The Silverton Tramway was an Australian 56-kilometre (35 mi) long 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge railway running from Cockburn on the South Australian state border to Broken Hill in New South Wales. Operating between 1888 and 1970 it served the mines of Broken Hill, and formed the link between the standard gauge New South Wales Government Railways and the narrow gauge South Australian Railways.[1] The line was owned and operated by the Silverton Tramway Company.
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The Silverton Tramway was conceived as a way to transport ore from the newly discovered ore deposits at Silverton, to the smelters at Port Pirie, with the line later extended to Broken Hill with the discovery of that field.[2] The need for a private line was in part due to the NSW Government refusing to allow the South Australian Railways to complete their narrow gauge link across the border.[1] The Silverton Tramway Act was passed by New South Wales in 1886, permitting the narrow gauge line to be built.[3] The Act also permitted the New South Wales government to buy out the company and assets after 21 years, provided a payment of 21 times the average of the previous seven years, and that the Company could be obliged to alter the track gauge at any time at its own expense.[3] The line was built in twelve months at a cost of 125,000 pounds.[4]
Once opened, major traffic on the line included passengers, livestock, bullion, ore and concentrates.[2] In 1913, 844,477 tons of ore and concentrates were carried on the tramway and another 843,307 tons of other goods including coke, coal, timber, crude oil and livestock,[4] and by 1933 twenty steam locomotives were owned by the company, along with 660 goods wagons. Passenger services were operated by the South Australian Railways, who paid the Company to access the line,[4] the main passenger terminal in Broken Hill being at Sulphide Street.[5] By the 1950s the Company was also providing a shunting service on 25 miles (40 km) of sidings in Broken Hill, and was also operating steam locomotives up to 62 feet (19 m) long and weighting 97 tons, ordered from Beyer Peacock at the same time as the WAGR W Class locomotives.[4] Diesel locomotives were delivered from 1961, appearing in the yellow and blue colours some years later.
After the completion of the Trans-Australian Railway, the Silverton Tramway and the South Australian line to Port Pirie was a missing link in an unbroken Sydney to Perth rail journey (Perth to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia was the other). Moves towards conversion of the line to standard gauge were made with the passing of the Railway Standardisation Agreement Act of 1944, in which the New South Wales government would acquire the Silverton Tramway Company, then pass it to the South Australian Railway Commissioner.[3] This agreement lapsed, with a new one made in 1949, in which the Commonwealth would be responsible for the acquisition.
The New South Wales government did not wish the Company to remain as a main line operator, or to purchase it themselves; while South Australian train crews were not happy to work trains across the state border due to a loss of favourable industrial conditions.[3]. When the Company purchased its diesel locomotives, a number of structures, including bridges, were modified to carry standard gauge, as the company ordered the wider bogies needed to operate on standard gauge[6]. By 1967 the Silverton Tramway Company offered to build a standard gauge line for a fixed sum, and transfer the line to New South Wales soon after. This line would run from Cockburn to Broken Hill on an alignment that had some interaction with the existing Crystal Street station, but the Commonwealth Government rejected it as they wished for the line to be built on a totally new alignment away from the Company lines.[3] By 1968 South Australia believed that they would have gauge converted their portion of the line before the short section to Broken Hill was even finished.
The standard gauge line was finally opened in 1970 on a new alignment which led directly to the New South Wales-operated Crystal Street station, taking one year and over $2 million more than if the Silverton proposal was carried out.[3] The Silverton Tramway Company's business was lost to the South Australian Railways[6], with the company closing its narrow gauge shortline business, and returning the permanent way to the Crown.[7]
The company then reinvented itself as Silverton Rail, a short haul rail operator servicing the mining industry in and around Broken Hill. Since 1886 the company hauled some 90 million tonnes of bulk and general freight and 2.8 million passengers over an aggregate of 19 million kilometres (12 million miles).[7]