Peterborough railway station is located on the
Crystal Brook-Broken Hill line in
Peterborough, South Australia
Peterborough is a town in the mid north of South Australia, in wheat country, just off the Barrier Highway. At the , Peterborough had a population of 1,419. It was originally named Petersburg after the landowner, Peter Doecke, who sold land to ...
.
History
Peterborough originally opened in January 1880 as Petersburg when a narrow gauge line opened from
Port Pirie
Port Pirie is a small city on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, north of the state capital, Adelaide. The city has an expansive history which dates back to 1845. Port Pirie was the first proclaimed regional city in South A ...
to the west. In November 1881,
a line arrived from
Terowie and the south, in 1882 it was
extended north to
Quorn
Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products, or the company that makes them. Quorn originated in the UK and is sold primarily in Europe, but is available in 14 countries. The brand is owned by parent company Monde Nissin.
Quorn is sold as b ...
. In 1888, a line was built eastwards to
Broken Hill
Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It ...
.
[Peterborough]
National Railway Museum
Thus Petersburg became a four-way
junction station (all narrow gauge) and the town was the headquarters for the
South Australian Railways
South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Aust ...
narrow gauge network, with an extensive locomotive depot. A
roundhouse was added in 1927.
[ The roundhouse and turntable are listed on the South Australian Heritage Register. The station along with the town, was renamed Peterborough in 1917.
As part of the standardisation project, the line between Port Augusta and Broken Hill was converted to standard gauge in 1970, thus Peterborough became a ]break of gauge
With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one track gauge (the distance between the rails, or between the wheels of trains designed to run on those rails) meets a line of a different gauge. Trains and rolling stock generally cannot ...
station. As part of the project, the narrow gauge from Terowie was converted to broad gauge to match the rest of the line to Terowie from Adelaide
Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
resulting in Peterborough having all three South Australian track gauges.[
Following the conversion of the Adelaide to Crystal Brook line to standard gauge in 1982, Peterborough's importance diminished. By 1988, both the narrow gauge line to the north and broad gauge line to the south had closed.][ Today the former roundhouse is home to the Steamtown Heritage Rail Centre.
]
Services
Journey Beyond
Journey Beyond is the business name (together with more than a dozen other related names) of Experience Australia Group Pty Ltd, a private equity-owned company known mainly for operating Australian interstate experiential tourism trains ('' Th ...
's weekly ''Indian Pacific
The ''Indian Pacific'' is a weekly experiential tourism passenger train service that runs in Australia's east–west rail corridor between Sydney, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and Perth, on the shore of the Indian Ocean – thus, like ...
'' service passes Peterborough on its route but does not stop at the station.
References
External links
{{commons category, Peterborough railway station, South Australia
Flickr gallery
Johnny's Pages gallery
Johnny's Pages gallery
Railway stations in South Australia
Railway stations in Australia opened in 1881