The Dorrigo railway line is a closed railway line in the north of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It branches from the North Coast line at

Glenreagh Glenreagh is a small town in the Clarence Valley in the Northern Rivers region of north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. At the 2016 census, Glenreagh had a population of 900 people. It is on the North Coast railway line, completed to Gl ...

Original scheme

The Dorrigo line was intended to be part of a much larger rail system linking the ports of

Coffs Harbour Coffs Harbour is a city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, north of Sydney, and south of Brisbane. It is one of the largest urban centres on the North Coast, with a population of 78,759 as per 2021 census. The Gumbaynggirr ...

and Grafton with the Northern and North western lines. The line would have joined with the system at

Guyra Guyra is a town situated midway between Armidale and Glen Innes on the Northern Tablelands in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is within Armidale Regional Council and at the 2016 census, it had a population of 1,983 ...

Inverell Inverell is a large town in northern New South Wales, Australia, situated on the Macintyre River, close to the Queensland border. It is also the centre of Inverell Shire. Inverell is located on the Gwydir Highway on the western slopes of the No ...

and

Werris Creek Werris Creek is a small town in New South Wales, Australia, near Tamworth, New South Wales, Tamworth, in Liverpool Plains Shire. It is north of Quirindi, New South Wales, Quirindi and is at the junction of the Main North railway line, New South ...

. These plans never came to fruition and construction work was commenced on only two sections, between Glenreagh and Dorrigo and Guyra and Dorrigo. Only approximately of the latter was partially constructed.

Location

Dorrigo, the terminus of the Glenreagh to Dorrigo line, is situated on a plateau at in dairying country in Australia. It has a consistently high rainfall and is the main township for the area known as "The Dorrigo" (short for 'The Dorrigo Plateau'). The town is situated in a geographical location which could best be described as mountainous. Being a rainforest area, it has a high rainfall and fertile soil, but it is also given to landslides and land subsidence. It was into this setting that a line of railway was built, encountering many difficulties in its construction.

Development and activities

On 28 December 1910 the Glenreagh to Dorrigo Railway Act received assent to sanction the construction. It was not until early August 1914 that construction officially commenced. Because of the First World War, a lack of finance and a dispute with the contractor, progress foundered. The contract was terminated on 28 March 1917 and construction passed to the Railway Commissioners who promptly suspended work. It was almost two years after the end of the First World War that the Railway Commissioners decided to press ahead with construction. Delays occurred due to landslips and washaway and it was not until 27 September 1924 that a construction train reached Dorrigo. Construction was finalised by 5 December and an inspection of the line was conducted by Railways staff on the 10th.

Opening

The line opened on 23 December 1924.

Operations

The Dorrigo line was one of the costliest branch railways built in New South Wales. It had some of the steepest

gradients In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the grad ...

and tightest curves on the system and experienced high maintenance and running costs. It experienced repeated losses throughout its entire existence. Although goods other than timber were carried, timber was the main revenue source for the railway. Just prior to the suspension of services, there were loadings of up to 13 wagons, mainly of timber from Dorrigo. Most of the logs and processed timber were sent to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. In the early days of the line, the NSWGR obtained sleepers for the North Coast region from the area. These were transported by rail to other centres.

Stations

* Glenreagh * Timber Top Siding * Moleton * Mole Creek Tank * Lowanna * Ulong * Brooklana * Lloyd * Cascade * Briggsvale * Megan * Leigh * Dorrigo

Closure

The line lost its passenger service on 1 December 1957 and goods services were suspended on 27 October 1972 after flood damage. By the end of December 1972, it was becoming apparent there was little prospect of the line re-opening as the Public Transport Commission, the Authority then charged with operating the State's railways, would give no indication of its intentions. Dorrigo station remained open until November, 1979, providing staff to facilitate the road transport of goods between there and

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

Preservation

Parts of the line are used by

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

organisations Glenreagh Mountain Railway and

Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum The Dorrigo Steam Railway & Museum in Dorrigo, New South Wales, Australia is a large, privately owned collection of railway vehicles and equipment from the railways of New South Wales, covering both Government and private railways. The collect ...

References

External links

Reading of Act of Parliament to close line
retrieved 21 July 2014
Continuation of Reading of Act of Parliament to close line
retrieved 21 July 2014
2nd reading
* *
Dorrigo 360 Aerial Panorama
{{Railway lines in New South Wales Closed regional railway lines in New South Wales Railway lines opened in 1924 Railway lines closed in 1972 Standard gauge railways in Australia 1924 establishments in Australia 1972 disestablishments in Australia Northern Tablelands