The Adelaide–Wolseley railway line is a 313 kilometre line running from

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

to Wolseley on the

Australian Rail Track Corporation The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) is an Australian Government-owned statutory corporation. It operates one of the largest rail networks in the nation, spanning across five states and 39 worksites. ARTC continues to expand the networ ...

network.Dry Creek – Victorian border map
SA Track & SignalD3 Wolseley to Mile End
Australian Rail Track Corporation It is the South Australian section of the Melbourne–Adelaide railway.

History

The line opened in stages: on 14 March 1883 from

Aldgate Aldgate () was a gate in the former defensive wall around the City of London. The gate gave its name to ''Aldgate High Street'', the first stretch of the A11 road, that takes that name as it passes through the ancient, extramural Portsoken ...

, on 28 November 1883 to Nairne, on 1 May 1886 to Bordertown and on 19 January 1887 to Serviceton. The line consisted of

double track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most li ...

as far as Belair, where it became

single track Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

for the remainder of the journey east. Along its 313 km length, there are 18

crossing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains o ...

s. In 1995, the track was converted to standard gauge as part of the

gauge conversion Track gauge conversion is the changing of one railway track gauge (the distance between the running rails) to another. In general, requirements depend on whether the conversion is from a wider gauge to a narrower gauge or vice versa, on how the ...

of the line to Melbourne. This included one of the lines west of Belair, effectively converting this section to two single lines. In 2009, the Belair line was relaid with

dual gauge Dual gauge railroad track has three or four rails, allowing vehicles of two track gauges to run on it. Signalling and sidings are more expensive to install on dual gauge tracks than on two single gauge tracks. Dual gauge is used when there i ...

sleepers that will allow it to be converted to standard gauge in the future. Originally operated by

South Australian Railways South Australian Railways (SAR) was the organisation 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 Australian Natio ...

, in March 1978, it was transferred to Australian National and in July 1998 to the

. Until April 1987, the State Transport Authority operated passenger services on the first 37 kilometres of the line from Adelaide to Bridgewater until they were curtailed to

Belair Belair or Bélair may refer to: People *Bianca Belair, wrestler *Sanité Bélair (1781–1802), Haitian freedom fighter *Anne Liger-Belair, Belgian writer known as Anne Duguël Places Historic locations *Belair (Nashville, Tennessee), United Sta ...

, the terminus of today's

Adelaide Metro Adelaide Metro is the public transport system of the Adelaide area, around the capital city of South Australia. It is an intermodal passenger transport, intermodal system offering an integrated network of Buses in Adelaide, bus, Glenelg tram, ...

Belair line The Belair line is a suburban rail commuter route in greater Adelaide, South Australia, that runs from the Adelaide railway station to Belair in the Adelaide Hills via the Adelaide-Wolseley line using diesel 3000/3100 class railcars. This pa ...

.Belair timetable
Adelaide Metro 12 October 2014

TransAdelaide TransAdelaide was a publicly owned cooperation in Adelaide, South Australia, and operated the city's Railways in Adelaide, suburban rail, Trams in Adelaide, tram and Buses in Adelaide, bus services. It took responsibilities from the State Trans ...

succeeded the STA in operating the line in 1994.

Route

Major towns on the route include

Murray Bridge Murray Bridge may refer to. *Murray Bridge, South Australia Murray Bridge (formerly Mobilong and Edwards Crossing; ) is a city in the Australian state of South Australia, located east-southeast of the state's capital city, Adelaide, and north ...

Tailem Bend Tailem Bend (locally, "Tailem") is a rural town in South Australia, south-east of the state capital of Adelaide. It is located on the lower reaches of the River Murray, near where the river flows into Lake Alexandrina (South Australia), Lake Al ...

, Keith, Bordertown and Wolseley.

Former branch lines

Mount Pleasant railway line The Mount Pleasant railway line was a railway line on the South Australian Railways network. It was opened between Balhannah and Mount Pleasant, South Australia, Mount Pleasant in September 1918 and ran until March 1963 as a freight and passeng ...

: opened 1918 (closed in 1963, line has been removed) *

Victor Harbor railway line The Victor Harbor railway line is a broad gauge line in South Australia. It originally branched from the Adelaide to Melbourne line at Mount Barker Junction then ran south to Victor Harbor. When the mainline was converted to standard gaug ...

: opened 1884 (last passenger service in 1984; now a heritage tourist railway) * Sedan railway line: opened 1919 (closed 2005) *

Loxton railway line The Loxton railway line is a closed railway line in the northern Murray Mallee region of South Australia. It ran north-east from Tailem Bend to grain silos near Loxton. History The first stage of the Brown's Well railway line opened from ...

: opened 1913 (last train 2015, now mothballed) * Pinnaroo railway line: opened 1906 (last train 2015, now mothballed) *

Mount Gambier railway line The Mount Gambier railway line is a closed railway line in South Australia. Opened in stages from 1881, it was built to narrow gauge and joined Mount Gambier railway station, which was at that time the eastern terminus of a line to Beachport. ...

: opened 1887 (isolated by rail gauge in 1995)

Services

Today the route is mainly served by interstate freight services operated by

Pacific National Pacific National is one of Australia's largest rail freight businesses. History In February 2002, National Rail Corporation, National Rail's freight operations and rollingstock, jointly owned by the Government of Australia, Federal, Governm ...

and

SCT Logistics SCT Logistics is an Australian interstate transport company operating rail and road haulage, with facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Parkes, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. History SCT Logistics was founded in 1974 as Specialised Container T ...

. Intrastate grain freight services from the Loxton and Pinnaroo lines operated by

Genesee & Wyoming Australia One Rail Australia was an Australian rail freight operator company. Founded by a United States short line railroad holding company, Genesee & Wyoming Inc, in 1997 as Australian Southern Railroad, and successively renamed Australian Railroad Gro ...

ceased operating in July 2015. Grain services from Tailem Bend and Wolseley run regularly via Aurizon trains.

Journey Beyond Journey Beyond is the trading name and brand deployed since 2017 by a succession of companies providing experiential tourism in Australia, including luxury trains (''The Ghan'', the ''Indian Pacific'', and the '' Great Southern'') and ''The Ov ...

's ''

The Overland ''The Overland'' is an interstate passenger train service in Australia, travelling between the state capitals of Melbourne and Adelaide, a distance of 828 km (515 mi). It first ran in 1887 as the ''Adelaide Express'', known by Sout ...

'' is the only scheduled passenger service to traverse the full route, calling at

and Bordertown stations.

services operate from Adelaide to

. Prior to December 1990, the Blue Lake passenger to

Mount Gambier Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with a population of 25,591 as of the 2021 census. The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier (volcano), Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about ...

served some towns along the line till Wolseley. The Blue Lake was withdrawn completely with the cessation of all AN intrastate passenger services on 31 December 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adelaide-Wolseley railway line Railway lines in South Australia Railway lines opened in 1887 Standard-gauge railways in Australia