Tasrail can trace its history back to 1890 when, until 1978, it operated as the Tasmanian Government Railway (TGR). With continuing losses due to diminishing freight and passenger traffic, in 1978 the Tasmanian Government entered into an agreement with the Federal Government to transfer the Tasmanian Government Railway to the Federal Government's Australian National (AN), and it became AN Tasrail.
Then in 1997 the Federal Government decided to privatise Australian National and AN Tasrail was sold off to Australian Transportation Network (ATN), a partnership between New Zealand based Tranz Rail and the United States railroad Wisconsin Central. A year later in 1998 ATN added the Emu Bar Railway. In 2004 Pacific National purchased ATN. Turning the full circle in 2009 the Tasmanian Government purchased back its railway from Pacific National and operated it as Tasrail which provides a freight only operation on a much diminished track network.
Today the Tasrail network is a single track narrow gauge network consisting of 632 route kilometre of operational line and 211 kilometres of non operational lines. The mainstay of its locomotive fleet are the seventeen TR Class backed up by a few still operational DQ Class. All Tasrail equipment is now air braked.
In this presentation we visit the Stanstead Workshop of Pacific National in 2005 and subsequently those of Tasrail in 2017, see trains operation on the Hobart Line in 2010 (now non-operational), operations on the Western Line in 2017 between Bernie and Railton and visit a number of rail heritage museums, including a steam train ride at Don River.
Approximate run time: 104 minutes.