The first line in South Australia arrived in 1856, when the Colony’s government set up the South Australian Railways, and opened a 1600 mm gauge line between Adelaide and the suburb of Port Adelaide, 14 km to the north-west. The line was initially planned as Standard gauge, but then was changed to the broad gauge in contemplation of enabling a direct rail connection with the State of Victoria’s broad gauge railways to the south-east.

  It would not however be until 1887 before the South Australia 1600 mm gauge lines finally connected with those in neighbouring Victoria, at Serviceton. This line, between Adelaide and Melbourne, was notable in that it was the first in the whole of Australia that connected two State capitals without a break of gauge – a somewhat damning indictment if ever there was one.

  Like with its sibling Colonies, the recommendation from London to use Standard gauge was assiduously ignored. The result was that South Australia, until relatively recently, had a ‘bewildering array’ (to used Lord Kitchener’s words) of, not only gauges, but also junctions where these gauges met up (see map above). And Standard gauge was only tolerated, arriving in 1917, because the federal government of the day insisted on it being used for the Trans-Australian Railway, part of which ran through South Australia.

  But while the first lines, radiating out from Adelaide, were built to 1600 mm gauge, in the late 1850s and early 1860s, subsequent lines, especially those associated with grain and ore transportation, were built to 1067 mm gauge. One can only wonder what was going on in the minds of these builders – did they not envisage that someday in the future they just might need to connect all these lines together?

  The first 1067 mm gauge line was built in 1870, between Port Wakefield (less than 100 km from Adelaide) and Hoyleton. Now admittedly this line was subsequently converted to 1600 mm gauge (at a cost of course), as well as being extended to Blyth (130 km from the State capital) and then eventually to Gladstone, but other lines stayed at the narrow gauge.

  In the 1880s and 1890s, South Australia continued with its schizophrenic two-gauge and three-gauge railway building. An Irish gauge line was built in 1880 from Adelaide to Terowie – yet north of that town the line continued onwards using Cape gauge, and wound its way through Peterborough and Quorn before terminating at Oodnadatta, reaching that town in 1891. The final extension of this line became the Central Australian Railway to Alice Springs, in NT. It was the route of the old 1067 mm gauge Ghan train, since replaced by a Standard gauge line 150 km to the west (see map above).

  A Cape gauge line was built from Port Pirie to Broken Hill (in NSW), with a side connection to Adelaide. Thus at one time all three of Australia’s gauges were to be found in South Australia, and all in significant quantities.

  However, as these lines, especially those using 1067 mm Cape gauge, were mostly isolated, with no connection between them, the gauge incompatibilities were not too much of a problem – at that time of course. Obviously no-one had thought to learn from the history of mother-country Great Britain when it came to the inevitable linking up of all these lines.

  Only when such connections became necessary were the difficulties in changing trains and trans-shipping freight between incompatible gauges brought into sharp focus. Yet nothing was done for very many years, such was the intensity of Australia’s gauge wars.

  Eventually, a little rationalising occurred – but this involved changing gauges of lines already built. For example, some south-eastern lines were converted from narrow gauge to broad gauge, to facilitate some through-running. This of course had the effect of creating new breaks of gauge where before there weren’t any.

  Since then, things have been slightly simplified in South Australia by the conversion of the 1067 mm gauge lines to both Standard gauge and Irish gauge, as noted above (only one narrow gauge line remains, from Port Lincoln to the Eyre Peninsula, and isolated from all other lines). Many of the tracks are built to dual 1435/1600 mm gauge – a solution that at one time was rejected as being ‘reckless’, on account of the small 165 mm gauge difference. Obviously later engineers did not see that as a problem.

  It wasn’t until 1982, however, that the city of Adelaide itself saw the first 1435 mm gauge lines within its stations. Since then, a number of lines have been converted to Standard gauge. This has its own problems of course – converting a 1600 mm or 1067 mm gauge line to Standard gauge in one location simply means moving the inevitable break of gauge to somewhere else, a situation that will only be eliminated once ALL lines are converted to Standard gauge.

  Today, in essence, the interstate long distance trains – such as The Ghan to Darwin, The Overland to Melbourne (on the Belair line), and the Indian Pacific to Perth – run on the Standard gauge tracks, while almost all the suburban services, consisting of five lines (Gawler Central, Grange, Noarlunga Centre, Outer Harbor, Tonsley), remain at 1600 mm gauge.

  A few freight lines north of Adelaide, primarily to move bulk grain, have been converted to the broad gauge, while others (such as the Snowtown to Wallaroo line) were 1600/1435 mm dual-gauged.

  The Gawler and Noarlunga lines have parallel Standard and broad gauge tracks, or are else dual-gauged.

  The logistics in running what are two separate yet interlaced railway systems, to two incompatible gauges, with both parallel and dual gauge lines, must be quite daunting, especially when lines diverge using only one of the two gauges.

  One line, the Belair, remains partially to 1600 mm gauge, between Goodwood and Belair itself, even while the parallel track to Melbourne has been converted to Standard gauge (see map above where the Melbourne and Goodwood lines peel off after Victoria Street).

  Will Adelaide’s suburban rail system ever get converted to Standard gauge in its entirety? It very much looks as if that is already happening. The system, currently un-electrified (the only one in Australia), had funding earmarked for it a few years ago to the tune of A$500 million. That money will be, or is being, used to electrify the whole network – and convert it to Standard gauge.

  On the Noarlunga Central Line, for example (see map above), there is already evidence that the line is being converted to Standard gauge (or possibly dual gauged, although that is not part of the plan). Over much of the line, if not all of it, new trackwork has been built to 1600 mm gauge – but with 1435 mm gauge fixings already in place, just ready for the rail to be popped out of the 1600 mm gauge fixings and into the 1435 mm gauge fixings. Some of this work was actually started in the 1990s, so this gauge conversion program has been around for some time.

  (I have not been able to establish just how the conversion will be effected. There are two methods:

  Add an additional rail alongside the existing rail. This has the advantage of being able to keep the line open, in essence dual-gauging it, while permitting the new electric rolling stock to be phased in gradually. It does mean extra initial first cost (although the additional rail could be lifted at some point and re-used elsewhere), as well as a lot of complexity at switches and crossings.

  Shut the line completely, then complete the lifting and re-installation of the existing rail to the new gauge. This means a complete conversion in one fell swoop, including the rolling stock changeover, during which time the line would be shut.

  Method 2 would be a nice clean conversion – but that is not how Australia has always done things when it comes to its railways…)

  When this program is complete, South Australia’s railways will be largely – though not completely – to Standard gauge. Will this be the impetus for the State’s remaining railways – some of which were converted to broad gauge only in the 1980s – to be converted to Standard gauge?

  Things are a bit different in the Northern Territories. While South Australia was wedded to broad gauge to a large degree, NT, as with many parts of Australia, built its first railway to 1067 mm gauge – actually two lines, as railway building started initially in the south going north to Alice Springs, as an extension of the line from South Australia, but then a few years later from the north going south. Whether by design or by chance, it is indeed fortunate that both lines were built to the same gauge, albeit the ‘renegade’ 1067 mm Cape gauge.

  This first line from the north, opened in 1889, was a private affair, and ran between Darwin, in the very north of the State, and Pine Creek. It would be 1929 before the line reached Birdum, almost 500 km to the south of Darwin, with Alice Springs reached a few months later in that same year.

  Today the line, all of it south of Alice Springs on a new alignment opened in 1980, is to Standard gauge, and forms the current route of The Ghan. The final section between Alice Springs and Darwin, involving the conversion of the existing alignment to Standard gauge, was opened in 2004.

  Silverton Tramway:

  I am including this particular railway under its own sub-heading, as in many ways it is a microcosm of the gauge issues surrounding Australia’s railways.

  The Silverton Tramway (a bit of a misnomer for what was a freight railway) was a short (56-km) 1067 mm gauge railway that ran across the border from Cockburn in South Australia to Broken Hill in NSW, in order to transport ore deposits discovered at Silverton to Port Pirie. When we remember that NSW was committed to Standard gauge, we can immediately see a typical potential break of gauge at the South Australia-NSW border, as NSW had refused to allow the 1067 mm gauge line on to its Standard gauge territory.

  The break of gauge was ultimately avoided by NSW, in 1886, actively permitting the continuation of the narrow gauge line within its borders, under a piece of legislation titled the Silverton Tramway Act. It is a salutary fact, when you think about it, that it took an act of State legislation to permit a different gauge to be constructed within a State’s borders, such was the animosity between each State, not to mention against the federal government, in terms of each State’s protection against any encroachment by a competing gauge from a neighbouring State.

  In order to complete the Trans-Australian Railway, it became necessary to convert the Silverton Tramway, a key link, to Standard gauge. The Railway Standardisation Agreement Act was passed in 1944, requiring the conversion to proceed. In the event, due to some typical heel-dragging, conversion did not take place.

  The Tramway had already purchased Standard gauge rolling stock, as well as modified some of its infrastructure, in order to facilitate the transfer to the NSW government of what was going to become the Standard gauge line. That proposal was rejected by the Commonwealth government, in 1967, and the line remained at 1067 mm gauge, including that part within NSW’s border. The Standard gauge proposals eventually ran on a completely new alignment, by-passing the Tramway altogether, and the narrow gauge line suffered an inevitable demise. After abandonment, the right-of-way was returned to the federal government.

  It is another example of the rivalries and ‘obstinacy’ that seem to be an embedded part of the culture of building and running a railway in Australia.

  Glenelg tramway:

  Unlike the Silverton Tramway, the Glenelg Tramway is a true tram system, mostly on a separate right-of-way, but with some street running. It runs from the centre of Adelaide to Glenelg, a distance of 15 km. Because it runs mostly on a non-street alignment, it survived the closure of Adelaide’s tram system in the 1950s.

  Today, it consists of one 1435 mm gauge line, and has a number of restored 1930s vintage trams, together with some new Bombardier 30-m long articulated trams.

  Like so much of Australia’s rail-based transport system, it has undergone a gauge change. The tramway was originally more of a steam-hauled conventional railway, with widely spaced stations stopping short of the city centre, and of course built to the prevailing gauge in the Adelaide region of 1600 mm. When ownership of the line was transferred to what was known as the Adelaide Municipal Tramways Trust, in 1929, it was rebuilt as a conventional electric tramway – and converted to Standard gauge, at which it remains to this day.

  Pichi Richi Railway:

  I am also giving this railway its own mention, as it once was part of the old 1067 mm gauge Ghan route to Alice Springs. Today it is a preserved railway, just over 400 km long, running between Port Augusta and Quorn through the Pichi Richi Pass. These two stations were key breaks of gauge in travelling across Australia.

  The line wasn’t only solely to 1067 mm gauge. Between 1937 and 1957, parts of it were 1067/1435 mm dual gauge. Then the Cape gauge parts were removed, requiring wagons of this gauge to be moved on transporter cars.

  The line was essentially superfluous and became disused after the new Standard gauge line from Adelaide to Alice Springs was opened in 1980, but has since been rehabilitated. It is now a tourist railway, and once again back to its old 1067 mm gauge, including the section between Port Augusta and Stirling North, which now runs parallel to, and not as part of, the Standard gauge line.

  Queensland:

  Travelling east from NT takes us into Queensland, the second-largest State in terms of area. It is the only State where almost all – but not quite all – its railways were built to one gauge. That gauge was 1067 mm Cape gauge.

  Queensland, originally part of New South Wales, was a relatively poor and very sparsely populated Colony during its early years. Its first railway, amidst a storm of controversy, arrived in July 1865, near to, but not actually in, the Colony’s capital, Brisbane. It would not be until some ten years or so later, in 1875-6, that Brisbane itself became connected to the Colony’s railways

  Because of the small population spread over a large area, together with a relatively low level of prosperity at the time, the most economical method of building Queensland’s first railways was a necessity. Something narrower than Standard gauge was therefore proposed by those private companies interested in constructing the first railways.

  Not only would a narrower gauge involve less earthworks and lower costs for the infrastructure, such as bridges, the argument was held, but it would be faster to build – an important consideration when the distances were great and all work had to be done by hand. Having said that, speeds on a narrow gauge track would inevitably be very slow, resulting in long journey times over those huge distances – there are around 1700 km between Brisbane and Cairns. Improving on the slow speeds however was not considered to be a priority in those early days.

  The choice of the narrow gauge was certainly not a simple matter – in fact, just the opposite. It took a vote in the Colony’s legislature to approve the use of this gauge – a vote that was won by the narrow margin of fourteen votes to eleven. The decision was very controversial, especially as originally it was proposed to build the new railways to something other than a narrow gauge.

  In 1860, there was a proposal put before the Colony’s legislature to build the Moreton Bay Tramway. Part of the prospectus put out by the privately-run Moreton Bay Tramway Company specified that:

  “…the railway was to be constructed wholly of timber to a gauge of 4ft. 8½in. or 5ft., and it was proposed that the timber for the rails, bridges, etc., should be of ironbark cut from the neighbouring ridges.”

  The line was to run between Ipswich and Toowoomba, just west of Brisbane, and was initially to be horse-drawn.

  Before the line could be built, questions were raised as to its profitability (perhaps more correctly, its excessive profitability – freight charges and passenger fares were challenged by the Colony’s legislature as being far too high for the population to afford).

  The Tramway Company was forced to suspend its proposals until its fares structure could be approved, and, faced with this extreme and non-resolvable opposition to its plans (the Colony’s premier was in London at this time, so no decision could be made), had to put everything on hold. It became insolvent, and was wound up. For the following three years, many proposals were put forward for a replacement railway, but none was considered viable.

  In 1863, the legislature, with the burgeoning population’s approval, decided the new railway should be government run and financed. Capital was raised in London, and in May 1863 a Railway Bill was presented to the legislature. After protracted and often heated discussions in the legislative assembly, the government ended up losing the House’s confidence, and was dissolved. New elections were then held, in which the proposed railway was the main election issue.

  Just after the legislature’s dissolution, a civil engineer by the name of Mr Abraham Fitzgibbon arrived in Queensland, on behalf of contractors Messrs. Tooth and Company, of New South Wales, who had submitted proposals to build the railway between Toowoomba and Ipswich, along with an extension to Dalby. Fitzgibbon recommended the gauge of 3 ft 6 in (1067 mm) – the same gauge as he claimed he was already building in New Zealand.

  I mentioned at the beginning of this Chapter on Australia that the Colonies often underwent ‘gauge wars’, wherein something different from the Standard gauge already recommended by ‘parent’ NSW (not to mention London) would be chosen. Queensland was no exception. Mr Fitzgibbon, who subsequently left Tooth’s employ and started working directly for the government, had made a very strong case for using the narrow gauge, expressing grave concerns as to the vastly increased costs of building to Standard gauge (a cost factor of over double, according to his calculations).

  Even though many in the Colony thought that the use of Standard gauge, as mandated in England, Wales and Scotland some twenty years earlier, would have been a far better choice, the legislature concurred with Mr Fitzgibbon’s arguments. The Government, in defending its choice of the narrow gauge, even went so far as to say that it would stand or fall on its decision, and that it would abandon the railway altogether rather than build it to Standard gauge.

  It became a position of crisis in the government. Many, including a number of influential Members of the Legislature, still disagreed with the use of Cape gauge. Among those disagreeing with Mr Fitzgibbon’s proposed Cape gauge was the chief engineer of the defunct Moreton Tramway, Mr Coote, who (perhaps in a moment of pique) wrote:

 

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