The Newnes railway line (also called Wolgan Valley Railway) is a closed and dismantled railway line in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The line ran for from the Main Western line to the township of

Newnes Newnes (), an abandoned oil shale mining site of the Wolgan Valley, is located in the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. The site that was operational in the early 20th century is now partly surrounded by Wollemi Nation ...

. Along the way, it passed through a tunnel now known as the

Glowworm Tunnel The Glowworm Tunnel is a disused railway tunnel between Lithgow, New South Wales and Newnes, New South Wales, Australia. It is notable for its resident glow-worms, the bioluminescent larvae of ''Arachnocampa richardsae'', a type of fungus g ...

, because it is famous for its glow-worms. The tunnel is now contained within the

Wollemi National Park The Wollemi National Park () is a protected national park and wilderness area that is located in the Central West and Hunter region of New South Wales, in eastern Australia. The park, the second largest national park in New South Wales, conta ...

Description and history

The line was constructed and operated by the

Commonwealth Oil Corporation Commonwealth Oil Corporation Limited was a British-owned Australian company associated with the production and refining of petroleum products derived from oil shale, during the early years of the 20th century. It is associated with Newnes, Hartley ...

for their

Oil Shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

mine. Surveying and construction was overseen by Henry Deane. The line opened in 1907 and closed in 1932. It was primarily intended to carry goods to and from the mine, but also provided passenger services. The New South Wales Division of

Australian Railway Historical Society The Australian Railway Historical Society (ARHS) has been a railway organisation concerned with history and preservation of railway heritage at a national level. It has had divisions in every state and the Australian Capital Territory, althou ...

published The Shale Railways of New South Wales in 1974 which includes a detailed history of this line. Allan Watson, the Lessee of the old Newnes Hotel, has a comprehensive websit
here
The steep 1 in 25 (4 %)

gradients In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The gra ...

along the descent towards Newnes required a different type of steam locomotive. 4

Shay locomotive The Shay locomotive is a geared steam locomotive that originated and was primarily used in North America. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a ''geared st ...

s were imported from the

Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works (LLW) was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company's name is derived from the location of its main manufacturing plant in Lima, Ohio ( ). The shops were located be ...

in the USA. Although rather slow, their unique build which uses crankshafts to propel the wheels made them very suitable, and if a train had to stop on a steep uphill grade, the train could easily start again and keep moving. After the line closed, part of its route was used by a section of the pipeline that carried refined petroleum from the

Glen Davis Shale Oil Works The Glen Davis Shale Oil Works was a shale oil extraction plant, in the Capertee Valley, at Glen Davis, New South Wales, Australia, which operated from 1940 until 1952. It was the last oil shale in Australia, oil-shale operation in Australia, unt ...

to Newnes Junction. In 1940–1941, the rails were lifted; most were shipped to North Africa for use as anti-tank traps and gun emplacement reinforcements but some of the

bullhead rail The rail profile is the cross-sectional shape of a rail as installed on a railway or railroad, perpendicular to its length. Early rails were made of wood, cast iron or wrought iron. All modern rails are hot rolled steel with a cross secti ...

s were reused for structures and supports of the oil pipeline. Other iron fittings from the line were used as scrap for munitions.

Description and history

See also

References

Further reading