Railway Digest Magazine February 2020 Vorige editie

Replacing Castlereagh Road Rail Bridge, Penrith NSW
A major upgrade of the Mulgoa/Castlereagh Road corridor, adjacent to Penrith CBD, commenced back in December 2018. A large part of this work involved replacing the existing twin track/four lane rail over road bridge at the western end of Penrith railway yard with a new single span bridge, almost 40 metres long and weighing over 2800 tonnes. Installing this new bridge proved to be a mammoth undertaking, as Neville Pollard explains.

Ballarat line upgrade update
Readers may recall our report in February 2019 (pages 30 – 33), describing the works proposed in relation to this Project, which aims to provide extensive track enhancements along this corridor. David Campbell brings us up to date with the considerable progress made during the past year.

Light rail returns to Sydney’s centre
It had been a long time – 61 years and 22 days – since a member of the public could travel down George Street, Sydney, past Wynyard, the GPO, the QVB and the Town Hall, in a light rail vehicle (aka a tram). However, on Saturday 14 December 2019 everything old was new again as light rail returned to the city centre, with the long-awaited opening of the CBD and South East Light Rail between Circular Quay and Randwick.

The Carriages of the Great Southern
Despite the failure of the Southern Spirit in 2012, Journey Beyond Rail Experience, operator of The Ghan, the Indian Pacific and the Overland, saw that there was still a market for a train to run from Adelaide to Brisbane as a tourist experience, taking in the major attractions en route. However, they made a number of changes to the new train, the Great Southern, that have made it a more attractive service. Peter Clark explains how this was accomplished.