The railway extends 1863-1932
From early in the planning and construction of what became the Great Northern Railway there was talk of extending the line from Singleton all the way to the Queensland border and also of linking the railway to its Sydney equivalent. On 15 July 1856, for example, the Maitland Mercury published a short article about a suggestion ‘to unite the Sydney and Hunter River Railways’. There was a proposal to petition the government to extend the Sydney line through Windsor and Richmond, across the Hawkesbury River and pass through the Wollombi District. The line was then to proceed to the station nearest to Singleton.
Singleton to Wallangarra
Following the opening of the Maitland to Singleton section of the railway, construction continued. A road and rail bridge was built across the Hunter River at Singleton, and the line proceeded toward Liddell. The railway continued on up the Hunter Valley and passed through the Ardglen tunnel in the Great Dividing Range at Murrurundi and then over the Liverpool Plains to Tamworth. From Tamworth, the line climbed the Great Dividing Range and passed north through the high country to reach Wallangarra on the Queensland border in 1888.
The narrow gauge Queensland rail system from Brisbane had reached Wallangarra the previous year and the Great Northern Railway and the Queensland western railway formed a link between Newcastle and Brisbane.
Map showing the Great Northern Railway’s link to Brisbane and to the North Coast Railway, showing the dates of the openings of stations.
(Cartography: Lawrence Henderson)
Crossing the Hawkesbury
The first railway bridge across the Hawkesbury was completed in 1889 linking the Great Northern Railway to Sydney and the New South Wales rail network. It was then possible to travel by rail from Adelaide to Brisbane, with breaks of gauge at Bordertown on the Victorian/South Australian border, Albury on the NSW/Victorian border, and Wallangarra on the Queensland/NSW border.
North Coast Railway
An east coast route for a railway, with a number of formidable rivers to cross, was considered too difficult in the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, bridge building technology had significantly advanced so these obstacles could be overcome. The North Coast Railway began to be built from Murwillumbah to Lismore in 1898 and reached Casino in 1903 and Grafton in 1905. A branch line was extended to Kyogle in 1910.
The southern part of the line began at Maitland in 1911, passed through Dungog and Gloucester and reached Taree in 1913. The line then continued to Coffs Harbour. The section between Glenreagh and South Grafton was completed in 1915 and the route with five tunnels between Coffs Harbour and Glenreagh was opened in 1922.
Clarence River bridge, Grafton, 1932.
When the line was extended north from Kyogle and reached South Brisbane in 1930, the Murwillumbah line became a branch line. A road/rail bridge across the Clarence River at Grafton was opened in 1932, linking Sydney and Brisbane with a standard gauge railway line. This link had a profound effect on the Great Northern Railway, causing passenger and goods services to decline and the line between Armidale and Wallangarra was finally closed in 1988.
In more recent times, the line between Newcastle and Wickham has also closed, bringing the line close to its original terminus at Honeysuckle Point. However, the line from South Brisbane has been extended across the Brisbane River to now terminate at Brisbane’s central station, the Roma Street transport interchange in the city centre.
