
Police asked her to move off the tracks and, when she did not, she too was arrested.
Both she and Dr Paterson were put in the back of a police four-wheel drive vehicle and were charged with obstruction.
With protesters cleared off the track, the XPT began pulling out of the station at 8.35pm.
But it stopped soon after, with carriages blocking the Railway Street level crossing to traffic as it waited for senior State Rail staff to reboard the train.
With traffic banking up on either side of the crossing, the train finally left at 8.46pm.
Fast forward to May 2004 and there is yet another protest. This time protesters have gathered on the platform at Byron Bay to show their displeasure at the State Government’s decision, because of budget cuts, to terminate the XPT at Casino thus ending more than 100 years of train services to Byron Bay and beyond.
It was a more restrained gathering on the platform that night and I remember watching the train head north for the last time feeling that an important link with the town’s past was gone – just like that.
I deliberately took the photo of the train showing the EXIT sign as a symbol of that loss.
Groups including TOOT -Trains On Our Tracks – have consistently fought over the years to have the XPT brought back to the area.
The fight continues, but there seems little chance of that ever happening.