in late 1994. Under the terms of this agreement the Herons were retired and a Fairchild Metroliner brought in from the Tamair fleet to take over the bulk of the flying to the Bass Strait islands. The collapse of the Tamair group in 1998 resulted in Airlines of Tasmania ceasing operations. Hobart-based Tasair emerged as the replacement operator for the King Island route, initially with a mixture of Piper Navajos and Aero Commanders before later using a British Aerospace Jetstream 31. Tasair ceased servicing Burnie in 2010, the airline subsequently entered voluntary liquidation in early 2012. Since 2012, the Launceston - Burnie - King Island route has been operated by regional carrier Sharp Airlines using Fairchild Metroliners. Since mid-2020, Sharp has also operated a twice-weekly service Hobart - Burnie - King Island, underwritten by the Tasmanian Government in order to support local tourism during the COVID pandemic. Other operators to have served Burnie/Wynyard Airport in the past are Aus-Air from Melbourne's Moorabbin Airport with a fleet of Piper Navajos and Embraer Bandierantes, Geelong Flight Centre between Geelong's Grovedale Airport and Burnie via King Island using Navajos and Partenavia P.68's, and Philip Island Air Services flew a Cessna 402 from Cowes. At-grade railway crossing Until the early 2000s, Burnie was one of the few airports to have a railway line crossing an active runway, with the Western Line from Burnie to Wiltshire crossing through the northern end of runway 05/23. Until 1990, the airport was manned during operating hours by a Flight Service Unit (FSU) which provided traffic and weather information. The staff also had the ability to control the railway signalling system from the FSU office overlooking the airport. A series of lights on a console would advise whether the railway track section was occupied, and FSU staff could either set the signal facing the train to stop, or alternatively warn aircraft that a train was approaching or obstructing the runway. When FSU operations for the area were centralised to Melbourne, those controllers also took charge of the signalling mechanism. With equipment upgrades due that would render the remote control of the signals unworkable, the Civil Aviation Authority devised a solution based on the system successfully used in the New Zealand city of Gisborne, which also has a railway crossing the airport runway. Detectors installed on the railway tracks approaching the airport boundary would activate a series of red or