Tavistock farmers worry about train plans

About 100 farmers in the Tavistock area met this week to discuss concerns that the proposal for a high-speed train track between Toronto and Windsor will cut through their farms.

It could, as has happened with the 401 series of highways, leave fields stranded from farm homes, barns and storage buildings.

"This is going to cut off all the back roads. They're going to dead head them, just like the 401 is down there," said Harold Bickle, who farms crops on 4,000 acres in East Zorra-Tavistock.

"Maybe there's going to be two crossings all the way across the township here. 

We'll have to drive way out of our way to get to the other way of the rail line," he is quoted by CBC Kitchener.


Residents in and around nearby Shakespeare were embroiled in controversy for several years over plans to build a bypass around Shakespeare for traffic between Kitchener and Stratford.