Some Railway History: Darling Ranges

I'm not usually a railway heritage fiend, but a walk in the John Forrest National Park over Easter has prompted this post.

People familar with the struggle railways have with exiting Australian cities, say the grind up the Blue Mountains from Sydney or the sinuosities of the Adelaide hills may be surprised (and possibly jealous) to hear that there have been no fewer than three train lines out of Perth through the Darling Ranges to the East.


The original line, opened in the 1884 ran from Fremantle through to Guildford at the edge of the Perth plains and then struck east, past Greenmount and through Glen Forrest, Mahogany Creek and Sawyers Valley before turning north to Chidlows Well and then on to Northam and York. Stations were later added at locations such as Darlington and Mundaring.

Unfortunately, parts of the geological formation were unexpectedly waterlogged and during construction a deviation was necessary in the vicinity of Darlington. This section was both steep and windy, causing extensive problems in operation.

Booming traffic from the wheatbelt and goldfields meant that something had to be done and the result was the construction of the so-called 'Mahogany Creek Deviation' little more than a decade later in 1896. This left the eastern line at Bellevue and headed northeast to Swan View and then through a ridge in the Darling Ranges to reach Jane Brook, which it then followed more-or-less due east to meet the eastern line again at Wrights Mill (between Sawyers Valley and Chidlows Well). Once again somewhat unfortunately the engineering equipment available at the time meant that this line too was rather heavily graded, and featured one fatal flaw in the nature of a very narrow steep tunnel near Swan View. This line was later upgraded and duplicated.


Incidentally, during the 1880s and 1890s a private company was floated to build a line to service link Perth with Geraldton. This company was the Midland Railway of WA and branched off the eastern line at a location called Helena Vale, east of Guildford. A station was built at this location and named "Midland Junction".

Both lines remained in use until 1966 when an entirely new line was built between Midland and Toodyay through the Avon River valley and avoiding the worst of the Darling Ranges altogether. At this time the old lines were closed altogether, including removal of commuter railcar services to the hills communities. New motor buses were ordered instead to replace the trains, and a brand new bus-rail interchange built at the newly renamed "Midland", which became the end of the Perth suburban system.


In recent years, the trackbeds of the two older lines have been converted to walking, cycling and horse trails, and all that is left of the railway infrastructure is the odd platform base and some rather impressive viaducts on the Mahogany Creek branch.


In retrospect, it is perhaps a little unfortunate that the old Eastern line did not remain intact, at least as far as Chidlows Well, when the new line was opened. Today, locations such as Greenmount are suburban and hills townships such as Mundaring and Mount Helena are booming. Residents of the Shire of Mundaring are some of the greatest users of the private car of any "metropolitan" municipality in Australia, a feature partly due to total reliance on road transport only.

Probably the best that can be hoped for realistically in future is that there will be some extension of the suburban electrification along the current main line. This will not assist the hills townships proper, but will improve public transport in the suburbs of Belleview, Swan View, and Stratton.


Source: L. Watson. The Railway History of Midland Junction. Swan View, WA: L&S Drafting, 1995