The Crowes railway line was a narrow gauge railway located in the Otway Ranges in south-western Victoria, Australia, running from the main line to Port Fairy at Colac to

Beech Forest Beech Forest is a town in Victoria, Australia. The area of Beech Forest is largely used for potato farming. History The town was named after the many myrtle beech trees of the area. Beech Forest Post Office opened on 10 May 1890 and closed in ...

and later to Crowes. It was the third of four

narrow gauge lines of the Victorian Railways The former Victorian Railways, the state railway authority in Victoria, Australia, built a number of experimental narrow-gauge lines around the beginning of the 20th century. Although all were closed by the early 1960s, parts of two have be ...

, opening to Beech Forest in March 1902, and extended to Crowes in June 1911. Nearly long, it was the longest of the narrow gauge lines. It was also the last to close, finally succumbing in June 1962, although the line had been truncated back to Ferguson railway station in December 1954, only to be reopened to Weeaproinah in January 1955. Sections of the route have been developed as the

Old Beechy Rail Trail The Old Beechy Rail Trail is a 45–kilometre rail trail in Australia, running from Colac to Beech Forest. The trail includes approximately 30 kilometres of dedicated rail trail, with the rest being on-road. The historic "Beechy" train ran on th ...

Operation

Both the Colac and Crowes lines entered Beech Forest yard from the same end, creating a junction. Trains had to be turned to run down the Crowes branch and 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 ...

was provided at the other end of the yard. A tennis court occupied the land within the loop. Crowes, the terminus of the line, was the most southerly railway station on the Australian mainland. The primary traffic was sawn

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including Beam (structure), beams and plank (wood), planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as fini ...

and

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not highly processed and is in some sort of recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellets or chips. Firewood c ...

, with many

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

s located adjacent to the railway, or accessed by short tramways. Seasonally heavy

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Un ...

traffic and a

lime kiln A lime kiln is a kiln used for the calcination of limestone ( calcium carbonate) to produce the form of lime called quicklime ( calcium oxide). The chemical equation for this reaction is : CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2 This reaction can ta ...

added to revenue. Traffic grew to require up to seven trains a day each way by the mid-1920s. The introduction of the G class Garratt locomotive allowed a new timetable with two trains each way between Colac and Beech Forest, and a third train each way to Gellibrand. The Crowes branch saw a single mixed train daily. The onset of the Great Depression, and competition from motor vehicles, saw traffic decline to a point where only one train each way operated over the line three days a week. Increased wartime loadings saw traffic increase to two trains each way daily, but that was only temporary. By the time the railway closed, the timetable listed only one train each way a week, and most of the traffic was

pulpwood Pulpwood is timber with the principal use of making wood pulp for paper production. Applications * Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 15% of world pulp production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more gener ...

. The line opened using the

staff and ticket Staff may refer to: Pole * Staff, a weapon used in stick-fighting ** Quarterstaff, a European pole weapon * Staff of office, a pole that indicates a position * Staff (railway signalling), a token authorizing a locomotive driver to use a particula ...

method of safeworking. Train section orders were adopted between 1927 and 1939, after which staff and ticket working was resumed.

Planned extensions

There were proposals for the line to be further extended as far as Princetown on the Great Ocean Road, with surveys being carried out as far as Wangerrip, or "Colac Tree Station".

Line Guide

References

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Operation

Planned extensions

Line Guide

References

Footnotes

Further reading