The railway line between Nyngan and Bourke in north-western NSW is no longer operational and is in a sorry state of disintegration. Once the final section of the Main Western Railway Line that ran from Sydney to Bourke, it was damaged by serious flooding in 1989. Following further damage to the line through efforts to relieve floodwaters around Nyngan, it was not considered financially viable to repair and maintain, so it was abandoned.
In its day, it was the longest stretch of straight railway line in the world (187 km), passing through the small villages of Girilambone, Coolabah and Byrock. The terminus in Bourke was completed in 1885.
The track is now largely overgrown and in places the rails sag unsupported where once there were bridges or trestled elevated sections. In Girilambone (population 221) the old dilapidated railway station crumbles beside the highway. On our way back from a trip to Cunnamulla (in Queensland, a further 257 km up the road from Bourke), we stopped briefly to have a look…
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| Girilambone Railway Station, once the reason for the village's existence, was opened in 1884. It closed in 1986, before the line itself was abandoned, and is slowly falling apart. |
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| Parcel rates notice - it must date from the early '70s as weights are in kg (metrication in Australia began in 1970) but passenger services beyond Dubbo ended in 1974. |
Some haunting images, makes you think of times gone by. Nice
ReplyDeleteUnreal. I was up at a Girilambone, in the mid eighties.That station was all intact,including the stationmasters house.The town even had a small club,that opened about 4pm and closed about 7 or 8pm.How times have changed, and sad to see it as it is today.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Girilambone from Around Easter 1978 and my family owned 2 of the 4 properties on the highway. I remember helping Richard Bland AKA Bang pull the railway maters house down while I was in high school and I left school in August 1980. My brothers helped too. We loaded bricks into a wheelbarrow for him. Somewhere I have pics of the old railway before the 2 sections were pulled down. I also remember Kent Wilki was the last Station master and I was so angry with him for getting the station closed down. He was hell bent on getting out of there and applied many times to have it shut down and be transferred from there.
DeleteAlso Ray Payne Sybil Shepherd Sandy Spicer and my father Neil Wood used to work the bar at the RSL club and it stayed open a lot more than that when the Thirst Quencher Hotel closed down in 1979