Background Australian Railway info

This page is no longer maintained and very out of date I may some day get around to fixing it up, as it does appear to get a lot of hits. See www.railpage.org.au for the enthusiasts view of the Australian railways, however Chris Brownbill's Australian Rail Maps provides a view more suited for the tourist who wants to know how to get around by rail in Australia. The rail industry it self has an assoiciation called the Australian Railway Assoiciation Inc that is also online.

Major changes since I last did a major revamp of this page is that the Feds sold off most of their railway interests (National Rail pending, as the state share holders must also agree) ,and the state of Victoria has sold off its rail operations. (Freight, Country Passenger, Met rail (2 parts), Met tram (2 parts).

Most Australian railways are Government owned, the big high profile minerial roads in the north west are NOT interconnected with the mainland network. A number of very small private companies also operate railways, usually with no interconnection with the nearby Government owned lines.

A number of systems now have their own official sites on the net, these are linked to as appropiate.

Note - The icons next to the railway company's listed are probably registered trademarks of the companys. Beware what you use them for.

Operating company's

Federal 'Commonweath' owned
- Federal Dept of Transport
- National Railway Corporation - Interstate Freight
- Australian National Railways
  - Australian National - South Australian freight and interstate passeger operations. (Sold - Intrastate freight - Australian Southern Railroad (Genesee & Wyoming), Passenger - Great Southern Railway
  - AN-Tasrail - Tasmainian operations (Sold - Australian Transport Network (Wisconsin Central)).
State owned
- State Rail Authority of New South Wales (NSW hasn't started to sell of bits of the railway. Yet. )
  - FreightCorp - Freight operations
  - CountryLink - Country passenger operations
  - CityRail - (Inter)Urban passenger operations.
- Victorian Public Transport Corporation
  - Vline - Country operations (Sold - Vline Freight (Freight Victoria), Vline passenger pending.)
  - The MET - Urban operations (Including Trams/busses) Split up prior to privatisation into -
- Queensland Government Railways
- WestRail - Western Australia (Freight operation for sale)
  - FastTrak - Urban operations
- Suburban Transit Authority - Adelaide city urban services (Including trams/busses)
Private corporations
- BHP Iron Ore Railroad (Port Headland, WA)
- Goldsworthy Railway (South Headland, WA)
- Hamersley Iron Ore Railways (Dampier, WA)
- Robe River Railroad (Wickam, WA)
- BHP railways
  - Whyalla Long products division (Whyalla , SA)
  - Newcastle Road & Bar products division (Newcastle, NSW)
  - Wollongong Slab & Plate products division (Wollongong, NSW)
- Comalco Railway (Weipa, QLD)
- Darling Harbour Monorail (Darling Harbour, NSW)
- Sydney Light Rail (Pyrmont, NSW)
- Emu Bay Railway Co Ltd (Burnie, TAS) (Bought by ATN).
- Perisher Skitube (Jindabyne, NSW)
- South Maitland Railways Pty Ltd (Maitland, NSW)
- Silverton Tramway (Broken Hill,NSW)
- West Coast Railway (Warrnembool VIC)
- SpeedRail (Sydney-Canberra TGV proposal).
Preservation Groups ,tour operators and societys
- The New South Wales Rail Transport Museum (Thirmere, NSW)
- The Sydney Electric Train Society
- 3801 Ltd (Sydney, NSW)
- Lachlan Valley Railway (Cowra NSW)
- The Rail Motor Society (Paterson, NSW)
- Richmond Vale Preservation Co-operative Society (Kurri Kurri,NSW)
- Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum (Dorrigo, NSW)
- Zig Zag Railway (Lithgow, NSW)
- Elecrail (Newport, Vic)
- Seymour Loco Steam Preservation Group (Seymour Vic)
- R707 Operations (Newport, Vic)
- Steam Rail Victoria
- Mornington Railway Preservation Society
- Central Highlands Tourist Railway(Central Vic)
- SteamRanger (Victor Harbour/Adelaide SA)
- Puffing Billy Railway (Dandenong, Vic)
- The Australian Railway Historical Society
  - New South Wales Division
  - Victorian Division
  - Newcastle Branch (NSW)
  - Queensland Division
Equipment and rollingstock suppliers
- Evans Deakin Industries
- Clyde Engineering - Motive Power Divison (Rolling Stock) (GM)
- A. Gonnian & Co. (Rolling Stock) (GE)
- Morrison Knudsen (Rolling Stock) (Remanufacture)
- Westinghouse Brake and Signal
- James Watt group (Signals)
- GEC
- DSC Engineering (Signal enclousures)

The Northern Territory has no railway system, the single NR operated line into Alice Spings being the only rails still in the state. The short lived Northern Australia Railway was federaly administered. There is currently a project to connect the Alice to Darwin. Both Tasmainia and South Australia gave up their state railways systems to an attempt at nationalization, becoming part of the Commonweath Railways, later Australian National.

A number of the private railways are not as independant as it may seem, BHP has interests in most mineral projects, and they own majority interests in Comalco and Goldsworthy. Recently a surplus locomotive was transfered from Weipa to Goldsworthy , then older surplus locomotives from Goldsworthy to BHP's steel works in Wollongong !.

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