Community groups and two tiers of government are gearing up to fight planned changes to the Southern Highlands train timetable, with both the Southern Highlands Action Group for Rail Users and Wingecarribee and Wollondilly Shire Councils planning community action in the coming weeks.
The rail users' group will host another public meeting next Tuesday at 8pm in the Mittagong RSL Club, while Wingecarribee Shire Council will discuss plans for their own "day of action" alongside Wollondilly Shire Council at tonight's council meeting.
Both the Rail Users group meeting and council's proposed action day will discuss the loss of commuter trains to Bundanoon and Exeter and the cancellation of early morning and late afternoon through trains from Goulburn to Central as outlined at a recent Railcorp meeting in Picton.
Wingecarribee council will vote on a recommendation for the new mayor to meet with the Wollondilly mayor in relation to any proposed action to be taken by the councillors for the proposed "day of action", and for councillors to attend Tuesday's rail users meeting.
The continuing rail saga has also taken another twist with Southern Highlands MP Peta Seaton calling for Transport Minister Michael Costa to prevent the cancellation of Bundanoon services by committing to a signaling system upgrade.
Railcorp has flagged the impending removal of the old signaling system as a reason for the cancellation, with suggestions the cost of installing a new electric signaling system at the station wasn't worth the investment.
"The Minister should reveal proof of the cost of installing electrically operated points at Bundanoon and tell us why he will not go ahead and install the points so trains can continue to travel to Bundanoon as per the existing timetable," Ms Seaton said.
"Is the Minister cutting costs by not installing electrically operated points that would allow the trains to continue moving there even after the Minister has replaced the Bundanoon signalmen?
"If the signals at Bundanoon need to be upgraded and the Minister is cutting the services rather than upgrading the signals, we should know why he is penny pinching in this way."
A RailCorp spokesperson estimated it would cost $600,000 to install the new technology to turn around just three trains per day at Bundanoon.