The Rail Way

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The Rail Way

Homage to the loveliest ways to travel across space and time, mostly by train, but also some ferries. Photos by William Cope.

30/10/2026

From ‘Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). Staff and Ticket Box at Bombala, 1978.Safeworking documents on branch lines were kept in a locked Staff and Ticket Box that could only be opened using the physical Train Staff for that specific section as a key. Inside this box was a book of paper tickets, which a station master could issue to consecutive trains travelling in the same direction after the driver physically sighted the staff. To prevent catastrophic signalling errors, the box, the physical staff, and the paper tickets were all colour-coded to match their designated railway section. The railway reached Bombala on 21 November 1921, completing the line south from Cooma and creating New South Wales’ southernmost railway terminus, before declining traffic led to the Cooma–Bombala section closing on 26 March 1986.

29/10/2026

From ‘Manly Ferry: Sydney Harbour of History and Imagination’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon).MV Baragoola at Manly Wharf, 1976.Launched at Mort’s Dock in Balmain on 14 February 1922, SS Baragoola was the last of the ‘B’ class ferries and entered the Manly service in 1923. Withdrawn for major modernisation in 1958, she returned in 1961 as the diesel-electric MV Baragoola and made her final regular Manly run on 8 January 1983. After decades of unsuccessful preservation efforts, she sank at Balls Head Bay on 1 January 2022 and was dismantled, with her propeller, helm, bell and anchors recovered for preservation.

29/10/2026

From ‘Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). Mixed train at Taralga station, November 1946 (John L. Buckland). The Roslyn–Taralga railway branched from the Goulburn–Crookwell line at Roslyn and opened on 23 February 1926, providing the pastoral district around Taralga with a direct rail connection to Goulburn. Built economically as a rural branch, it carried passengers, livestock and agricultural freight, although declining traffic reduced the service from daily mixed trains to only one train a week. The last train departed Taralga in 1954, and the railway formally closed on 1 May 1957.

28/10/2026

From ‘Manly Ferry: Sydney Harbour of History and Imagination’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon).MV North Head at Manly Wharf, with the remains of the swimming enclosure after the Sygna storm, 1974.Launched at Mort’s Dock in 1913 as the steam ferry SS Barrenjoey, she entered the Manly service that September with capacity for 1,512 passengers. After boiler failure forced her withdrawal in 1948, she underwent an extensive three-year reconstruction with diesel-electric propulsion and returned to service on 7 May 1951 as MV North Head. She made her final commercial voyage on 12 December 1985 after seventy-two years, later serving as a floating restaurant in Hobart before being placed in a dry berth near Cairns.

28/10/2026

From ‘Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). Tarcutta, an established farming and coaching settlement on the Sydney–Melbourne road, gained its railway station in April 1917 as the Wagga Wagga–Tumbarumba line pushed towards the mountains. The station served local dairy farmers and graziers, carrying butter, livestock, pigs, sheep and wool to market while bringing superphosphate and other supplies into the district. Severe flooding in September 1974 damaged the railway and effectively ended services, while Tarcutta’s station building was destroyed by a grassfire in 2001.

27/10/2026

From ‘Manly Ferry: Sydney Harbour of History and Imagination’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon).Captain Ron Hart brings MV Baragoola into Manly Wharf, 1974. Captain Hart spent 30 years working on this vessel,serving as its master for 14 of those years. On 9 July 1983, Captain Hart skippered the maiden passenger voyage of thenewly built MV Freshwater. He remained the primary master of the Queenscliff from 1983 until 1989.

27/10/2026

From ‘Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). NSWGR No 4823 (AE Goodwin, Sydney, Alco 82895 of 1960) has just left Gilmore with a Batlow-bound train, 1976. The Gilmore–Batlow railway opened on 22 March 1923, branching from the Cootamundra–Tumut line at Gilmore and climbing through the Gilmore Valley to serve Batlow’s expanding fruit and timber industries. The line was exceptionally steep, including the 1-in-25 Wybalena Bank, and was extended from Batlow to the soldier settlement at Kunama in December 1923. The Kunama section closed in 1957, while declining fruit traffic led to the last regular trains to Batlow in 1983 and closure of the branch thereafter.

26/10/2026

From ‘Manly Ferry: Sydney Harbour of History and Imagination’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). Chris Hogan docks MV Baragoola at Manly Wharf. Captain Hogan was the Baragoola's master for nine years before a short stint on the MV Narrabeen then many years on the "Queenscliff" after Baragoola was decommissioned.

26/10/2026

From ‘Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon). NSWGR 3203 (Beyer, Peacock and Company, Manchester, No 3402 of 1891) leads a tour train near Mount Horeb, 2 October 1977. The railway through Mount Horeb formed part of the Gundagai–Tumut extension, which opened on 12 October 1903, carrying the line from the Murrumbidgee valley into increasingly rugged country. Around Mount Horeb, trains negotiated the contours of the hilly landscape on steep grades and sharp curves as they travelled towards Gilmore and Tumut. Passenger services ended in 1983, and flood damage contributed to closure of the Cootamundra–Tumut railway on 13 January 1984.

25/10/2026

From ‘Manly Ferry: Sydney Harbour of History and Imagination’ by William Cope (ebook, paperback and hardback at Amazon).SS South Steyne arrives Manly, 1974. Launched at Leith, Scotland, on 1 April 1938, SS South Steyne entered the Circular Quay–Manly service on 24 October that year as the flagship of the Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company and the world’s largest operational steam ferry.During thirty-six years of service, she made more than 100,000 harbour crossings, carried over 92 million passengers and, as the fleet’s only ocean-certified ferry, operated Sunday cruises to Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury River from 1953 to 1973. A major fire at Balmain on 25 August 1974, one week after her final commuter run, ended her ferry career, but she was later restored as a restaurant and function centre and entered on the New South Wales State Heritage Register in 1999.

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