Salisbury railway station is a railway station and bus interchange in the northern
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 ...
suburb of
Salisbury
Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...
. It is on the
Gawler line, from
Adelaide station. Adjoining it is a large
park & ride carpark, making it one of the busiest stations on the
Adelaide suburban rail system.
History

The railway line through Salisbury opened in June 1857, initially running north as far as
Smithfield. The line was extended to
Gawler and
Kapunda in 1860 and
Burra by 1870 to exploit the copper mining boom in those areas.
The line through Salisbury became 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 ...
'
broad gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways.
Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...
Main North line, used by a variety of local and country trains, and also by passengers and freight travelling long distances to
Broken Hill
Broken Hill is a city in the Far West (New South Wales), far west region of outback New South Wales, Australia. An inland mining city, it is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Hi ...
,
Alice Springs
Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...
and
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just Kalgoorlie) is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...
, (although all these interstate journeys involved changing trains at
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 canno ...
stations).
In 1925, a junction was installed north of Salisbury when a new line was built to
Redhill, in the state's mid-north. By 1937, this line was extended to
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. Port Pirie is the largest city and the main retail centre of the Mid North region of South Australia. The city has an ex ...
and was used by the
broad gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways.
Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...
East-West express, which connected with the
Commonwealth Railways''
Trans-Australian'' service to Kalgoorlie.
In 1941, a second junction was installed north of Salisbury, from which a branch line served a large, hurriedly built
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
munitions complex at
Penfield, the area is now known as
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
. During the war years, many hundreds of workers were conveyed to three stations on the central line of the branch since Salisbury was a largely rural community and most of the workforce had to be brought in from other districts. The central line terminated in a
balloon loop
A balloon loop, turning loop, or reversing loop ( North American Terminology) allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to shunt or stop. Balloon loops can be useful for passenger trains and unit freight trains.
Bal ...
to enable trains to return to Adelaide without locomotives having to "change ends" of their train. Several miles of sidings ran from the central line to munitions buildings, which were very widely separated for safety reasons. A more limited peak hour service to Penfield continued after the war, serving staff at the
UK and Australian governments' Weapons Research Establishment, later to become the
Defence Science and Technology Organisation
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense indust ...
. All trains were withdrawn in January 1991, due to low patronage and the need to fund an upgrade of the degraded track.
The final branch line in the area was a 700-metre access line into the
Holden
Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...
car plant at
Elizabeth, opened in 1959. This left the Gawler line north of Salisbury station and was used mainly by freight trains, but had passenger trains at shift change-over times. The last passenger train on the Holden branch ran in August 1992, and the remaining freight traffic stopped when the
Melbourne to Adelaide line was converted to
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
in 1995.
In March 1978, all non-metropolitan railways in South Australia were sold to the
federal government
A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...
and placed under the control of
Australian National (AN). Railways in the metropolitan area were retained by the
State Government
A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonom ...
owned
State Transport Authority (STA). The lines through Salisbury and on to Gawler remained with the STA, since they were part of the suburban system. AN had responsibility for the Port Pirie line from Salisbury Junction northwards, but needed to run its trains over STA tracks between Adelaide and Salisbury.
In 1982, AN converted the
broad gauge
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways.
Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...
Salisbury Junction to
Port Pirie line to
standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
(and diverted it to
Crystal Brook at the northern end). A new standard gauge line was built through the Salisbury station area, completely separate from the broad gauge tracks and passing west of the Gawler line platforms. This was a single line, with no platform or any other infrastructure provided at Salisbury. This is still the situation at Salisbury today, although ownership and responsibilities have now transferred from AN to the
Australian Rail Track Corporation and from the STA to
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, ...
.
On 17 December 1985, Salisbury station was opened as a major
bus/rail interchange by
State Premier John Bannon
John Charles Bannon (7 May 1943 – 13 December 2015) was an Australian politician and academic. He was the 39th Premier of South Australia, leading the Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch), South Australian Branch of the Australia ...
and
Federal Minister for Transport Peter Morris. This was the second purpose-built transport interchange in the Adelaide metropolitan area (the first had been at
Noarlunga Centre). The historic stone 1857 building on the down (west) platform, which also included a signal box, was demolished when the standard gauge line opened. The station retained a staffed ticket and information office until ''(circa 2005?)'' at which time it was closed.
In October 2002, the level crossing on Park Terrace, immediately south of the station platforms was the scene of a fatal collision between ''
The Ghan
''The Ghan'' () is an experiential tourism-oriented passenger train service that operates between the northern and southern coasts of Australia, through the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor ...
'', several cars and a bus. Since then, buses to and from the bus interchange have been re-routed away from the level crossing and locking pedestrian gates installed. This is the first installation of this type of level crossing protection in
South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...
.
In 2017, ticket validation gates were installed at the station to combat fare evasion, and were activated on September 11. Similar gates were installed some time ago at Adelaide station, and have been proposed for Noarlunga Centre.
New ticket validation gates at Salisbury Railway Station now operational
Adelaide Metro 11 September 2017
Services by platform
A number of suburban trains heading towards Gawler cross to the southbound track at Salisbury, and use Platform 2 rather than the usual northbound Platform 1. This gives passengers more convenient cross-platform
Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...
access to the bus stops and eliminates the need for alighting passengers to cross the rail tracks. Trains revert to their normal track on departure.
A short siding north of the station was used to terminate and reverse several trains in the weekday peak-hours. From 27 April 2008, trains no longer terminate here with all services continuing to Gawler. It is the last remnant of the former branch line to Penfield. Currently, there is one service will terminate at Salisbury (07:51 from Adelaide, arriving Salisbury at 08:12), and using the short siding of branch line to Penfield and reverse back to Adelaide.
Transport links
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, ...
operate many bus routes via Salisbury Interchange:
References
External links
*
Flickr gallery
{{Adelaide Metro railway stations, Gawler=y, state=collapsed
Railway stations in Adelaide
Railway stations in Australia opened in 1857