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Official GMR statement re: Accreditation Application
The following is a statement to clarify an earlier press release issued by GMR regarding the current Accreditation Application being assessed by the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator (ITSRR). In the previous statement it may have been interpreted that the reason that GMR has not gained approval of its Accreditation Application was due to ITSRR not being able to process before the current Accreditation lapsed, this is incorrect, the facts are in the following statement.
GMR wishes to apologise for any information that may have appeared as misleading in this earlier statement.
The Board of Management of the Glenreagh Mountain Railway (GMR) wish to advise that railway will be suspending public passenger carrying operations at Glenreagh as from February 1st 2008.
GMR is a non-profit community based organisation run wholly by volunteers committed to restoring and operating a heritage tourist railway on a section of the former Glenreagh-Dorrigo branchline. GMR commenced public passenger carrying operations in January 2005 under a provisional Accreditation from the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator (ITSRR), this accreditation expires on January 31st 2008.
GMR is required to apply for a new accreditation to conform to the new National Accreditation Package V2 that has taken effect from July 1st 2006 and this standard requires that GMR and all other accredited railway operators, whether private companies, government corporations or volunteer organisations such as GMR all operate under the same rules. Despite a concerted effort from a designated team within GMR working on the Accreditation documentation and Safety Management System, unfortunately GMR has been unable to satisfy the requirements by the deadline for the granting of a new accreditation from the regulator. Consequently operations have been suspended pending the completion of all the necessary requirements.
This has been a very difficult task for GMR, being a volunteer organisation with very limited human and financial resources, but the Board of Management and the Accreditation and Safety team at GMR will continue to work to achieve the requirements to gain accreditation to continue operating as a heritage tourist railway. There are many exciting times ahead for the volunteers at GMR with new locomotive and rollingstock acquisitions, a major bridge restoration allowing more track mileage to be restored, a heritage listed railway station building, expansion of the tram fleet and facilities and many more projects planned. Although GMR will not be operating public passenger carrying operations in the short term, the depot at Glenreagh will still be open for public inspection every Thursday and volunteers are always welcomed to join.
The Board of GMR and the members wish to thank all who have supported GMR in the past and wish to stress that all is being done to overcome this situation and look forward to public support in the future.
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