Re: Mystery railway track between Helensburgh and Otford.
John Abraham Cleverdon (clev@minyos.its.rmit.EDU.AU)
16 May 1997 04:18:39 GMT
Phil Herring (revdoc@uow.edu.au) wrote:
: In article <33764A9F.6B29@ozemail.com.au> Dave Woolley, dwoolley@ozemail.com.au writes:
: > As a matter of interest see if you can spot the old formation for the
: >original single track Illawarra line just south of Metropolitan
: >Junction.
:
: Hmm... do you mean the old tunnel, parallel to the present one, at what used
: to be Lilyvale ('Lilydale' in the timetables, for some reason) station?
: It's currently a power substation.
:
: This is one of two easily visible tunnels of the old Illawarra line. The
: other runs from Stanwell Park, near sea level, up to Otford. It was
: possible to go into it, last time I was there. To get there, turn into the
: north-bound road at the hairpin bend on Lawrence Hargrave Drive (at the
: foot of the hill) and follow it to the end.
:
: Just out of curiosity, would using the old alignment be faster than the
: current one? I gather that it was much straighter for several km, and used
: three tunnels to get through some large ridges, that the current line loops
: around.
:
I believe that one of the main problems with the Otford tunnel was that
is was rather long (1-1.5 km ??) and also quite steep (when compared to
other track). In the days of steam, this became a liability, hence the
need for a deviation.
:
: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Copyright 1997 Phil Herring. This article may not be reproduced for profit.
: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
John Cleverdon: Amateur astronomer (Astronomical Society of Frankston) *
Final Yr Cartography \ & Railway enthusiast \==|---=====--===-| * o
MIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |--|____9001______|_ .
E-mail: clev@minyos.its.rmit.edu.au |/o-o-o\----/o-o-o\| *
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