I have seen a good deal of press regarding the probable excavation of gravel to the north of Orangeville and must add that none of what I have seen is good news for the area and its' residents. I do wonder, as I sympathize with those who live in the area of the said gravel operations, what effect the possibility of re-opening the rail line to the north will have on Orangeville.

How many trains will there be each day? How many rail cars will there be in each train? How long will it take these trains to pass through Orangeville from one end to the other? In other words will half of the town of Orangeville come to a halt for east and west bound traffic several times a day?

Imagine the economic damage that this will cause. Imagine if you will for just a minute what it would be like living in a house that is anywhere near the rail line. Imagine the chaos this will cause. The west end of Orangeville will become a ghost town with drivers afraid of being stuck, waiting for huge freight trains to pass. The by-pass will become impassable.

Who has an explanation for this? To be viable, access to the rail line is needed and while farms may have been bought up to acquire the necessary land, I suggest that they, the gravel company, should not be able to halt an entire area of town in order to get their product to market.

This is a problem that is not going away and has many more effects than those mentioned above. Every person in town will probably be affected in one way or another, whether it be from noise, delay, economic loss, stress related heath problems , the list goes on.

Just take a few minutes and think about how it will affect you, the reader.
Philip Barnes
Orangeville

I totally agree with your assessment on the train service. We have been on your local train, and it was great. I also felt that the Go Train could be a dayliner, and add cars as needed, for Orangeville and Peterborough. I took the dayliner from Toronto to Peterbough, at the time you spoke of.

Perhaps your reps in government could do something about this. We are in London now, and I know there was service on the trains before, and they were diminished. Traffic on the 401 would tell that story.

Congratulations on your article.
Peter Wheeler
via e-mail