WITHOUT enough time, and more than $1 million to relocate, the Hunter Valley's 'beloved' Picnic Train may come to a screaming halt and hundreds of historic railway items abandoned.
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The Picnic Train, plus another 20 not-for-profit entities involved with historic trains and railways, are pleading for up to three years grace before being evicted from the $1.5 billion Huntlee development site at North Rothbury.
In a battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Huntlee Pty Ltd and their subsidiary, Misthold Pty Ltd, have won their bid to re-possess the land on Wine Country Drive which was once the hub of a $10 million heritage railway collection first homed there in 1990.
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The only issue left for Justice Anthony Payne to resolve is when the land must be vacated. The developers behind the Huntlee housing estate are pushing for "no more than six months" in which time they say "the materials" on the site could be removed in "an orderly and safe manner".
However, those on-site disagree. Simone De Beuzeville, of Aberglasslyn, a director of the registered charity Picnic Train, said her organisation owned about $2 million worth of locomotive equipment, tools, spare parts and machinery stored at the North Rothbury site.
It would take up to six months to move all those items, and up to three years to organise and relocate the rolling stock, she said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. If it were forced to move in a matter of months, it would most likely see them close down their operations, she said, which would be "devastating to the Hunter Valley region as our beloved historic trains are part of the community".
Her husband Paul Stapleton, who runs Sydney Railway Services Pty Ltd which operated the Picnic Train for six years before it was separately registered in February 2021, said that without a "reasonable time rame", they would be forced to abandon about $150,000 worth of equipment and machinery.
Ben Parker, who owns 16 rail carriages stored at the site, estimates it will cost $235,000 to relocate his property by road, and he would need up to two years to build a new shed to house them in at an alternative site.
Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum has the money set aside to remove the six locomotives they have stored at North Rothbury, but managing director Keith Jones said their removal would be a "logistics nightmare". The North Rothbury site was "disorganised, undulating, and severely congested" with very little space for mobile cranes and heavy haulage road vehicles, with another 20 groups trying to vacate the site at the same time.
Another affected trains enthusiast, the president of the Sydney Electric Train Society Inc, Hugh Burns, said he owned seven items of railway rolling stock at North Rothbury and asked for 12-24 months to remove them. The society would have to conduct fundraising from its members and the public to remove all of the society's items, up to $140,000 by road, and there was no guarantee they could do that. The matter comes back to court for determination on July 15.
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