Silverton Tramway

The Silverton Tramway was an Australian convert|56|km|sing=on long RailGauge|42 narrow gauge railway running from Cockburn on the South Australian state border to Broken Hill in New South Wales. Operating between 1888 and 1970 it served the mines of Broken Hill, and formed the link between the standard gauge New South Wales Government Railways and the narrow gauge South Australian Railways.cite web
title = A History of Rail in South Australia
work = National Railway Museum Port Adelaide
date =
url = http://www.natrailmuseum.org.au/common/nrm_a01_index.html
format = HTML
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ] The line was owned and operated by the Silverton Tramway Company.

History

Inception

The Silverton Tramway was conceived as a way to transport ore from the newly discovered ore deposits at Silverton, to the smelters at Port Pirie, with the line later extended to Broken Hill with the discovery of that field.cite web
title = Silverton Tramway Company Ltd
work = NSW Parliament
date =
url = http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/Parlment/HansArt.nsf/V3Key/LC20040226014
format = HTML
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ] The need for a private line was in part due to the NSW Government refusing to allow the South Australian Railways to complete their narrow gauge link across the border. The "Silverton Tramway Act" was passed by New South Wales in 1886, permitting the narrow gauge line to be built.cite web
title = Australian Railwayman: From Cadet Engineer to Railways Commissioner
author = Ron J. Fitch
publisher = Rosenberg Publishing
year = 2006
url = http://books.google.com.au/books?id=LPeKxIjmDtYC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=silverton+tramway&source=web&ots=0lnb4C_KOl&sig=IDr0IPaUhu5w08j4PhyB1Uy0aDY&hl=en#PPA196,M1
pages = pages 195 - 199
isbn = 1877058483
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ] The Act also permitted the New South Wales government to buy out the company and assets after 21 years, provided a payment of 21 times the average of the previous seven years, and that the Company could be obliged to alter the track gauge at any time at its own expense. The line was built in twelve months at a cost of 125,000 pounds.cite web
title = The Great Silverton Tramway
work = Barrier Miner
author = Paul Armstrong
date = September 20 2007
url = http://www.barrierminer.com.au/article.php?article=884
format = HTML
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ] Once opened, major traffic on the line included passengers, livestock, bullion, ore and concentrates. In 1913, 844,477 tons of ore and concentrates were carried on the tramway and another 843,307 tons of other goods including coke, coal, timber, crude oil and livestock, and by 1933 twenty steam locomotives were owned by the company, along with 660 goods wagons. Passenger services were operated by the South Australian Railways, who paid the Company to access the line, the main passenger terminal in Broken Hill being at Sulphide Street.cite web
title = Sulphide Street Railway Museum
work = 891 ABC Adelaide
date = December 2 2003
url = http://www.abc.net.au/adelaide/stories/s924529.htm
format = HTML
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ] By the 1950s the Company was also providing a shunting service on convert|25|mi|km of sidings in Broken Hill, and was also operating steam locomotives up to convert|62|ft long and weighting 97 tons. Diesel locomotives were delivered from 1961, appearing in the yellow and blue colours some years later.

Gauge conversion

After the completion of the Trans-Australian Railway, the Silverton Tramway and the South Australian line to Port Pirie was a missing link in an unbroken Sydney to Perth rail journey (Perth to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia was the other). Moves towards conversion of the line to standard gauge were made with the passing of the Railway Standardisation Agreement Act of 1944, in which the New South Wales government would acquire the Silverton Tramway Company, then pass it to the South Australian Railway Commissioner. This agreement lapsed, with a new one made in 1949, in which the Commonwealth would be responsible for the acquisition.

The New South Wales government did not wish the Company to remain as a main line operator, or to purchase it themselves; while South Australian train crews were not happy to work trains across the state border due to a loss of favourable industrial conditions. By 1967 the Silverton Tramway Company offered to build a standard gauge line for a fixed sum, and transfer the line to New South Wales soon after. This line would run from Cockburn to Broken Hill on an alignment that had some interaction with the existing Crystal Street station, but the Commonwealth Government rejected it as they wished for the line to be built on a totally new alignment away from the Company lines. By 1968 South Australia believed that they would have gauge converted their portion of the line before the short section to Broken Hill was even finished.

Demise

The standard gauge line was finally opened in 1970 on a new alignment which lead directly to the New South Wales operated Crystal Street station, taking one year and over $2 million more than if the Silverton proposal was carried out. The Silverton Tramway Company's business was lost to Australian National who had taken over the South Australian and Commonwealth Railways, with the company closing its narrow gauge shortline business, and returning the permanent way to the Crown.cite web
title = Silverton Tramway Company
work = Progress in Rail Reform: Submission to the Productivity Commission
url = http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/35103/sub054.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2008-03-05 ]

The company then reinvented itself as Silverton Rail, a short haul rail operator servicing the mining industry in and around Broken Hill. Since 1886 the company hauled some 90 million tonnes of bulk and general freight and 2.8 million passengers over an aggregate of 19 million kilometres (12 million miles).

References

Further reading

* The Silverton Tramway (New South Wales). "Light Railways" (Summer 1968) "Light Railways Research Society of Australia".

ee also

*Silverton Rail