THE CONTROVERSY over the proposed trackside trail between Town Line and John Street in Orangeville strikes us as something of a tempest in a teapot.

Although locating the trail alongside tracks currently used only a couple of times a week was approved by Orangeville Council years ago and forms part of a sale agreement between the Town and The Highland Group, critics now say it would ultimately pose grave dangers to anyone using it.

The rationale is that if the sale goes through, and if Dufferin sells the long-abandoned right-ofway north of Orangeville, and if The Highland Companies wins approval for a megaquarrry in Melancthon Township, and if Highland also wins approval for a branch line to the quarry, the tracks in question would have to handle a lot of freight traffic moving at undetermined speeds.

But the reality is that even if all the aforesaid “ifs” actually became a reality, there’s no likelihood whatsoever that there would be anything like the volume of traffic once found on those same tracks, which included four daily passenger trains between Orangeville and Owen Sound, several daily freights to and from Owen Sound, and mixed trains to and from Teeswater and Walkerton. And in that era there was nothing to prevent local residents from walking along that same corridor and little risk of injury, if only because of the noise any train makes.

As we see it, any risk to hikers could easily be minimized by the same tactic employed to protect school children and other hikers in modern subdivisions — chain-link fences on both sides of the walkway or trail.

A good example of such fencing can be seen on Hockley Road, for kids going to and from Mono- Amaranth Public school.

Granted, such fencing is normally not found on trails, but it would be preferable to losing what the local trailways committee sees as a vital link in the town’s trail system.