Re: Picton-Mittagong Loop Line Re-opens?

[matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au (Matthew Geier)]

In article <crM46.58$fx.2532@ozemail.com.au>,
David Bennetts <davibenn@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
>"Malcolm Purvis" <malcolmpurvis@optushome.com.au> wrote in message
>m3ae99orgl.fsf@co3018576-a.rivrw1.nsw.optushome.com.au">news:m3ae99orgl.fsf@co3018576-a.rivrw1.nsw.optushome.com.au...
>> >>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Geier <matthew@mail.usyd.edu.au> writes:
>>
>> Is this true all the way to Mittagong?  I've wondered on occasion just how
>> practical it would be for the RTM to reopen the loop and run its tours
>along
>> it instead of the main line.
>>
>> Malcolm
>
>Isn't true - there was most of a wooden trestle bridge missing near Braemar
>for example.  A few years ago did a visit to Braemar engineering works where
>the 82 class locos were being assembled, and there was a concrete sleeper
>works nearby.

 The bridge was partially dismantled for repair, and instead the line was
closed. For a while the bridge 'girders' were still across, but some time
in the last year or some some one shunted a concrete sleeper wagon off then
end of the Mittongong side and the bogies dropped off through the non existant
deck and the wagon body then collapsed the remains of the bridge super
structure.

 See http://www.sleeper.apana.org.au/railway/images/Thirlmere/Perway Group/20000923_141938.jpg
 (Note there is a space in there. Sorry :-)

 I think thats Railway Rasputin's back you can see in this shot, standing at
the end of the decking which is approx half way across.
 Note that the remaining decking is in particularly good shape, the timber is 
now suffciently rotted that holes are appearing in the balast bed.
 That wagon's bogies are still there under the end of the bridge abutment, the
wagon appears to have fallen sideways when the old bridge transoms collapsed 
under it. Freightcorp just abandoned it there.