T'Railway closures hamper island-wide snowmobile travel

Even with all the snow that has fallen in the province over the last week, snowmobilers are being told to stay off a popular trail in central Newfoundland.

A 180-kilometre section of the T'Railway Provincial Park between Badger and Gander, and another portion of the trail near Port Blandford, are closed for the rest of the winter.

The Department of Environment and Climate Change announced the closure earlier this week due to damage from heavy rains over the Thanksgiving weekend that caused washouts along the route.

Phil Lingard is one of the owner/operators of Brookdale Adventures in Bishop's Falls. He says this news is not good for his business.

"It isolates the central region for anyone doing cross-island travel," he said. "It makes it very hard for anyone to connect to the backcountry that the T'Railway itself links you to."

Culverts damaged

Lingard said he has seen much of the damage on the trail, including an area west of Grand Falls-Windsor where several culverts washed out.

"There are five pipes and four of them are out," he said. "That is a narrow section near the highway and it will take quite a bit of repair to fix that."

"To close a major section right in the centre of the province it just isolates the ends of the province."   

Lingard said in order to bypass that area, riders have to access the backcountry, which is not always safe, especially when crossing bodies of water.

He said the closure may also affect the sale of trail passes, since riders in those areas aren't going to buy a pass for a trail they can't use.

"Most of the snowmobiling people will do is going to be away from the groomed trail and the railway bed because if you are not able to get from one point to the other on the railbed, people will stick to woods roads and the backcountry — they'll have no choice."