This presentation traces passenger and freight train operations on that section of the North Coast Line between Telarah and Coffs Harbour, travelling north from Telarah.
The North Coast Line commences (and branches from the Main North Line) at West Maitland, the first section to Dungog opening in 1911. It was progressively extended to Taree, Wauchope, Kempsey, Macksville and Urunga in 1913, 1915, 1917, 1919 and 1923 respectively. At Urunga it met track laid independently from the north (from Murwillumbah, Casino and Grafton between 1894 and 1905), the sections of interest for this presentation from Urunga to Raleigh and then to Coffs Harbour opening in 1923 and 1915 respectively.
While Coffs Harbour to Brisbane will be covered in The North Coast Line Parts 2 & 3, for the record the sections which completed the standard gauge North Coast Line from Casino to Kyogle and ultimately to South Brisbane and Roma St were completed in 1910, 1930 and 1986 respectively.
As will be evidenced throughout this presentation, improvements to road transportation has severely eaten into rail’s ability to compete on point to point general freight transportation, and consequently large goods yards at Taree, Wauchope, Kempsey and Coffs Harbour have almost disappeared. Instead rail survives on intermodal (containers) and bulk goods (coal, grain, cement, sugar etc).
Equipment seen in this presentation includes CLF, CLP, EL, G, NR, X, 421, 422, 423, 81 and 82 Class locomotives from Freight Corp, Interail, National Rail, Northern Rivers, QR National and Pacific National, and XPT, Endeavour and 620/720 class rail cars from CountryLink and CityRail.
Approximate run time: 74 minutes.