Adelaide-Bridgewater passenger service from 1883 (ends 1987) as part of line through hills to Wolseley near Victoria
The Bridgewater viaduct, with two steam trains pulling a passenger train over the bridge through the Adelaide Hills. This part of the Adelaide-Wolseley line had nine tunnels and large lattice truss bridges. At right: The Bridgewater train service station as part of South Australian Railways service in the Adelaide metropolitan area in 1915.
Image by Semuel White Sweet, courtesy State Library of South Australia
Belair/Bridgewater broad gauge railway line for passenger services from Adelaide city into the Adelaide Hills was built in 1883 as part of the line to Wolseley line – the South Australian section of the Adelaide-Melbourne railway. The service was closed off from Belair in 1987 when the Adelaide-Wolesley line was converted to a single standard gauge line.
The line to Bridgewater from Adelaide in 1883 headed east from Belair parallel to the north side of Belair National Park. It turned south through the national park and then east again, where the National Park station used to be. It continued east past Long Gully and Nalawort to Upper Sturt, 28.9 kilometres from Adelaide station. Five hundred metres on, the track turned northeast and continued to Mount Lofty, 31 kilometres from Adelaide. After that, it turned south and reached Heathfield just after the line turned northeast, passing Madurta then Aldgate. The line continued east, passing Jibilla and Carripook, before ending at Bridgewater (37.3km).
The Bridgewater line had mostly a fairly steep grade, sometimes causing derailments on tight bends. In 1919, a new alignment was built around Sleeps Hill as part of duplicating the line. A double track tunnel was built to replace two tunnels and two viaducts. In 1928, the line was duplicated from Eden Hills to Blackwood and Belair.
Services from Adelaide to Bridgewater averaged an hour (stopping all stations) and about 50 minutes (express). Only one train every two hours operated during offpeak and weekends (most terminating at Belair) and no more than two trains per hour in either direction during peak hours. When the more direct South Eastern Freeway opened in the late 1960s, patronage to Bridgewater fell heavily. Services on the Bridgewater line were mainly operated by Red hen railcars with occasional 2000 class railcars in its final years.
Services ran from Adelaide with trains terminating either at Belair or Bridgewater. In 1985, the State Transport Authority sought to have the line’s 12 services on weekdays, nine on Saturdays and five on Sundays withdrawn. This happened in 1987 when passenger services to Bridgewater were stopped, blamed on to high operating and low passenger numbers. All suburban trains service were closed beyond Belair.
On special occasions after 1987, such as Oakbank Easter racing carniva,l the trains ran further east to Balhannah but his ceased prior to the standard gauge conversion, due to the expense of operating the line.
In 1995, the Adelaide-Wolseley line was was converted broad to standard, ruling out restoring local trains to Bridgewater or beyond. Between Goodwood and Belair, the former double track route became two parallel single lines, one broad gauge for suburban services (owned by the state government), the other standard gauge for interstate and freight services (owned by the federal government).
Along with this conversion, stations on the Belair line at Mile End Goods, Millswood (reopened 2014), Hawthorn and Clapham closed and the other Belair line stations each had one platform closed. In 2009, the Belair line was relaid with dual-gauge sleepers for it to be converted to a double-track standard gauge.
Originally operated by South Australian Railways, in 1978, it was transferred to Australian National and in 1998 to the Australian Rail Track Corporation. Until April 1987, the State Transport Authority (STA) operated on the first 37 kilometres of the line from Adelaide to Bridgewater then curtailed to Belair. TransAdelaide succeeded the STA in operating the line in 1994 and private operator Keolis Downer from 2021.