Shortly after its formation in the late 1990s, National Rail won a contract to haul stone product from the Dunmore Quarry near Shellharbour on the New South Wales South Coast to the Boral Concrete facility near Mascot in Sydney.
To haul the stone product, it purchased 26 second hand coal wagons from Queensland Railways, had them refurbished by heavy engineering firm Varley and classified them as RHGF. The stone was hauled usually by twin DL class although twin NR class were often substituted when available early in the contract. Because the loading and delivery sidings both faced the ‘up’ direction it was necessary for the locomotives to run around their train before and then after delivery and this was usually performed in Rozelle goods yard, Enfield goods yard at this time being exclusively Freight Corp.
When Freight Corp and National Rail merged to form Pacific National, the above wagons and some of Freight Corp’s NPHZ wagons were combined to provide two rakes of wagons which service both the Mascot and Enfield Boral concrete facilities. Normal such trains deliver firstly to Enfield, then proceeds with the remainder of the stone load (some full and some empty wagons) to Mascot and, after complete unloading, depart for Dunmore or stable at Enfield if immediate stone deliveries are not required.
Dunmore Quarry, now operated by Boral, can trace its history all the way back to 1890 when a 1.5 kilometre private line was constructed on the ‘down’ side of what is now Shellharbour railway station to the Shellharbour Quarry. It remains as a short privately (Boral) owned section of operational track.
In this presentation we shall view Boral stone trains loading at Dunmore and follow their path to Sydney where unloading operations will be observed at both Enfield and Mascot. Locomotive classes seen in action include C, DL, HL (ex-422), MZ, NR, 44, 442, 47, 48, 81 and 82 Class in the liveries of CFCLA, Coote Industrial, Freight Corp, Independent Rail, Lachlan Valley, PacNat, Silverton and South Spur. Also seen are CityRail electric and diesel passenger rolling stock.
Approximate run time: 94 minutes.