Metropolitan Goods Railway Line, Sydney
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The Metropolitan Goods Railway Line is a network of freight (or goods) railway lines in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.
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[edit] Route
The line starts at Port Botany in Sydney's south, and joins the Bankstown railway line at Sydenham. It then runs beside the Bankstown Line to the suburb of Dulwich Hill where it branches off and heads north through Lewisham, passing beneath the Main Suburban Railway before heading north through Lilyfield to the Glebe Island port and Rozelle Goods yard. A branch of the line then passes over a brick viaduct through Glebe Jubilee Park, then through a tunnel beneath the suburb of Glebe, to pass over another brick viaduct over Wentworth Park. The line then swings north to loop through the former industrial suburb of Pyrmont, before passing beside Darling Harbour. Here, it served the former large Darling Harbour Goods yard. It then passes south beside the former Ultimo Power Station (now the Powerhouse Museum) and Ultimo tram depot (now closed), under Railway Square to join the railway lines south of Central station. The line was electrified from Dulwich Hill to the Rozelle goods yard, although no electrified freight trains now run in New South Wales.
[edit] History
The line opened in 1922. The section from Rozelle Goods Yard to Central Station was closed in the late 1980's when Darling Harbour was redeveloped from a Goods Yard into its current form as a leisure and tourist precinct.
[edit] Current
In August 2004, the Australian Rail Track Corporation and Rail Corporation New South Wales entered into an agreement for ARTC to lease the Metropolitan Freight Network, specified as being the dedicated freight lines within the rail corridors:
- Sefton Park to Chullora
- Flemington South to Belmore
- Belmore to Marrickville (shared passenger and freight corridor - separate tracks)
- Marrickville to Botany and Dulwich Hill to Rozelle.
The ARTC is constructing the Southern Sydney Freight Line to extend the freight network from Sefton to Macarthur.
The section between Dulwich Hill and Rozelle sees only irregular freight service now. Rozelle goods yard is overgrown and has been used intermittently for the storage of disused railway wagons and passenger cars. After unrealised plans to run suburban trains in the 1980's, the section from Lilyfield through Glebe, Pyrmont and Ultimo has been converted into the Metro Light Rail line to Central station.
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