A few weeks ago, I began to talk about the closing of the South Gippsland railway, but I do have a little railway anecdote that says a little about what we have lost.
In the early 1980s I was teaching at Upper Beaconsfield and my wife, Val, was teaching at Hallam. We organised a school camp for our two classes down at Sandy Point, on Waratah Bay.
The Victorian Railways train down to Leongatha from Dandenong on the Monday morning ran at the ideal time but left us short of Fish Creek, where busses were to meet us. "Never mind," VR said, "we'll just run that train on down to Fish Creek for you. There will be plenty of time for it to get back to Leongatha".
We had about 74 children and a team of teachers and parents and the Wednesday passenger service back through Fish Creek to Melbourne, was only of three carriages. "Never mind," the VR people said, "we'll add another carriage for you."
It was a great camp and a great experience for the kids – and the people who ran the line were incredibly supportive in a way that I doubt you would find today. That line was a really valuable connection through South Gippsland.
Railways, though, have to answer to the bean-counters, and the section from Yarram to Woodside had never been a big earner. It was closed in 1953. There was simply not the traffic to make the line pay.
It had been built when roads were bad and motor transport new and not very reliable. Now the roads were better and trucks were better, and far more flexible in where they could make deliveries. The section from Welshpool east to Yarram survived until 1978, and then Leongatha became the end of the line in 1992. It had been kept alive by the traffic down to the Barry Beach oil supply terminal there, and as the Bass Strait oilfields began to decline and the glory days of setting up and servicing the 'rigs' faded, so did the reasons for keeping the line open.
Passenger trains had run from Melbourne to Yarram from the opening of the line until 1981, but Yarram had become the end of the line in 1953 when the Yarram- Woodside section was closed.
The next section closed as economic 'reality' took effect was between Welshpool and Yarram, closed in 1987 so that for a time Welshpool was the unlikely 'end of the line'. It was only visited by the occasional goods train because passenger services beyond Leongatha ended in 1981. The line was closed to all traffic in 1992.It had been kept operating by the need for goods trains to bring down fuel oil to Barry Beach. Stopping passenger trains did not mean the line was closed. Typically goods services outlasted passenger service.
There was a brief return of passenger services to Leongatha in 1984 but in the great Kennett closing of things in 1993 the service was dropped again.
It seems now that the prospect of reopening the line east of Cranbourne has been destroyed by development over the right of way in a couple of places. I hope that I am wrong, because there is already a need for passenger services to be extended to Clyde, and eventually beyond.
For a time part of the line was revived by the South Gippsland Tourist Railway, which operated 38 kilometres of track, between Nyora, once proudly called Nyora Junction, and Leongatha. It started operations in 1994 after that section was closed by Victorian Railways and operated a Y-class diesel-electric locomotive, Y 135.
The line was leased to the SGTR and that body was responsible for all the upkeep of the line, the rolling stock and the locomotive and rail motors. That was a huge task to take on, and eventually proved too much. Nonetheless there was an SGTR train from Leongatha to Korumburra and back every Sunday, and a train was run on every school-holiday Wednesday.
It had four rail-motors as well as the diesel-electric locomotive, and a collection of rolling stock. Two of the rail-motors were brought from South Australia. There was a huge amount of restoration needed on these and on the track itself, and in the end there was not enough money and too few volunteers. No taxpayer funds were ever given to the South Gippsland Tourist Railway. The SGTR trains ran their last journeys in 2016 and operations were limited to the rail museum at Korumburra.
For a few years there was a K-class steam locomotive loaned by Steamrail, K190, which brought back the sight and sound of the steam locomotives of the past. It was painted in a green livery and spent two seasons running for SGTR.
When the line southeast from Koala Siding to Leongatha was closed, and when the rails were removed form the line west of Nyora the SGTR lost all rail connection with the wider system.
One has to admire the volunteers who work on keeping this part of our past alive. There are about 17 such groups in Victoria, believe it or not.
There were two other things that kept that east part of the line operational. In 1955 the electrified suburban system was extended to Cranbourne, through Lyndhurst and the new Merinda (Park) station. In the usual unhappy railway style that station had to pretty much rebuilt so the line could be duplicated. At least that section of this historic railway will survive now.
The other one was the Koala Siding between Lang and Nyora. This was also known as the Australian Glass Manufacturers Siding, because it was from there that clean, clear sand was mined and taken by train to the AGM factory in Spotswood. I'm not sure when this started because all the places I have checked say "in the 1960s". The siding was closed in 1988.
All traffic beyond Cranbourne ceased after withdrawal of the Koala to Spotswood sand train. Trains had been operating at limited speeds, as low as 15kmh because of the state of the line and, particularly the bridges, was not good. When the rails from the Agnes and Barry Beach to Leongatha sections were being recovered at least one bridge had to strengthened to allow the rail-removal train to cross it.
