The forgotten Dual Gauge Railway to Wallaroo - Abandoned Railways of South Australia

Did you know the Snowtown to Wallaroo railway was one of South Australia's only Dual Gauge Railways? The line was closed by Australian National in March of 1993 but is still used between Wallaroo & Bute for tourist trains. Today, the line is left to rust away except for the first 1800 meters, which is used to load Grain Trains at Viterra's track-side storage facility.
This video looks into the forgotten railway and features a few trains on the Interstate Mainline at Snowtown. A One Rail Australia Grain Train, which loaded on the old line, also features with two ex-Victorian Railway's G class locomotives.
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[@dieseldavetrains8988]

The colonial days of various gauges has costly this country dearly, even still an issue today. Cracking video, I like the history theme, better than just trains, very enjoyable and thank you.

[@FishplateFilms]

Couldn't agree more DAve! AT least we are finally getting a (half) decent standard gauge network , with Inland rail being built...even though it's still 50 years behind time! Gregg :-)

[@dieseldavetrains8988]

@@MS_Trains I always try and film from different locations that have railway history, abandoned stations, former stations and sidings etc. Heaps of them in western NSW and some are most interesting. Yes, I tend not to worry about NR, AN, 81 & 82 class out this way, same old same old. Enjoy your postings, good value.

[@blueycarlton]

Blame NSW for starting Australia's gauge debacle. Broad gauge had been agreed to between Victoria and NSW. Victoria purchased rolling stock and built the first rail line in the country, then NSW spat the dummy and decided to have standard gauge. Mind boggling!

[@evangiles17]

Why blame NSW it was the private contractor that was skimming money that caused the problem and that was when the NSW Government effectively took over the building of all railways in NSW

[@evangiles17]

I sincerely doubt that

[@robjacobs5199]

We made a big bungle with railways in SA and it's come back to haunt us.

[@gashy1000]

Victoria the same and we still haunted.cheers

[@keonikaig9247]

GREAT shots , Lots of history Thank you very much for sharing... 🌴👌😎🌴

[@noelhass3712]

I went to high school at Kadina, my late father was District Foreman (SAR) then Roadmaster (ANR) being the last one there when railways closed Kadina. I joined ANR at Port Pirie in 1980, in mid 1980s, after being transferred to Adelaide, I went relieving at Wallaroo as Locomotive Assistant, I worked trains to Brinkworth via Snowtown, and one busy grain season, worked all the way to Balaklava via Snowtown and Brinkworth picking up hoppers of grain for silos at Wallaroo, had 2x930 class locos, 2000tonnes! Now just a memory...

[@MS_Trains]

Great memory at that. Long trip around from Balaklava to Wallaroo via Snowtown & Brinkworth. Really I'm surprised the route to Wallaroo doesn't still operate with grain from all across the Mid-North even as far south as Bowmans. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. It's great to hear about the past railways in our beautiful state. Matt - Tons of Trains

[@darylcheshire1618]

I’m from Victoria, around the early ‘90s I visited Kadina Wallaroo Bute and Moonta. The Port of Wallaroo is enormous. At Kadina there was a tourist railway and there was a VR T class.

[@MS_Trains]

Very good! It's changed a lot since the 90s. There was a VR T class there back in those days at the tourist railway. I wonder where it's at now? Matt - M&S Trains

[@stuarthancock571]

Well done, an excellent video. Few things about this. In the mid 90's a Deep Sea Port Investigative Committee did a detailed study as to where to build a deep grain port to fully load Panamax ships east of Spencer Gulf. Ports like Wallaroo, Pt Pirie, Ardrossan and Inner Harbour can only partially load these vessels and they then have to be topped up at Pt Lincoln or Pt Giles. Many farmers lobbied to get the Wallaroo channel deepened but concerns about where the sediment was to be dumped and blasting of rock required beneath the seafloor, made it unviable compared to a new Outer Harbour export terminal that could also serve the Mallee and South East. Obviously if Wallaroo had deep water, the rail would've been viable serving all areas north of Snowtown for a port. Now there's been some interest from iron ore industry about using Myponie Point (about 8kms north of Wallaroo with deep water) to export iron ore from deposits discovered near the Barrier Hwy. BUT they're not interested in rail, they want to use the rail corridor through Barunga Gap for a slurry pipeline to move the ore. And a quick note about the dual gauge. 2 rails on one side and 1 on the other made hot weather buckling much worse than normal and combined with rotting sleepers became the straw that broke the camels back for the tourist rail.

[@vsvnrg3263]

stuart hancock, you raise an issue i hadnt thought of, that dual gauge buckling problem.

[@redhen334]

Amazing video! I’d love to see more abandoned railway videos like this.

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@MS_Trains , how about the triple gauge lines? and the place where, during the second world war, general macarthur said "i shall return".

[@billrichardson6389]

Great vid Matt, lots of history and the drone shots are really amazing, love it.

[@stevewhite4164]

I went to the National Local Govt Roads conference in Albany West Australia. We heard then that the truck capacity to carry wheat has grown from 20 tons to 100 tons over the last few decades so local country rail is being pulled up - but as the road conference heard, roads must now be sealed and re-enforced to take these larger trucks.

[@mattsutherland120]

What a great video, thank you for your hard work and efforts.

[@tonyosborne2080]

Love the history thanks.

[@johnsmart964]

Absolutely excellent video, thank you so much for this. It is very interesting and informative, and very sad that this route is not used, maybe one day they we will see the sense in restoring the trains to the port and even tourist trains again to this beautiful area.

[@ConRob_The_Gunzel]

great video! good catch with double Freightliner livery G class locos on an grain train! would love to see more abandoned railways of south Australia like this video!

[@AussieWirraway]

excellent video, your skills are really on show in this one. Feel like I'm watching a professional doco!

[@markconnell5365]

A quick map might have assisted for those not fully versed with the area.

[@kenfowler1980]

Thankyou for an excellent video! What a sad state of affairs. Imagine if the state owned road infrastructure was neglected to that level. Well with the cost of fuel rising and green energy being the future the state & federal governments will regret those decisions for decades to come. Particularly since SA has all that alternative energy and after all DE Locomotives are just big generators on wheels so you could replace those engines with battery packs or overhead wiring. Sadly our politicians don’t have that sought of vision. Cheers

[@nicklaubsch8013]

Love the drone footage

[@TheDaf95xf]

Fantastic video as always 🤩 But sad seeing old railway s rusting away ☹️

[@Outdoorstype]

Excellent video! I've always been intrigued by this line.

[@edwardmounsey9208]

Looking at some of the old rail equipment it’s easy to see why they are called wagons not cars. Nice video thanks for posting.

[@aidenteszke9000]

😂

[@Railfan6675]

Great video. Cheers from rail fans in Canada.

[@michaeljackson2838]

A criminal shame the way successive governments have abandoned rail lines in SA. Cannot believe we use trucks to take grain from terminal to terminal.

[@L5kman]

Great to look at. Well done Matt!

[@L5kman]

@@MS_Trains they did. I didn’t realise you had your drone out that day.

[@FishplateFilms]

Nice work Matt! I'm assuming Peterborough will be on your list for abandoned rails?? It has a great history as you know , and , if I'm not mistaken , the only "Tri gauge" turntable in the world?? We went there on one of my trips to Lofty, and I will return to spend more time there one day. Cheers , Gregg.

[@trainco1643]

Awesome footage. Quite sad and disappointing to see the line, like many others in SA, just go extinct over all these years. Although it would be nice to revive rail along the Yorke Peninsula, be it freight, tourist or regional commuter trains, I can’t see this line reopening again.

[@johnstaring3210]

Yes, it is the same in many regions of WA. I know it's a bit controversial to say, but grain carrying trucks have killed so many more people than grain trains ever did.

[@patrickbryant5224]

Brilliant video once again guys.

[@atraccionferroviaria280]

excellent capture, I leave my like # 272 . Greetings from Argentina.

[@chrisquinlan3012]

I was with the Special Gangs that prepped the timber track for the Adelaide Crystal Brook gauge change and up through Barunga Gap as part of the whole Rail Standardisation Project ,A huge amount of work was done in Adelaide too .Later on the ACB got concrete sleepers with the Plasser &Theurer SMD80 machine .The Govt spent $$$ on ACB Rail Standardisation [timber sleepers] then later laid concrete sleepers with the Plasser &Theurer SMD 80 .Private contractors did the main South Line with concrete dual gauge sleepers then we did a gauge change to Standard while traffic was routed through Pinaroo into Victoria.,The MARS project was Melbourne Adelaide Rail Standardisation Project..Of course this made the secondary broad gauge lines redundant ....a word a lot of ex-Railway Men know oh so well!!

[@MS_Trains]

Great to hear the story from someone who was there. Too many lines have been made redundant. At least these days, we're all on the same page with Standard Gauge network-wide and are slowly making the move over everywhere. Let's hope for a better future for rail. Matt - M&S Trains

[@ashleyflint3501]

In the 1960's till early 1970's my brother and father ploughed each side of the railway line , starting at Wallaroo, heading to PtPirie then turning back to Kadina then head to Pt Wakefield then turning back and heading to Moonta, then returning to Wallaroo. This was a contract with the railways for putting in a firebreak for the coming fire season. It took a few months to do as in those days it got extremely wet out from Merridan to Redhill. Rail will shift more grain in a day than a dam truck will less carbon, but these wiz kids in the city wouldn't have a clue. Look at what has happened on Eyre Pennisula !

[@MS_Trains]

Great story mate! Atleast Aurizon seem to be more interested in these older branchlines then One Rail/GWA have been. Hearing Pinnaroo's line could also be reopened in the near future and maybe the Eyre Peninsula also. Matt - M&S Trains

[@squeaksvids5886]

I didn’t know Freightliner operated in Australia. Great video.

[@britishfilmguy]

Looks like freightliner had the yellow and green livery down there as they do here in the uk. Tend to be on our class 66, 70, 90 locomotive fleet.

[@rond6783]

Great Video Matt. Thx.

[@rodneyjeffery9726]

cool to see that

[@mce_AU]

Nice

[@jamesburnside3023]

Great job done

[@martythemartian99]

2:50 With so much intercity freight on this section of the network, it should be dual track.

[@tommcgrath2496]

Nice vid, I see Australian trains are subject to heavy graffiti attacks too.

[@samueljesse2179]

It's funny how South Australia (Adelaide) connects to NSW via Crystal Brook on the line from Broken Hill, why wasn't a line constructed along a faster route via Mildura across the Hay plain and onto Sydney?🤔

[@stuarthancock571]

Ore from Broken Hill needed the rail to begin with.

[@craigymac5386]

Great video, it seems to be a worldwide thing. Rip up the railway and then years later regret it then put more trucks on the roads.

[@vsvnrg3263]

great video. for those who thought converting sa rail lines from narrow gauge to broad gauge not standard gauge was stupid, you've got to remember that sa had more connecting lines to the bg state of victoria. the big stupid award goes to victoria for not converting to sg long ago. the bigger stupid awards go to long ago senior engineers of the nswgr who changed then changed the chosen gauge for their state again then again.

[@evangiles17]

You need to read a bit more about the history of NSW railways - The original contractor engaged to build the line from Sydney to Strathfield was skimming money by submitting bogus contracts so the NSW government asked the English government if they could recommend someone to complete the line and they recommended John Witton - Witton calculated that by reducing the gauge to 4 ft 8 1/2 and slightly increasing the spacing between the sleeper's they could construct a double line from Sydney to Strathfield

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@evangiles17 ,you need to look further back in history than john whitton. he never got here till 1856. back in about 1847, the colonies agreed to the sg. the first nsw engineer in charge of such things, an irishman, convinced the colonies to go for bg, the irish gauge. then he was removed/resigned (i've seen it written in both ways) and replaced by a scotsman who recommended sg. wikipedia states that john whitton was a fan of bg. and i'm a fan of john whitton. my source of information was an article written in the very early 1900's about this saga that i found on this internet thingo. it seems to be the best account of how the mess started. some of the people who were there at the start were around when this article was written. if anyone can find a time machine on ebay at a good price then please go back and bring john whitton over from england 3 years earlier than 1856 and he'll prevent the mess of the south eastern corner from happening.

[@evangiles17]

Yes he was a fan of broad gauge but due to the failure of the private contractor to build the line he was constrained by the fact the NSWGR wouldn't give him any more money so he had to build it with the money he had hence forth why he went for 4ft 8 1/2 Refer to Rail Gauges Of Australia - Wikipedia Again this article states exactly what I have written here due to the railway construction companies at that time being private you had them doing what private companies do and that is instead of them all gettings together and agreeing to one gauge each for their own purposes decided to use different gauges

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@evangiles17 , yes, i read that. it seems to agree with the long-lost article i once found on the internet but can no longer find. you will see in the article under "origins of the gauge muddle" that john whitten tried to get the 23 miles of existing sg line converted to irish bg but the government refused. we were that close!

[@lcstrainspotter3888]

So do you do documentaries about this sort stuff plus my dad's company re-done the bridge going into the grain silos in Port Lincoln

[@chrisholland1862]

We had dual track in some areas a great idea a 3rd rail so standard gauge and broad gauge trains could run within our state to use a length of track without having to lay extra track side by side thereby reducing costs. But stupid government's in their decisions in their standardisation program have failed. Each state had large rail networks with some lines at the time no longer viable ripped up or removed completely by the state government that was in power or by the federal government which took over the country regional train network in South Australia and now with standardisation we don't have much of a network at all in regional areas except in New South Wales which has always been a Standard Gauge State. Broad Gauge is mostly gone exception being Heritage Railways and metropolitan lines in South Australia and Victoria and very few Standard Gauge trains run on existing Standard Gauge lines network because of the increase in freight using road transport due to the government's poor decisions. We are a big country with great distances to be travelled by freight and passengers between major cities and we have gone backwards most of our roads are shocking and can't handle the weight of the heavy laden modern big rig trucks now in use on so many roads potholes, soft edges corrugations are common because the current road building standards are out of date. It is common to see big rigs off the main highways on narrow country back roads. The Rail network outside of big cities needs expanding to have dual track with up and down lines so traffic can be travelling both ways more frequently between cities with less rail crossings and more rail or road bridges along the routes. I have seen various rail shows on TV and what I have seen on some of those shows puts our railways to shame.

[@justthetruth870]

Nice drone footage. What make and model drone are you using ?

[@justinobrien3593]

Them two freightliner locos at the start of the video sound like a class 66 engine they are probably the same engines!!!

[@vsvnrg3263]

i think they were g class. theyve got a 16 cylinder engine not 12 like the 66.

[@michaeljackson2838]

They are a lot older than the 66's

[@Planetrainguy]

Did you film AK cars in the hills with 42103?

[@Planetrainguy]

@@MS_Trains I was at Belair too!!! With my TRIPOD

[@lordsamich755]

I don't get it, there's a functioning port.

[@andrewmadge4841]

I always thought freightliner was only in Britain

[@louiskats5116]

Great video, great history, visual especially with the drone that is a whole new level. I remember visiting Jamestown back in 1997 & seeing the 3 different gauges on the 1 track. It was a disused line 1 rail then the 3 different gauges opposite. Just checked out Snowtown on Google Maps can you correct me if I am wrong. The combo runs empty from Adelaide then backs into the silo. Once full it pulls out onto the main but still facing Port Augusta. Where do they swap ends for the loco's to return to Adelaide. Google Maps doesn't show any siding in the area. Just curious. Cheers Louis 👍

[@louiskats5116]

@@MS_Trains Sure did thanks for that, no mucking around on the main. Yeah it could of been in Gladstone, 23 years ago. Thanks for that, keep the great video's coming 👍

[@jesstill7833]

👍👍👍👍👍👍💪💪💪💪💪😀😎

[@jokic_dynamic]

At the old turntable in 2023 it is demolished

[@MS_Trains]

Yes, very sad. It went in late 2021. Matt - M&S Trains

[@vsvnrg3263]

i think all us commenters are all in agreement that the gauge difference is a problem. so fix it! the nazis could convert 10 kilometres a day on the way to moscow. and they didn't have loaders, nor semi trailers, nor road trains, nor wheeled excavators that run on rails as well, nor bobcats. so how many kilometres were converted per day on the line to mildura just a couple of years ago?

[@djwork]

Possible for wider gauge -> narrower gauge, but not always possible for the reverse due to the curvature of the track bed.

[@crocaduckfull]

Anyone see the snake?

[@vsvnrg3263]

no. what time? so i can have a look.

[@crocaduckfull]

@@vsvnrg3263 @ 9:55 nearly cenre

[@vsvnrg3263]

@@crocaduckfull , looks poisonous. the reason i didnt spot it is because i was flat out looking for a date on the rail. i didnt see a date.

[@crocaduckfull]

@@vsvnrg3263 👍

[@michaeljackson2838]

I thought so! Just a quick glimpse but enough to know that's what it must have been

[@zootsootful]

Who watches these videos? Cows?

[@ToddKeck98]

Uhhh yeah, I now identify as a cow because I watch this vid.

[@michaeljackson2838]

I'm guessing you did, so welcome to the herd