Summit Tank railway station

Summit Tank was a railway station on the Unanderra-Moss Vale line in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia.

History

In the late 1920s it was decided by the then New South Wales Government that a railway line was needed between Moss Vale and Wollongong to get freight trains from southern locations directly to Port Kembla and away from the increasing passenger train services in southern and south western Sydney. A right of way was surveyed from Unanderra just south of Wollongong through the southern part of Farmborough Heights on a gradient of 1 in 33 to Moss Vale.

Summit Tank is a location where banker or pusher engines were taken off Moss Vale bound trains and for extra braking were added to heavy Wollongong or Port Kembla bound trains. Summit Tank had a passenger platform, train crew amenities and a 60-foot (18 m) manual turntable for turning locomotives and ash pits.

Today

49 Class loco on Cockatoo Run,
at Summit Tank, 2002

Summit Tank still sees the occasional bank engine with heavy steel trains regularly using the Unanderra to Moss Vale line to gain access to the Main South Line to Melbourne. Other traffic on the line includes container trains, bulk wheat and other grain trains, mostly from southern New South Wales; coal trains from Tahmoor; western coal trains using the line during Illawarra line trackwork; limestone trains from Medway, as well as the once-a-month Cockatoo Run to and from Sydney.

Summit Tank has a mainline and passing loop with a platform for safeworking duties including a local control panel and radio antenna for train operations. Further towards Moss Vale there is a platform where Cockatoo Run passengers can alight to visit a scenic look-out on the edge of the Illawarra Escarpment, with views over Lake Illawarra and the Pacific Ocean.

References

• "Summit Tank Railway Station". www.nswrail.net. Retrieved 2008-06-11. 
• 2008 UBD Street Directory for Wollongong