"Me thinks thast "someone has spoken with fork..ed tongue""
Well, me thinks that Elijah is reaping results from some of his overagressive actions in the past. It does bring further clues to the surface though.
He claims a railroad will provide little advantage to Marten Falls as it will not pass through there anyway, while a road would. However, regardless of all other factors, they still have to cross those two rivers, even just with a road, and there is no justification for them except for rail.
It is nearing the end of planning season for the winter work programs. If there is no decision made within the next month there will be no start on anything until fall of 2012. And this is to support a mining start of 2015?? These bridges will require at least 3 years to complete, maybe longer, and they will have to find some way to get the necessary equipment in before they start. And they will require government support for a plan that serves only Marten Falls, and only partly???
The east west corridor could be upgraded to a year round road in two years. It could support movement of construction equipment within 6 months. It would serve at least four, and maybe more local communities. This would result in support from Tim's and KFC, as they could look at four new stores rather than just one.
Actually if you take CLF and the railroad right out of the picture, and only consider the little exploration company of Noront, they could easily be shipping nickel ore by 2016.
In addition, with an all season road, They could feasibly look at a contract with Baosteel where they would ship 250k tons a year of upgrade chrome ore. Drilling this year should allow them an updated 43-101 for 20mill tons of chromite. A simple sorting facility on site, and a fleet of 20 long haul trucks would allow them to supply 250k ton/year with room to spare. Presale of both of these products would provide all the financing they need for construction phase, maybe.
All of the above is simple speculation. I do not have the abilities to determine which route is better in the long run. Maybe no one does. However one can assume that a maximum effort is going into determining this, and once a concensus appears, we will move forward, again maybe.
Best regards
K
