Category: Sydney’s Transport History

Many people are surprised to hear the steepest railway in the work is right here in New South Wales. Located at Scenic World in Katoomba, the “Scenic Railway” isn’t your standard everyday train line.

The short and steep line forms one of many attractions at Scenic World in Katoomba, which also includes the worlds steepest cable car. Guests can access the line for a fee, with services every 10 minutes between 9am and 5pm.

The cutting for the railway in 1884

Passengers on the railway in 1945

The line was originally bulit as a freight line to haul coal and oil shale from mines on the floor of the Jamieson Valley up to the escarpment above back in 1878. From 1928, the miners began supplementing their income by operating services for passengers on weekends. This service continued until the closure of the mine in 1945.

Since then the line has operated as a tourist attraction, with multiple major refurbishments of the line being conducted. The original steam winch train used for passenger services back in 1928 was named Jessie carried 12 passengers. Jessie was replaced by the Mountain Devil, a 23 passenger electric winch trains in 1935. By 1952 these trains had been replaced by newer 28 passenger trains. Newer, larger trains were again introduced in 1974 and 1994. Most recently all the tracks and the rolling stock were replaced in early 2013. This saw the number of carriages increased to four, carrying 84 passengers.

The line is what is known as an Incline Cable Railway, which means that the trains on the line are hauled by a cable. The line has an incline of 52° or 122% on its steepest section, which is the steepest incline on any railway in the world. In the 310 metres the line travels, it loses 205 metres in elevation whilst travelling at 4m/s.

Sydney was once home to one of the largest tramway network in the world. Back at the hight of the operation, over 400 million journeys were made each year over 291km of track. Today we take a look back at the development of the Sydney Tramways.

The first tramway opened in Sydney in 1861. It was a horse drawn line between the Old Sydney Railway Station in Redfern and Circular Quay along Pitt Street. It was short lived and closed in 1866 after complaints about the damage the tracks caused to wagons and a fatal accident.

In 1879 the tramways returned, this time with a steam tram line between Redfern Station and Hunter Street in the Northern CBD. The success of this line quickly lead to many lines being developed throughout inner Sydney. Initially throughout the 1880s and 90s, the lines were built as steam lines.

From 1898 the network began to be electrified, with most of the System converted by 1910. Lines from Circular Quay to the Eastern and Inner Western suburbs throughout the life of the network. Many well known lines included the one to Bondi, which reached the Beach in 1894. The lines to Coogee and La Perouse line, which opening in Stages from 1880, being the first Suburban tram line in Sydney and containing what may have been the first tram balloon loop in the world. The lines reached Coogee in 1883 and La Perouse in 1902.  The line to Ryde was the longest line in the network, at nearly 20km long.

From 1886 lines operated on the North Shore from Millions Point, until the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, when most services were redirected to Wynyard and connected with the mains system south of the harbour. Lines from Manly began in 1903, and operated along the Northern Beaches seperate from the main system. Also isolated from the main system were the Southern suburbs lines, operating as rail feeder services for the Illawarra line.

The Tramway network reached its fullest extent in 1923, with over 291km of track. At the time nearly 1600 cars were in service at any one time. The network was the second largest in the Commonwealth of Nations, after London and the largest in Australia.

This article just scratches the surface in the development. For information on a specific line, let us know and we will give you information. 

The continuous 85 years that the State government has run bus services wasn’t actually the first time that Government had run bus services. Back in 1905, the Government Railway Commissioners began a motor omnibus service.

The Government Motor Omnibus Act, 1905, allowed the Railway Commissioner the power to construct, purchase or lease motor omnibuses and operate them on routes as approved by the governor. Orders were placed for four steam buses for Clarkson Ltd, of Chelmsford, England and were bodied by Angus & Son in Newtown. This practise of importing Chassis and locally building bodies continues with the government bus services today.

The first two buses, 18 passenger single deck 1M and 2M inaugurated government bus services in Sydney on 4 December 1905. They operated between Potts Point and Taylor Square on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst, a distance of just under 2 kilometres. One bus would operate the service whilst the other would act as a standby in case of a breakdown. High costs coupled with low revenue saw the service ceased by 7 April 1906.

On 23 April 1906,  double deckers 3M and 4M began their short lived life operating a 2.5 kilometre route between Dulwich Hill and Enmore. These busses were even more short lived than the original route, dealings service on 29 May 1906 due to the unsuitability of the chassis to the type of work.

After racking up losses of more than £6600 over just six months of operation, the buses were scraped at Randwick Workshops. This left the Railway commissioner to focus on Tramway and Railway operation and the bus network to a myriad of private operator for the next 26 years.

Sydney has a long history with double deckers trains.  In this edition of Sydney’s Transport History, we will be delving deeper into their domination of Sydney’s suburban rail rolling stock.

In the 1960s, the tenders were called for the first double decker passenger rolling stock. Between 1964 and 1968, 120 double deck trailer carriages were delivered to the NSW Government Railways from Tulloch Limited. They were incorporated into sets with single deck power cars. Tulloch delivered a number of double decker motor cars in 1968. When coupled with the double decker trailer carriages they formed the worlds first fully double decker Electric Multiple Unit trains.

In 1970, the first intercity Double Deck V-set trains entered service. At the time, these trains were described as the “most luxurious commuter stock in the world”. Delivered over 19 years, most of the newer sets are still in service.

In 1972, the first Comeng-constructed stainless steel double deck suburban power-cars entered service. These cars were originally paired with Tulloch trailer cars , but from 1973, Comeng Trailer cars entered service. Later in the 1970s,  A Goninan & Co constructed a number of similar cars. Whilst most of these 1970s sets have since been retired, 24 of them still operate as S sets on the T2, T3, T6 and T8 lines.

Goninan built the first air conditioned suburban trains in 1981, with 160 K sets being delivered through 1985. In 1986, similar C sets with more modern safety features were introduced.

Between 1988 and 1996, 530 “Tangara” cars were introduced. These trains marked the first major redesign for the suburban rolling stock since double decker trains were introduced were and were also the last publicly funded new train design in NSW. These new trains allowed for the fill retirement of single deck suburban services in 1993.

Millenium Trains were introduced in 2002 and have formed the basis of all new trains delivered since. These were the first passenger trains in NSW to include automated announcements and information displays. These M sets allowed for the retirement of the original Tulloch carriages.

55 four carriage OSCar sets were delivered between 2006 and 2012 that allowed the oldest V sets to be retired and some services to be increased form four to eight cars in length. The H sets allowed for the next generation features found on M sets to be available on longer Intercity services.

Waratah trains are the latest design of double decker trains to be deliver to the NSW government railways and the first model to be built outside of Australia. These Chinese built trains continue on the design of the Millennium with some m minor improvements. The original order included 78 8-Car A sets. From 2018, 24 8-Car B set trains will be introduced to replace the remaining 24 S-Set trains.

This time in Sydney’s Transport History we are taking a deeper look into the electrification of Sydney’s Railways.

Sydney’s Railways use an overhead electrification system at 1,500 volts direct current. The system is considered to be inferior than modern single phase alternating current equipment. This has caused problems with newer trains such as the M and A sets.

As part of Bradfield’s Railway Scheme built in the 1920s and 1930s, there were plans to electrify Sydney’s Suburban railways. These plans were designed to allow for safe running of the propsed City Circle loop that could not have steam trains using it.

The first railway in Sydney to be electrified was the Illawarra Line between Central and Loftus in the Royal National Park. The first service operated from Central to Oatley on 9 December 1926. Less than two weeks later, the first new build electric line, a new city underground from Central to St James opened on 20 December 1926, with services from the electrified Illawarra line using it.

Soon after, a number of other lines were electrified including the Bankstown Line in 1926, North Shore Line in 1927, Western Line to Parramatta and Northern Line to Hornsby in 1929 as well as the Carlingford Line to Rosehill in 1936.

Some other new build electric railways were also complete around this time with the East Hills line completed in 1931 and the Sydney Harbour Bridge lines and underground lines connecting it to Central in 1932 and later the Cronulla line branching off the Illawarra line in the late 1930s.

After Bradfield retired, it wasn’t until the 1950s that  further railways got electrified. A new station at Circular Quay complete the City Circle line which for the first time operated an underground electric loop through the Sydney CBD. Electric trains reached outside of Sydney to Lithgow via Penrith by 1957 and as far north as Gosford by 1960.

Additional suburban electrification reached Campbelltown in 1968, Riverstone in 1975, Waterfall in 1980, Macarthur in 1985 and Richmond in 1991.

On the Intercity Network, electrification reached Wyong in 1982 and later Newcastle in 1984. Trains to Port Kembla were electrified in 1985, whilst trains further south to Dapto weren’t electrified until 1996 and Kiama later still in 2002.

New build electric railways have slowly built across Sydney, with the Eastern Suburbs line to Bondi Junction opening in 1979, the East Hills to Glenfield link opening in 1987, the Olympic Park line in 1998, Airport Link in 2000, Epping Chatswood Rail Line in 2009 and the South West Rail Link in 2015.

Today all of the Suburban Sydney Trains network and a majority of the Intercity NSWTrains is electrified, with all new railways being built to electric standards. Despite this, there is still a long way to go, with thousands of kilometres of Intercity and Regional railways still reliant on diesel trains. There have been various proposals recently to extend electrification further south to Moss Vale and Nowra, west to Bathurst and North to Maitland. Whether these proposals go ahead is yet to be seen.