The W44 Concentrate Train conveyed lead and zinc concentrates from the
Zinc Corporation
Consolidated Zinc was an Australian mining company from 1905 to 1962.
History
The company's initial operations focused on extracting zinc from mine tailings of the Broken Hill Ore Deposit at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. The company ...
owned mines at
Broken Hill, New South Wales
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 is ...
to the Sulphide Corporation
Cockle Creek Smelter
Cockle Creek Smelter was a zinc and lead smelter located at the northern end of Lake Macquarie near Boolaroo in Newcastle, New South Wales. The smelter was built in by the Sulphide Corporation in 1896 and the first attempts to refine zinc using th ...
south of
Newcastle.
In August 1961, the Sulphide Corporation opened a new smelter based on the Imperial Smelting Process. The plant used high grade concentrates from the mines at Broken Hill and as they were owned by the same controlling interests these came from the Zinc Corporation and New Broken Hill Consolidated Mines.
["The Concentrate Train" ''Roundhouse'' July 1985 pages 4-48]
To haul the concentrates the
New South Wales Government Railways modified 80 G class open wagons by permanently closing the bottom discharge doors to form the GC wagon. These were run in
block train
A unit train, also called a block train or a trainload service, is a train in which all cars (wagons) carry the same commodity and are shipped from the same origin to the same destination, without being split up or stored en route.
They are disti ...
s of 16 wagons making a load of . These were hauled by a single
49 class diesel locomotive from Broken Hill to
Parkes, the loading being 200 tons greater than the maximum allowed for the 49 class. At Parkes a
36 class
The New South Wales C36 class was a class of two-cylinder, simple, non-condensing, coal-fired superheated, 4-6-0 express passenger steam locomotives built by Eveleigh Railway Workshops and Clyde Engineering for the New South Wales Government Rai ...
and
AD60 class Garratt
A Garratt (often referred to as a Beyer Garratt) is a type of steam locomotive invented by British engineer Herbert William Garratt that is articulated into three parts. Its boiler, firebox, and cab are mounted on a centre frame or "bridge ...
took over for the journey to
Molong
Molong is a small town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, in Cabonne Shire.
History
The name Molong comes from the Aboriginal word for 'all rocks'.
William Lee of Kelso is said to have had cattle in the area by 1819. ...
where the 36 was replaced by another AD60 for the journey to
Lithgow. A
46 class electric locomotive took the train from Lithgow to
Gosford
Gosford is the city and administrative centre of the Central Coast Council local government area in the heart of the Central Coast region, about north of Sydney and about south of Newcastle. The city centre is situated at the northern extre ...
(the then limit of electrification) where another AD60 would take over to Sulphide Junction.
[
The rail link to the smelter was an important change in the pattern of transporting concentrates from Broken Hill as previously they had gone by sea to Cockle Creek. In the 1970s changes to the smelter allowed lower grade material to be used which was sourced from other mines and the running of W44 declined along with the scrapping of the steam locomotives.][ The smelter itself ceased operations in 2003.
]
Railfan interest
The combination of heavy freight engines and the running times of the train, daylight through spectacular scenery, made the W44 Concentrate train a popular photographic target by railfans documenting the last phase of steam engine use of the New South Wales Government Railways.
References
Rail transport in New South Wales
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