I have a series of static routes in route-eth0

Recently I had to made changes and could not find an effective way to get the old routes out and the new routes in.

ifdown-route seems to apply the content of route-eth0 to take down the routes listed and ifup-route brings up routes based on route-

So what ends up is that the old routes never go away, just new routes added.

ifdown eth0; ifup eth0

works, but is a bit heavy-handed for only changing routes.

So how do I clear out the routing table and have it rebuilt based on ifcfg-eth0 and route-eth0 without bouncing the interface completely?