Bumpy ride: rail trail projects making ‘itty-bitty’ progress in rural NSW

Penny Ackery, an independent candidate for Hume in NSW, at the Crookwell railway station. She is supportive of a rail trail with a heritage rail section between Crookwell and Goulburn in the NSW southern tablelands. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/The Guardian

After the final train departed the Crookwell railway station for Goulburn in 1985, a stretch of track in the New South Wales southern tablelands was all but abandoned.

It’s a similar story for long-disused country rail networks across the state. But there’s a push to transform these isolated and often scenic corridors into rail trails and heritage projects.