Rail options pushed to solve looming transport problems for growing Mount Barker city in the Adelaide Hills
Mount Barker railway station, cut off from a passenger train link through the Adelaide Hills to Adelaide city, since 1984. Inset: A proposed rail connection (in black) to Mount Barker, in a report prepared by Rod Hook & Associates.
Spanish company Talgo was given South Australian approval in 2022 to test its railcar technology on a 55km rail line between the central Adelaide Hills and Adelaide in a trail to overcome looming transport problems for the booming city of Mount Barker.
Talgo, a railcar manufacturer, produced train sets for mixed-gauge networks. Linking Adelaide city to Mount Barker represented that mix-gauge challenge. Adelaide Metro broad-gauge passenger train line to the Adelaide Hills ended in Belair from 1984. The parallel freight line, at standard gauge, ran all the way to Melbourne from 1995 and was managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC).
Talgo also developed tilt technology to allow trains to switch from broad gauge to standard gauge and back from standard gauge to broad gauge. Its tilt system technology enables trains to travel on the hilly terrain and curvatures at greater speed safety than other rolling stock. After preliminary assessments,Talgo estimated its train could complete the Adelaide to Mount Barker trip in around 45 to 50 minutes.
In 2018, former senior South Australian government transport department bureaucrat Luigi Rossi proposed a $1 billion fast rail connecting Adelaide city to the Hills, taking just 22 minutes and reaching a maximum speed of 160km/h. He said it offered a “holistic solution to a challenging problem”.
Mount Barker District Council in 2021 highlighted the Adelaide Hills city’s need for alternative transport routes to the frequently congested South Eastern Freeway. It warned of population pressures, with the district expected to increase from about 38,000 to "reach 60,000 in the next 15 years". A range of options to solve the problem – including a road projects "at a cost of more than $2 billion" – were discussed as well as rail options.
Among rail options was “a prima facie case” to build a tunnel to run the line from around Belair straight down to the Torrens Park/Mitcham area before re-joining the existing Belair line. A report by Rod Hook & Associates, commissioned by Regional Development Australia on behalf of Mount Barker District Council, found it would cost around $10 million to upgrade a section of unused track between the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) line and Mount Barker station, that had a Park'n' Ride. Another $25 million would be needed to buy variable gauge rolling stock that could operate across both standard and broad-gauge track on the existing rail corridor, and also access the Dry Creek depot for maintenance and repairs.
Other alternatives were to make Nairne or Bridgewater the hills terminal, rather than Mount Barker or build a new station closer to the ARTC line near Mount Barker. A small number of standard gauge Adelaide Metro rail cars could be brought and from and to Mount Barker during the morning and afternoon peaks. An initial solution could be achieved by terminating the standard gauge serve at Wayville (Showgrounds) station, where passengers could alight and catch the next service from Belair or Seaford into Adelaide Railway Station.
Another option was to transfer the whole Belair to Adelaide city line to standard gauge. This could rely long time on improve the Melbourne-Adelaide standard-gauge rail corridor building high speed rail corridors up Australia’s eastern seaboard extend to a link to South Australia.