The rail trail’s missing middle: the $42 million federal bid for part of it failed in May, and the program it went to is now paused

What is open, what is missing, as at 5 October 2026

The trail follows the closed Casino to Murwillumbah rail line. The trail’s construction page sets out four stages. Three pieces are open: Murwillumbah to Crabbes Creek in Tweed Shire (24 km), Casino to Bentley in Richmond Valley (13.4 km) and Bentley to Lismore (16.3 km). That is 53.7 km. Two pieces are not: Lismore to Booyong (20.9 km), which the page says is seeking funding, and Booyong to Crabbes Creek through Byron Shire (54.2 km), at the Planning and approval stage. Between them, 75.1 km, nearly three-fifths of the route on the page’s own stage lengths.

Byron Shire Council’s project page is blunter: The development of the rail trail in the Byron Shire is unfunded. It lists Lismore’s 20.9 km to Booyong as not funded as well. The trail’s page says of the Lismore piece that Work is underway to secure funds for the 20.9 km section between Lismore and Booyong.

How long is the gap? The documents do not agree

Every figure below comes from an official page or the trail’s own site, read on 5 October. They are close but not the same, and we have not picked one.

Totals are our sums of each source’s own section figures. See the methodology note.

Some of the spread has a reason. The councils do not draw the Byron and Lismore boundary at the same place: Byron’s page ends its section at Booyong and Lismore’s at Eltham, a village Lismore’s page also puts inside its own Booyong section. The 132 km route length that the trail, both councils and the supporters all use is also not the sum of the stage lengths: the trail’s four stages add to 128.8 km, and Byron’s to 128.2 km. Lismore’s page states its own section as 15.5 km in its funding line and 20.9 km in its text. Read generously, the missing middle is about three-quarters of a hundred kilometres. Read exactly, the region does not yet have one agreed number for it.

What was applied for, and from whom

The application both councils name is a joint one. In a release on 30 January 2026, Byron’s Manager Major Projects, Christopher Soulsby, said Byron and Lismore had applied to the Australian Government for $42 million for the design and construction of the sections of rail trail from Mullumbimby to Crabbes Creek and Lismore to Bexhill, plus a short piece between the Bangalow showgrounds and the Bangalow industrial estate. The program was the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, and he said Council simply does not have the money to fund this project on our own. Byron’s project page dates the application to August 2024.

So the bid was never for the whole gap. Mullumbimby to Crabbes Creek is the northern end of the Byron section, and Lismore to Bexhill is the first stretch out of Lismore toward Booyong. Neither council’s documents give the lengths of the three pieces applied for, so we cannot say how many of the missing kilometres $42 million would have built.

The answer came in May. Byron’s release of 20 May 2026 said the Federal Government had that week notified the council that the application was unsuccessful. Mayor Sarah Ndiaye said We are entirely dependent on State and Federal Government funding to build the rail trail. Lismore City Council’s release the next day confirmed the same $42 million joint application, and quoted Mayor Steve Krieg saying that delivering the rail trail through Lismore remains a strategic priority for Council.

The program itself is not taking bids. As at 5 October its page on the federal infrastructure department’s site reads Currently paused to new applications. It is a $400 million program whose delivery stream offers $5 million to $50 million a project, and it lists successful projects announced as recently as 3 September 2026.

One note on timing. The supporters group’s release, dated 15 April 2026 and still on the trail’s site, says the application had been awaiting a decision from the Federal Government for about 16 months and calls on the NSW and Australian governments to fund the missing link. That was written before the May outcome, so its “awaiting” is out of date. On Byron’s dates, August 2024 to May 2026, the wait was about 21 months.

What Byron Shire Council has decided

Byron’s position has moved in three steps, all in its minutes.

August 2023. On 24 August 2023 (resolution 23-360) the council resolved to proceed with planning, approvals and a funding application for on-formation rail trails from Mullumbimby to Crabbes Creek and from the old Byron Bay station through Bangalow to Booyong, to seek a lease over as much of the corridor as possible, and reiterated its support for multi-use of the corridor between Byron Bay and Mullumbimby, meaning rail with trail. Three councillors voted against.

February 2026. On 19 February 2026 (resolution 25-646) it resolved to seek funding for an on-formation trail in stages along the whole corridor in the shire, now including Mullumbimby to Byron Bay, noting that the Byron Solar Train leases a section and that a rail-with-trail model there would bring significant technical complexity and environmental impacts. It added that design must respond to the flora assessment and that the corridor should stay in public ownership. The vote was six to two.

June 2026, after the knock-back. On 18 June 2026 (resolution 26-164) councillors asked staff for a report covering the formal feedback on the failed application, alternative funding such as philanthropy, sponsorship and public-private partnerships, a public masterplan, and ways to divide the Byron Shire trail into smaller stages that are more deliverable and fundable. The resolution names eight candidate stages, from Crabbes Creek to Billinudgel at the north end to Dudgeons Lane to Booyong at the south. It passed seven to two. As at 5 October that report had not appeared in the published agendas or minutes of the council’s 20 August and 17 September meetings.

What Lismore City Council has decided

Lismore’s record is shorter, and it has made no new resolution on the trail since the May outcome.

In November 2023 it adopted a Priority Projects Register that ranks Northern Rivers Rail Trail Stage 2, South Lismore to Booyong, third of five, behind a resilience feasibility study and the regional airport. The vote was nine to one, and the resolution is restated in the February 2025 minutes. In December 2024 (resolution 125/24) councillors voted unanimously to ask that the old rail bridge at Crane Street not be removed, to keep connectivity for future sections of the trail.

Since May, the trail has come up as questions on notice rather than motions. Answering one at the 9 June 2026 meeting, the General Manager said that to date the only cost of chasing grant funding had been staff time, and attached an earlier answer from March 2025, which said a 2023 business case estimated the remaining sections from Lismore to Booyong at $37 million. Another, at the 14 July meeting, said maintaining the open section is being absorbed by the Open Spaces budget and It is however placing financial pressure on budget which is already stretched to maintain existing assets. The March 2025 answer also recorded that Lismore officers were meeting officers of the other three councils on a memorandum of understanding and a governance model for running the trail jointly, with costs shared and no commitment yet made by Lismore. Separately, in October 2025 councillors voted eight to three against writing a letter of in-principle support for a future low-emission train in the Lismore to Booyong corridor.

The money already in the ground

For scale: the trail’s construction page lists the government money that built the open sections as $7.8 million from NSW and $6.5 million from the Commonwealth for Tweed, $7.5 million from the Commonwealth for Casino to Bentley, and $9.6 million from the Commonwealth’s Building Better Regions Fund for Lismore to Bentley. That is $31.4 million for 53.7 km, each from a different program. Lismore’s own accounting, given to councillors in March 2025 and attached again in June 2026, puts its Building Better Regions grant at $9,918,615 rather than $9.6 million. Either way, the $37 million estimate for Lismore to Booyong alone is more than all three open sections cost to build, before any of Byron’s 54 km, which Byron’s staff have said will be the most challenging and expensive because of the bush and threatened species that have grown into the corridor since the line closed in 2004.

Our read

This is opinion, built on the facts above. The open ends were built by stitching together four government programs, one section at a time, and that worked. The middle was put to a single program in one $42 million bid, and for about 21 months the region’s plan for it was that program’s answer. The answer was no, and the program is now closed to new bids. Byron’s June resolution, asking how to cut its section into smaller, separately fundable stages, reads to us as the right lesson: the existing sections came from grants of $6.5 million to $9.6 million each, not one of $42 million. Two things would help any next bid. One agreed length for the gap, because funders notice when the same project is 74, 75.1 and 78.3 km depending on whose page they read. And settled arrangements for who maintains what is built, since Lismore says maintaining what it already has is placing pressure on its budget. Both councils say on the record that they remain committed. What neither has yet is a funded next step.

Our earlier piece, where the Northern Rivers Rail Trail stands, covers the open sections, the awards and the trail’s own visitor figures.

Sources

The working. AI read the documents and drafted this story, under rules people set and answer for, working from the primary sources below. How we work.

1. Northern Rivers Rail Trail, Construction timelines (web page, last modified 17 October 2025, read 5 October 2026): the four stages and their lengths (24 km, 13.4 km, 37.2 km split into 16.3 km open and 20.9 km seeking funding, and 54.2 km Booyong to Crabbes Creek at the planning and approval stage), the sentence on Lismore to Booyong funding, and the construction funding for each open section.
2. Northern Rivers Rail Trail Supporters, Community campaign launched to finish award-winning Northern Rivers Rail Trail (release dated 15 April 2026 on the trail’s site, read 5 October 2026): the 74 km and 132 km figures, the joint application described as awaiting a federal decision for around 16 months, and the call on the NSW and Australian governments.
3. Byron Shire Council, Northern Rivers Rail Trail - Byron Shire (project page, read 5 October 2026 in a browser): the statement that the Byron section is unfunded, the August 2024 application and May 2026 outcome, the three sections applied for, the construction-stage lengths including 54 km Booyong to Yelgun and Lismore’s 20.9 km as not funded, and the opening months of the open sections.
4. Byron Shire Council, Byron Shire rail trail – what’s happening (media release, 30 January 2026, read 5 October 2026 in a browser): the $42 million joint application to the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, the sections it covered, and the Manager Major Projects’ statements on funding and cost.
5. Byron Shire Council, No Federal funding for rail trail in Byron Shire (media release, 20 May 2026, read 5 October 2026 in a browser): the notification that the application was unsuccessful, its amount and program, and the Mayor’s statement.
6. Byron Shire Council, Minutes, Ordinary Meeting, 24 August 2023 (PDF, read 5 October 2026): resolution 23-360 and the vote.
7. Byron Shire Council, Minutes, Ordinary Meeting, 19 February 2026 (meeting portal, minutes PDF read 5 October 2026 in a browser): Notice of Motion 9.6, Completing the Rail Trail, resolution 25-646 and the vote.
8. Byron Shire Council, Minutes, Ordinary Meeting, 18 June 2026 (meeting portal, minutes PDF read 5 October 2026 in a browser): Report 9.6, resolution 26-164, its eight candidate stages and the vote. The agendas and minutes of the 20 August and 17 September 2026 meetings were searched and contain no rail trail item.
9. Lismore City Council, Northern Rivers Rail Trail - Lismore to Booyong (project page, read 5 October 2026 in a browser): the 15.5 km funding line, the 62.8 km Byron section from Yelgun to Eltham, the 20.9 km Lismore to Booyong section and the 132 km route.
10. Lismore City Council, Lismore remains committed to Rail Trail vision (media release, 21 May 2026, read 5 October 2026 in a browser): the $42 million joint application, its Lismore to Bexhill section, and the Mayor’s statement.
11. Lismore City Council, Minutes, Council Meeting, 10 December 2024 and 11 February 2025 (PDFs, read 5 October 2026): resolution 125/24 on the Crane Street bridge and its vote; the November 2023 Priority Projects Register resolution and its vote, as restated in a General Manager’s answer; and the register’s description of Stage 2.
12. Lismore City Council, Minutes, Council Meeting, 14 October 2025 (PDF, read 5 October 2026): the defeated motion 192/25 on a low-emission train between Lismore and Booyong, and the vote.
13. Lismore City Council, Minutes, Council Meeting, 9 June 2026 and 14 July 2026 (PDFs, read 5 October 2026): the General Manager’s answers and the attached March 2025 answer on the $37 million 2023 estimate, the Building Better Regions Fund figure, grant-seeking costs, the four-council governance discussions and maintenance funding. Lismore’s council minutes from January 2024 to 8 September 2026 were searched and record no other rail trail resolution.
14. Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, regional Precincts and Partnerships Program (web page, read 5 October 2026): paused to new applications, the $400 million program size, the $5 million to $50 million delivery stream, and successful projects listed to 3 September 2026.

Sit on either council, work on the trail, or read these lengths differently? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome here.