Welcome back, you glorious infrastructure perverts! 🚉
It is with deep, deep regret that I present to you the third instalment of the New South Wales Railway Infrastructure Series. Yes, somehow we’ve made it this far. I’m as shocked as you are.
As I’ve bored you rigid with in previous episodes: over the many, many decades I’ve spent hanging around waiting for trains (because apparently patience is a personality trait now), I tended to point my camera at other stuff during those long, silent, soul-crushingly dull stretches of absolutely nothing happening.
You know the drill – stations, signals, complicated track layouts, signal boxes… blah, blah, blah. Thrilling, I know.
And as I also never shut up about: I have an endless mountain of these photos and absolutely nowhere else to dump them. So sadly, you lot have to take one for the team and suffer through them all. Consider it your community service for having excellent (if slightly questionable) taste.
I’ll do my absolute best to make sure this isn’t the single most mind-numbingly dreary experience of your entire life.
No promises though. 🤷♂️
If you even find some moderate amount of enjoyment would you consider giving us even a little bit of
Pretty please :-)
A lovely silhouette Yass Junction station on the Main South line taken late one afternoon while returning from one of our many south trips.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Above and three below.
Robertson station on the cross country line from Unanderra to Moss Vale.
Opened: 1932
Photos: Brad Peadon
The panel that has been very useful in times past when waiting endlessly for a train to photograph.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Two above and two below.
Former Abattoirs branchline in what is now the Homebush Bay area of Sydney.
The lower images are the once very smelly Abattoirs itself.
None of this area is remotely recognisable today.
Opened: 1926
Closed:1984
Photos: Brad Peadon
Wattamondarah on the now closed Cowra line.
Opened: 1891
Closed: 1975
Line remained open for grain and special train usage until 2011 when severe flooding wiped out some of the line between Cowra and Young.
Despite reopening announcements, as usual nothing has happened.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Weston signal box on the South Maitland Railway has become the victim of some local ferals.
While looking bad here, recent images show it looking a heck of a lot worse today.
Weston opened in 1903.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Above and four below.
Tumbarumba yard as it appeared way back in April 1991.
Haven't got an exact date as I have still to find that notebook, but it was April 1991 and likely on the way back from a Melbourne trip. Am looking for those notes as well :-(
Today the yard is the end of one of those rail trail things and it can be seen here on Googly Earth.
Opened 1921
Photos: Brad Peadon
Above and below.
If only space was not a problem, Temora has always been one of those locations I've dreamed of modelling.
Just a great yard, in a lovely part of the Riverina.
Not as lovely as Cootamundra mind you, but lets face it, nowhere in the world is :-)
Not as lovely as Cootamundra mind you, but lets face it, nowhere in the world is :-)
Opened: 1893
A museum now exists in the station building.
A museum now exists in the station building.
Photos: Brad Peadon
Thought to be Junee, but in reality I wouldn't have a clue yet.
So just enjoy the semaphore and the lighting for now.
Photo: Brad Peadon
8242 and 8207 approach the lovely bridge over the Paterson River as it approached the town of the same name. Paterson that is, not River.
For the whingers, I am standing at the publicly accessible King Street level crossing.
Opened: 1911
Photo: Brad Peadon
Gosford station which I am told looks vastly more different today.
Opened: 1887
Photo: Brad Peadon
The former Redhead railway station in the Newcastle region of our beloved state was once part of the private Belmont railway line, serving the local coal mining communities and beachside suburbs south of Newcastle. Opened in the late 19th century, the station became an important link for both passengers and freight before the line gradually declined, with the last portion from Lambton Colliery (Redhead) eventually closing in 1991.
Bit of a bummer as, for many years, we would always start our Newcastle area trips with visit to the equally closed Toronto branch, then make our way around the lake to here.
However, some time before closure, some vermin torched this building and left buggar all.
I guess that is even worse than the earlier Weston Signalbox, at least the shell of that survives.
Today, much of the old railway corridor has been transformed into the apparently popular Fernleigh Track walking and cycling path, with Redhead’s railway history still remembered by locals and gunzels alike.
Opened: 1916
Photo: Brad Peadon
Redhead platform today.
Image: Google
Above and below.
Belmont line again, this time the Park Avenue crossing at the very start of the line and not long after closure.
Below the scene today.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Image: Google
Image: Google
Wingello is a station David Henderson and I hung around a lot in the 80s. Unlike today, it had a signalman (signalbox at the far end of that main building), and an up refuge, the signalling for which is just visible.
That refuge was on a bit of a grade, so the sound of ALCos and EMDs climbing out with heavy limestone trains was a noise to behold.
Opened: 1871
Still in daily use with the appalling Goulburn service stopping on it's way through.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Above and three below.
Another place I spent a fair bit of time hanging around—especially through the late 80s, 90s, and well into the 2000s—was the former Neath station and signal box on the South Maitland Railway.
Back in its busier days it was a double-track junction, but by the final years of the signal box things had slimmed down to a single line, with part of the old down road still being used to shuffle coal trains from Pelton, the last surviving mine on the line.
Once the box closed, the remaining bits of the second track were lifted, and the ability for trains to cross there disappeared with it. Fast forward to today, the last colliery is gone, and Aurizon now owns the line, using sections of it to store wagons. I’ve also heard that a bridge just beyond Weston is currently in such poor condition that it restricts any further movement—so if that’s correct, Neath has effectively gone from a once-busy junction to a very quiet overgrown part of the network, even for storage moves.
As can be seen, yet more of that vermin has been entertaining themselves with the final relics, greatly helping have been the starving termites that are playing their part.
Photos: Brad Peadon
The busy junction location of Moss Vale (NSW Southern Highlands).
Opened: 1867
Photos: Brad Peadon
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All who travelled with me back in the day, and those who still do.
Temora Railway Museum
South Maitland Railway: Wikipedia
South Maitland Railway: Wikipedia
Belmont Railway Line: Wikipedia
Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail
Fernleigh Track
Lachlan Valley Railway: Website
Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail
Fernleigh Track
Lachlan Valley Railway: Website
Lachlan Valley Railway: Facebook
Semi-Retired Foamer Media Updates
Australian Locomotive Rosters
Semi-Retired Foamer Media Updates
Australian Locomotive Rosters
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I caught my neighbour stealing my socks off my clothesline. I was going to confront him, but I got cold feet.
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Check our new Linktree site above for piles of dreary transport entertainment.
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