To the editor,
I understand there is group that wants to have the tracks of the E&N removed and make a hiking and biking path.
I’m a retired mechanical engineer. Throughout my career I always worked on the KISS philosophy: keep it simple, stupid. Applying the principle to the quest to remove the rails and make a hiking/biking path, the solution is simple.
The standard railway gauge is four feet, eight and a half inches. Rather than take the tracks up, just make a path between the rails that are there now. To smooth out the bumps because of the ties’ spacings, just pave it (say one inch or put down pea gravel and compact).
Don’t wait for the tracks to be removed because doing that is a horrendous expense. Doing it this way is infinitely cheaper than removing the rails. Your path is already there.
Dave Baker, Nanaimo
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