The Balaklava–Moonta railway line was a railway line on the

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 ...

network. It ran across the top of the

Yorke Peninsula The Yorke Peninsula, known as Guuranda by the original inhabitants, the Narungga people, is a peninsula located northwest and west of Adelaide in South Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. The peninsula ...

History

The first part to be built was a horse-drawn tramway between the port at

Wallaroo Wallaroo is a common name for several species of moderately large macropods, intermediate in size between the kangaroos and the wallabies, that are native to Australia and Papua New Guinea. The word "wallaroo" is from the Dharug ''walaru'' wi ...

and mines near Kadina in 1862, followed by mines near Moonta in 1866. The tramway was originally constructed as gauge. Another horse-drawn tramway was constructed to deliver grain from the plains east of Port Wakefield in the areas of

Balaklava Balaklava ( Ukrainian and , , ) is a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol. It is an administrative center of Balaklavsky District that used to be part of the Crimean Oblast before it was transferred to Sevast ...

, Halbury and Hoyle's Plains (now Hoyleton) to that port. It opened in 1869. The section from Hoyleton to Balaklava eventually became part of the

Hamley Bridge-Gladstone railway line Hamley may refer to: People: * Bob Hamley, the former head coach of the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League * Edward Bruce Hamley KCB KCMG (1824–1893), British general, military writer, Conservative politician * Edward Hamley (poet) ...

when that line reached Gladstone in 1894. The gauge line from Port Wakefield reached a new junction with the Kadina–Brinkworth railway line at Kadina and opened on 9 October 1878. It continued to Wallaroo on a new track adjacent to the older broad gauge track. The line from Kadina to Barunga Gap had started construction from the Kadina end in 1877. On 1 August 1927, the line was converted from to broad gauge. A junction at Kadina connected to the Kadina–Brinkworth railway line. The section from Kadina to Wallaroo was converted to dual broad and standard gauges on 2 December 1982 after the Adelaide–Port Augusta railway line was converted to standard gauge. Following the conversion of the Adelaide-Port Augusta railway line to standard gauge in 1982, the broad gauge line from Balaklava to Paskeville was no longer required and closed on 4 April 1984. The Wallaroo to Moonta section was closed on 23 July 1984, and the broad gauge section from Kadina to Wallaroo was also closed on that date, but the standard gauge line remained open until 3 March 1993. The Paskeville to Kadina section was closed on 14 March 1990. After the closure of the railways, part of the line was used by the Lions Club of Yorke Peninsula Railway for heritage tourist services, but that operation ceased in 2009. The line between Wallaroo and Kadina has since been pulled up and replaced with the Copper Coast Rail Trail and retail stores on both ends.

References

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External links

Gallery
Closed railway lines in South Australia Railway lines opened in 1876 Railway lines closed in 1993 3 ft 6 in gauge railways 5 ft 3 in gauge railways in Australia Standard-gauge railways in Australia