Noojee railway line
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The Noojee railway line is a closed railway line in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia. Branching off from the Gippsland line at Warragul station, it was built to service the timber industry in the upper
Latrobe River The Latrobe River (or sometimes La Trobe or LaTrobe) is a perennial river of the West Gippsland catchment, located in the West Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. The Latrobe River and its associated sub-catchment is an import ...
area, transporting timber as well as providing a general goods and passenger service to townships in the area. The final section of the line between
Neerim South Neerim South is a town in West Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, located in the Shire of Baw Baw, east of Melbourne and north of Warragul. At the 2016 census, Neerim South had a population of 1,305. The Post Office opened on 1 February 1883. T ...
and
Noojee Noojee is a town in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, north of Warragul and east of Melbourne, in the Baw Baw local government area. At the 2016 census, Noojee and the surrounding area had a population of 157. The town benefits from ...
traversed increasingly hilly terrain and featured a number of large timber trestle bridges. Extensively and repeatedly damaged by bushfires over the years, the line was closed in the 1950s and dismantled. The last remaining large
trestle bridge A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a stool or a pair of isosceles triangl ...
on the line has been preserved and has become a popular local tourist attraction.


History

Only a few years after the opening of the Gippsland mainline to Sale, townships along the upper reaches of the Latrobe River began to petition for a branch line to be built to service the area and by 1885 a route had been approved by Parliament from Warragul via Buln Buln. There was some dispute regarding the route, with a deputation meeting the Minister for Railways in 1888 to request the line be built from
Longwarry Longwarry is a town in Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Shires of Baw Baw and Cardinia local government areas. Longwarry recorded a population of 2,436 at the 2021 census. It has ...
rather than Warragul, following the Tarago River along an easier alignment and providing a shorter route to Melbourne. The Premier,
Duncan Gillies Duncan Gillies (14 January 1834 – 12 September 1903), was an Australian colonial politician who served as the 14th Premier of Victoria. Gillies was born at Overnewton near Glasgow, Scotland, where his father had a market garden. He was sent ...
, advised that the route could not be changed, and the line opened in sections with Warragul to Rokeby opened on 12 May 1890, and Rokeby to Neerim South on 18 March 1892. Before the year was out, representations were being made to extend the line from Neerim South to Neerim proper. However, the line progressed no further as the Railways Standing Committee found that traffic on the proposed extension would not justify the £19,000 ( $38,000) expenditure. Options for a more cheaply built extension, including the possibility of it being built as a
narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...
railway were to be considered. With the opening up of Crown lands in the Noojee and Fumina districts in the early 20th century, areas with poor rail and road transport, there was a renewed push for the railway to be completed. Extension of the line to Noojee via Neerim and Nayook had commenced by 1915, and on 27 March 1917 the long extension was opened from Neerim South to Nayook, climbing from an elevation of to . Construction continued on the final section into Noojee, over which the line descended , and it was opened on 26 April 1919. There was considerable optimism for the future prospects for the railway. '' The Argus'' newspaper reported that in addition to timber traffic paying its way, the line, which extended "into a most picturesque part of Gippsland", would soon develop a profitable tourist traffic. However, even as the railway was being officially opened, the roads that would ultimately lead to its closure were already on the way. John Mackey, the
Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly The Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly is the presiding officer of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Victoria. The presiding officer of the upper house of the Parliament of Victoria, the Victorian ...
and member for
West Gippsland West Gippsland, a region of Gippsland in Victoria, Australia, extends from the southeastern limits of metropolitan Melbourne and Western Port Bay in the west to the Latrobe Valley in the east, and is bounded by the Strzelecki Ranges to the south ...
, announced during the opening ceremony that the Country Roads Board had made funds available for the building of roads into the region and was now awaiting contractors willing to undertake the construction works. With the completion of the railway into Noojee, timber production in the area boomed. More than 200 kilometres of
narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...
tramways were built to link the surrounding mills to the railway terminus. At least 28 timber mills were in operation between 1919 and 1926, when bushfires swept through the region and destroyed the township.


Infrastructure

The broad gauge line was built to
Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...
"light lines" standard with 60 lb/yd (30 kg/m)
rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...
. The ruling
gradient 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 gr ...
was 1 in 40 between Warragul and Neerim South, and 1 in 30 between Neerim South and Noojee. As of 1923, it featured three
turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
s along its length: a table at Neerim South, and tables at Nayook and Noojee. Passenger trains were permitted to travel at speeds of up to , while goods trains were restricted to


Services

The line saw the use of Victorian Railways V class 2-8-0, K class 2-8-0 and N class 2-8-2 steam locomotives. Passenger services were relatively slow, as was the case for many branch lines where a mixed goods and passenger train service was provided. Victorian Railways passenger timetable of 1928 shows a travel time from Melbourne to Noojee of approximately six hours for the journey from
Flinders Street station Flinders Street railway station is a train station located on the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets in the central business district (CBD) of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Opened in 1854, the historic station serves the entire metr ...
, which included lengthy stops at Warragul and Neerim South. Although by 1930 services into Noojee had only been running for just over ten years, Victorian Railways, faced with mounting losses that would result in a record £1 million deficit (almost $85,000,000 in 2020), announced the closure of the daily passenger rail service from 30 June 1930. It was replaced by twice-daily road motor services, with a journey time reduced by two hours, and additional services were available for market days on Thursdays. Use of the railway line was reduced to the three goods trains per week needed to clear goods traffic.


Bushfire damage

With much of the line traversing dense
eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...
forests, the line and the towns it served were at high risk of bushfire damage. In February 1926, the town of Noojee (including the railway station) and much of the line from Nayook was destroyed in the
Black Sunday bushfires The Black Sunday bushfires were a series of bushfires that broke out across South Australia on 2 January 1955. Extreme morning temperatures coupled with strong north-westerly winds contributed to the breakout of numerous fires in Adelaide Hills, ...
. The line was closed for repairs until 17 May 1926, with a road motor service being provided in the interim. The town was again razed by fire in the
Black Friday bushfires The Black Friday bushfires of 13 January 1939, in Victoria, Australia, were part of the devastating 1938–1939 bushfire season in Australia, which saw bushfires burning for the whole summer, and ash falling as far away as New Zealand. It was ca ...
of Friday 13 January 1939, along with three of the large trestle bridges on the railway line between Nayook and Noojee. Of the £20,000 damage caused to Victorian Railways by the 1939 fires, the Noojee trestle was the most serious loss, with repairs taking several months.


Closure

The lightly trafficked line was closed beyond Nayook on 27 March 1954. The section was last used when residents travelled by train to Warragul on 3 March 1954 to see Queen Elizabeth II during her first visit to Australia. The remaining section between Nayook and Warragul was closed in 1958.


Preservation

After closure, the tracks and station buildings along the line were dismantled and many sections of the
right of way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...
were sold off. The Buln Buln Shire Council purchased the No. 7 Noojee trestle bridge from Victorian Railways for the nominal sum of £1 ($2). This historic eighteen-span structure, long and high, was one of three rebuilt in 1939 after the original structures were razed by the Black Friday bushfires. Architecturally significant as the tallest surviving timber trestle bridge in Victoria and a unique and intact example of trestle bridge construction, it is now registered with the National Trust of Australia. Approximately of the rail formation around the Noojee Trestle Bridge has been converted into the Noojee Trestle Bridge Rail Trail. Further south towards Warragul, approximately of the formation has been converted into the Rokeby to Crossover Rail Trail. In April 2012, the Noojee and District Historical Society were successful in a bid to relocate J class steam locomotive J550 from Warragul to Noojee for eventual restoration. The bid for the locomotive was part of a project to create an historical park in Noojee, featuring a restored rail line from Noojee railway station to the trestle bridge. On 24 March 2013, J550 was moved by road to Noojee and placed on a section of track at the site of the former railway station.


Line guide

Distances from
Southern Cross station Southern Cross railway station (until 2005 known as Spencer Street station) is a major railway station in Docklands, Melbourne. It is on Spencer Street, between Collins and La Trobe Streets, at the western edge of the Melbourne central busi ...
shown


References

* Fiddian, Marc (1997). ''Trains, Tracks, Travellers: a history of the Victorian railways''. South Eastern Independent Newspapers. . * http://www.vrhistory.com/VRMaps/


Specific

{{Victorian Railway Lines, Branch Closed regional railway lines in Victoria (Australia) Railway lines opened in 1890 Railway lines closed in 1958 Transport in Gippsland (region) Shire of Baw Baw