The Eastern Goldfields Railway, was built in the 1890s by the

Western Australian Government Railways Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) was the state owned operator of railways in the state of Western Australia between October 1890 and June 2003. Owned by the state government, it was renamed a number of times to reflect extra respon ...

to connect

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

with the

Eastern Goldfields The Eastern Goldfields is part of the Western Australian Goldfields in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, covering the present and former gold-mining area east of Perth. Extent and name origin The region encompasses the to ...

at Coolgardie 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 ...

. It is a part of the interstate standard gauge railway between

and the rest of Australia. Originally, at construction, the railway line was referred to as the Yilgarn Railway, named after the Yilgarn Godlfields, but this was changed to Eastern Goldfields Railway around 1899 or 1900. It had also been referred to as the Fremantle–Kalgoorlie Railway. Operationally in the WAGR era, the line was considered to be between Northam and Kalgoorlie, despite historical material extending the name to Perth. Operator Arc has Merredin as the location of the start of the EGR in their network operations.

History

The ''Yilgarn Railway Act 1892'', an act by the

Parliament of Western Australia The Parliament of Western Australia is the bicameralism, bicameral legislature of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia, which constitutes the legislative branch of the state's political system. The parl ...

assented to on 18 March 1892, authorised the construction of the railway line from Northam to Southern Cross. The ''Southern Cross-Coolgardie Railway Act 1894'', assented to on 23 November 1894, authorised construction of a railway line from Southern Cross to Coolgardie. A third act, the ''Coolgardie–Kalgoorlie Railway Act 1895'', assented to on 2 October 1895, authorised construction of a railway line from Coolgardie to Kalgoorlie. The Eastern Railway opened in stages from

to Northam in the 1890s, and the Eastern Goldfields Railway extended this line through semi-desert to the

. It opened in stages between 1894 and 1897. * Northam to

Southern Cross CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system to ...

: (opened 1 July 1894). *Southern Cross to Boorabbin: (opened 1 July 1896) *Boorabbin to

: (opened 1 January 1897). The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme pipeline was later constructed along the railway line. The chief engineer for both the railway and the pipeline was C. Y. O'Connor. In October 1917, the

Commonwealth Railways The Commonwealth Railways were established in 1917 by the Government of Australia with the Commonwealth Railways Act to administer the Trans-Australian Railway, Trans-Australia and Adelaide-Darwin railway, Port Augusta to Darwin railways. In 1 ...

' standard gauge

Trans-Australian Railway The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta railway station, Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie railway station, Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. Built to standa ...

from

Port Augusta Port Augusta (''Goordnada'' in the revived indigenous Barngarla language) is a coastal city in South Australia about by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the ...

was completed through to Kalgoorlie, making it a

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 ...

station.

Branches

At Kalgoorlie, lines branch off north to Malcolm and Leonora; and south to Esperance via the Esperance line. The Malcolm– Laverton branch was last used in 1957 and closed in 1960.

Gauge conversion

As part of the Federal Government's program to build a standard gauge line across Australia and the passing of the ''Railways (Standard Gauge) Construction Act 1961'', work commenced on gauge converting the line to

dual gauge Dual gauge railroad track has three or four rails, allowing vehicles of two track gauges to run on it. Signalling and sidings are more expensive to install on dual gauge tracks than on two single gauge tracks. Dual gauge is used when there i ...

with a new alignment further north of the existing line built between

and Kalgoorlie. From Northam to Southern Cross, the railway was also realigned to reduce the number of road crossings, increase the minimum radius of curvature and lower the ruling gradient to 1:150. The new alignment, as well as being generally straighter and more favourably graded, provided access to the iron ore deposits at Koolyanobbing, which were shipped by rail to Kwinana, near Perth, to supply Australian Iron and Steel's

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...

. The first official standard gauge iron ore train from Koolyanobbing arrived at Kwinana on 10 July 1967. On 3 August 1968, the Koolyanobbing–Kalgoorlie section opened for freight trains and on 4 November 1968, the first through freight train from

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 ...

arrived in Perth.

Upgrades

In November 2005, funding was announced to extend eight

crossing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains o ...

s to accommodate trains at Bodallin, Darrine, Wallaroo, Lake Julia, Grass Valley, Bungulla, Booraan and Seabrook, and replace the final of timber sleepers with concrete sleepers.

Services

Transwa Transwa is Western Australia's regional public transport provider, linking 240 destinations, from Kalbarri in the north to Augusta in the south west to Esperance in the south east. The Transwa system provides transport between Perth and the ...

's ''

MerredinLink The ''MerredinLink'' is a rural passenger train service in Western Australia operated by Transwa between East Perth railway station, East Perth and Merredin railway station, Merredin. History The ''MerredinLink'' was introduced in June 2004 w ...

'' and ''

Prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * ''Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ra ...

'' services from

to Merredin and

traverse the lineTimetables
Transwa as does Journey Beyond's ''

Indian Pacific The ''Indian Pacific'' is a weekly experiential tourism-oriented passenger train service that runs in Australia's east–west rail corridor between Sydney, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and Perth, on the shore of the Indian Ocean – ...

'' to

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. Other named trains to previously use the line were ''

The Westland ''The Westland'' was the name given in 1938 to the overnight train operated by the Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) with sitting and sleeping cars between Perth and Kalgoorlie railway station, Kalgoorlie, where it connected with ...

'', '' The Kalgoorlie'' and the '' Trans-Australian''. Intrastate and interstate freight services are operated by

Aurizon Aurizon Holdings Limited ( ) is a freight rail transport company in Australia, formerly named QR National Limited and branded QR National. In 2015, it was the world's largest rail transporter of coal from mine to port. Formerly a Queensland G ...

, Mineral Resources,

Pacific National Pacific National is one of Australia's largest rail freight businesses. History In February 2002, National Rail Corporation, National Rail's freight operations and rollingstock, jointly owned by the Government of Australia, Federal, Governm ...

and

SCT Logistics SCT Logistics is an Australian interstate transport company operating rail and road haulage, with facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Parkes, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. History SCT Logistics was founded in 1974 as Specialised Container T ...

. CBH Group operate grain trains.

History

Branches

Gauge conversion

Upgrades

Services

References

Further reading