Plans for a proposed Canberra-Yass rail link were in progress at this time 54 years ago.
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Surveyors for the Commonwealth Railways pegged out a route with yellow wooden pegs where it crossed properties and with permanent concrete markers where it crossed established roads.
The route as planned would cut across eight properties in the Pialligo area, damaging gardens which provided vegetable and garden supplies to the Canberra region.
A meeting was held to discuss a practicable alternative route for the link.
One angry leaseholder ploughed marker posts out of the ground on his property because, he said, the pegs threatened to puncture his tractor tyres.
Several other property owners told The Canberra Times they would give up their entire leases if the line interfered with them.
Pialligo's vegetable growers said they understood that actual work would not begin for another 10 years.
Mr David Lloyd, the owner of the biggest vegetable market gardens in the ACT, said the government was welcome to resume the whole of his lease if the rail link cut through his property.
Mr Lloyd said he and his family had put 40 years into the property.
"If it comes through, all my irrigation lines will be cut and the whole bottom half of the land will be lost," he said.