Agriculture, mines push extended/disconnected early South Australian railways network on cheaper narrow gauge
Eudunda Railway Station in 1890 on the Morgan railway line (from 1878). A large train shed and goods trucks can be seen on the railway lines. Narcoota Springs were nearby. Eudunda was a bustling stopover and watering place for earliest European explorers and pioneer overlanders.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Agricultural and mining demands spurred the growth of disconnected government-owned South Australian Railways network into the province’s mid north from the 1850s.
The Adelaide-to-Port Adelaide in 1856 had been the first government-built and -owned steam railway in the British empire. By 1860, a railway had been built to Kapunda where copper was first discovered in 1842. Kapunda also soon became South Australia’s largest wheat receiving station.
An extension, branching off at Roseworthy, was completed in 1870 to serve the copper mines at Burra. The Kapunda line was then pushed through to Morgan to capture Murray River paddle steamer trade from upstream.
The early short disconnected lines were built towards the nearest port such as Port Broughton-Mundoora (horse drawn), Port Pirie-Crystal Brook and Port Wakefield-Balaklava. Later, during the 1880s, efforts were made to centralise the system and eventually all lines, except for Eyre Peninsula, were linked to Adelaide. To serve the mining and pastoral industries in the far north, the great northern railway was built from Port Augusta to Quorn in 1879, with the line reaching Marree in 1883, and Oodnadatta in 1891.
In 1865. South Australia's surveyor general George Goyder established his line showing the northern areas where rainfall was not reliable enough to support cropping. Good crops led many to ignore Goyder's advice and settlement occurred beyond Goyder's line, with even thoughts of farming the desert with a catchcry of "Rainfall follows the plough!". But Goyder's drought warnings were realised and poor return from many farms resulted in some railway lines being placed under threat of closure – even in the mid 1900s.
Another expensive long-term lesson learnt was in the choice of narrow-gauge rail lines. Railways built primarily to transport of grain to the nearest port didn’t need the speed or comfort provided by broader gauges. Narrow gauge was chosen as faster and less expensive to build throughout the mid north, south east and Eyre Peninsula. Longer lines to Cockburn (on the South Australian/New South Wales border) and Alice Springs were also built to this gauge. Few realised that these lightly-laid lines couldn’t support the tonnages required to turn a profit in the future.
