Railways in Adelaide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rail network in Adelaide, South Australia, consists of five lines and 81 stations. It is operated by TransAdelaide, and is part of the city-wide Adelaide Metro public transport system. Apart from the Glenelg Tram, Adelaide's railway system is serviced entirely by diesel railcars.

All lines around Adelaide were originally broad gauge (5 ft 3 in, or 1600 mm). The main interstate lines out of Adelaide towards Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Darwin have been progressively converted to standard gauge (4 ft 8½ in, or 1435 mm), but the suburban system and a few freight-only branch lines to the north remain broad gauge.

1 Operators
2 Early days
3 The Webb Era
4 SAR, STA and AN
5 Modern day
6 Current rolling stock
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Operators

TransAdelaide’s 3000 & 3100-class diesel-electric railcars are the backbone of the suburban network

FreightLink Adelaide to Darwin freight train at Dry Creek.

Pacific National freight from Melbourne to Perth passing Belair in the Adelaide Hills.

ARG broad gauge limestone train from the Barossa Valley to Osborne passing Birkenhead

GSR’s Indian Pacific from Adelaide to Sydney near Hawker Street, Bowden

Rail services around Adelaide are provided by a mixture of private & government-owned organisations.

TransAdelaide is a corporate agency of the Government of South Australia and is contracted by the SA Office of Public Transport to operate the suburban passenger rail network. This comprises five lines from Adelaide Railway Station on North Terrace in the CBD. The State Government of South Australia retains ownership of all broad gauge lines in the suburban area, together with the Glenelg Tram.

ARTC (Australian Rail Track Corporation), an agency of the Australian federal government, owns standard gauge interstate lines heading north and south, together with the dual gauge freight-only branch from Dry Creek to Port Adelaide and Pelican Point. The ARTC lines bypass the city to the west and do not enter the CBD. The ARTC network extends from Adelaide towards Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Darwin and is used by substantial interstate freight traffic.

Freight trains are operated by a number of private operators, who have access agreements with rail network owners such as ARTC. The largest of these is Pacific National, which handles the majority of interstate traffic and has the largest locomotive fleet. Other logistics companies also operate freight trains to and from interstate destinations and within South Australia.

Australian Railroad Group (ARG) is a private consortium that owns the remaining broad-gauge lines beyond the Adelaide suburban network. These are a handful of lines used mainly to move bulk grain and stone from the Barossa Valley and mid-north region of S.A to the Port Adelaide area. ARG also operates standard gauge branches to Apamurra, Loxton and Pinnaroo (all in the Murray Mallee east of Adelaide) and an isolated narrow gauge line from Port Lincoln into Eyre Peninsula. These transport seasonal grain traffic to ports for export.

Great Southern Railway (GSR) is a private company operating long-distance passenger trains. These trains use ARTC’s standard gauge lines and run from the Keswick Rail Terminal, not from the main city station - Keswick is an industrial suburb just west of the CBD. GSR’s passenger trains are the Indian Pacific to Sydney and Perth, The Ghan to Alice Springs and Darwin and The Overland to Melbourne. The frequencies range from one to four trains per week, depending on destination. There have been no intra-state regional passenger services in South Australia since 1990.

There are several heritage related railways in South Australia run by volunteers, but none of these are based in the Adelaide area. The closest is SteamRanger at Mount Barker and Goolwa. More distant lines, well outside the Adelaide area, are the Pichi Richi Railway, Limestone Coast Railway and Yorke Peninsula Railway.

[edit] Early days

In 1856, the first steam train ran between Adelaide and Port Adelaide, stopping at Bowden, Woodville and Alberton. Soon after, a 30-km line was built from the Town of Gawler to Adelaide to cater for the agricultural and mining industries at the time.

The South Line, through the Adelaide Hills, was opened to Aldgate, then Nairne in 1883 and extended to Bordertown in 1886. The first through train between Adelaide and Melbourne – The Intercolonial Express – ran on 19 January 1887, and was the first intercapital rail journey in Australia that could be made without changing trains at a break-of-gauge station.

Most of the lines around Adelaide were built before 1900.

[edit] The Webb Era

Despite the earlier geographic expansion, by 1920 the infrastructure and rolling stock of South Australia's railways had become run down, inadequate and outdated. Many of the operating practices, such as train control and signalling, were backward by the standards of the time.

However the 1920s saw substantial and expensive improvements in most facets of the SAR’s operations under the leadership of Railways Commissioner William A. Webb. Webb was an American who had substantial operational experience with US railroads, and served as Commissioner between 1922 and 1930.

During his reign, track, bridges, railway workshops, rolling stock and especially steam locomotives were all modernised and upgraded along essentially American lines. Adelaide Station was rebuilt with a very handsome sandstone building as a showpiece of the city on North Terrace. The building still stands, converted into a casino.

In 1929, one of the original broad gauge steam railways to the beach-side suburb of Glenelg was transferred to the Adelaide Municipal Tramways Trust, electrified and converted to a tramway. The Glenelg Tram line is still in operation.

[edit] SAR, STA and AN

From early colonial days up until 1978 the State Government-owned South Australian Railways (SAR) had built and operated most of the railway system within the state.

The Commonwealth Railways (CR), owned by the Federal Government, also had a significant role in the northern part of SA, with lines from Port Augusta across the Nullarbor to Kalgoorlie, and to Marree and Alice Springs. None of its lines came close to Adelaide.

During the early 1970s the Labor-controlled Federal Government proposed a strategy to nationalise and standardise the various state rail systems around Australia. South Australia and Tasmania were the only states to participate in this initiative and negotiations were long and drawn out. The result was that from March 1978 the SAR became defunct and South Australia’s railways were split between Commonwealth and State Government ownership.

A new Commonwealth Government organization - Australian National Railways Commission (ANR) - took over all the former SAR and CR track in South Australia outside the metropolitan area. Other rail facilities such as property and workshops were also transferred to ANR. ANR become Australian National (AN) as it refined its corporate identity.

The State Government retained ownership and control of tracks and trains in the Adelaide suburban area under the auspices of the State Transport Authority (STA). The STA had been created in 1974 to co-ordinate all public transport in South Australia.

In 1994 the STA was abolished and reformed as the government-owned corporate body TransAdelaide as a prelude to competitive tendering for operation of bus and rail services in metropolitan Adelaide. TransAdelaide subsequently lost all its bus services to private operators, but has retained the contracts to operate train and tram services.

In November 1997, AN was broken up and sold as part of a Federal Government privatisation agenda. Track, workshops, depots and passenger & freight operations were sold to various private organizations, which has led to today’s operational structure described in an earlier section.

[edit] Modern day

Adelaide's metropolitan rail network is the only one in mainland Australia which has not been electrified. However, there has been evidence of attempts by several governments throughout the 20th century to electrify the system.

Adelaide's rail network that has decreased in size since the 1980s, with the closure of several branches.

The current Rann Labor State Government has attracted increasing criticism for doing little to improve the ailing and ever-dilapidated rail system. The State Government, however, is in the process of developing a State Transport Plan, expected to be released mid-2005. The plan will supposedly set out the framework for upgrading the public transport system.

The five railway lines (all broad gauge) making up the suburban network are:

Outer Harbor Line (21.9 km long):

Adelaide - Port Adelaide built in 1856 - 11.7 km long
Glanville - Outer Harbor built in 1908 - 10.2 km long

Gawler Line (42.2 km long):

Adelaide - Gawler Central built in 1857 - 42.2 km long

Grange Line (5.5 km long):

Woodville - Grange built in 1882 - 13 km long

Noarlunga Line (30.2 km long):

Goodwood - Marino built in 1913 - 18.3 km long
Marino - Hallett Cove built in 1915 - 3.1 km long
Lonsdale - Christie Downs built in 1976 - 2.2 km long
Christie Downs - Noarlunga built in 1978 - 1.3 km long

Belair Line (21.5 km long):

Adelaide - Belair (Previously up to Bridgewater) built in 1883 (Belair to Bridgewater was converted to standard gauge in 1995, with one broad-gauge track from Adelaide to Belair) - 21.5 km long

Tonsley Line (3.9 km long):