Railways in
Australia
The first railway in Australia opened in 1855 between Sydney and Parramatta,
a distance of 14 miles (22.5km). It was built to standard gauge (1435mm), as were
most subsequent railways in New South Wales. However, because of the nature of
Australia at that time, with isolated communities along the coast seeing little
need of communication between them, standardization throughout the nation was
not seen as essential and a variety of gauges sprang up elsewhere. 3ft 6in
(1067mm) was quite commonly used, while the state of Victoria opted for a
gauge of 5ft 3in (1600mm). When the famous Transcontinental Railway first
opened in 1917, no fewer than 8 changes of gauge were required for a journey
from Brisbane to Perth.
Most modern development has been to standard gauge, and a few of the
older lines have been regauged to this. A noteworthy opening of the 21st
century is the Ghan line connecting Adelaide and Darwin. This is
essentially an entirely new line, although much of its southern section
follows the route of a former 3ft 6in (1067mm) gauge line which ran as far
as Alice Springs in the very heart of the country. Passenger trains first
reached Darwin from the south in 2004.
Main line and suburban railways
- Queensland Rail
passenger operator in Queensland, and infrastructure authority for
Queensland
- V/Line
passenger operator in Victoria
- RailCorp
passenger operator in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory,
including:
- CountryLink
long distance services
- CityRail
local and suburban services in the Sydney and Newcastle areas
- Transwa
long distance passenger services in Western Australia
- Transperth local passenger services in the Perth area
- Metro
Trains Melbourne local passenger services in the Melbourne area
- El
Zorro independent freight operator.
- Genesee & Wyoming Australia independent
freight operator, with its own leased lines including the Ghan line from
Tarcoola to Darwin and several lines in the Adelaide area.
- I.Rail independent freight operator.
- Pacific
National independent freight operator.
- P&O
Trans Australia independent freight operator.
- QR
National independent freight operator.
- SCT
Logistics independent freight operator.
- Southern Shorthaul Railroad independent freight
operator.
- Brookfield Rail
infrastructure authority for Western Australia west of Kalgoorlie
- ACTS
infrastructure authority for New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia
and Western Australia east of Kalgoorlie. Also manages access rights
for Brookfield Rail and Queensland Rail.
Industrial and dedicated freight railways
- Manildra
has a private rail network at its Namoi Flour Mill in Gunnedah, connecting
with the ACTS network (Website contains no details relating to
railway)
- Pilbara Railway, Newman Railway, Yarrie Railway separate but extensive
rail networks in the northern part of Western Australia used almost
exclusively for the transport of iron ore from mines to coastal ports.
From 2010 all the iron ore operations, including rail tranportation, in
Western Australia became part of a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Iron Ore
(No websites located at present for Newman and Yarrie
Railways)
Urban trains and trams
These are covered in detail on a separate page
