Old North Australia Railway and Darwin Northern Territory 1969

Scenes of the old North Australia narrow gauge 3ft 6in Railway and of Darwin in 1969 from 8mm movie film taken late that year and posted here mainly as a historic item. Scenes include the weekly goods heading south to Larrimah over the Katherine River bridge and south of Katherine, and another of it another time on the Fergusson River bridge. As well, there are scenes of double headed iron ore trains with NT class diesel electric locomotives that transported the ore from Frances Creek and Mount Bundey Iron ore mines to Darwin for export. Trains generally were of about 45 cars and carried about 1,400 tons of ore. Also shown later in the video, is a train unloading at Port Darwin, the bucket dredge at that location, the conveyors that carried the ore to the ships, and the large stockpile of ore. Also there are shots of the Darwin of the 1960s and other places such as Katherine. In those days, the highway crossings were low down near dry seson river level, but when the rivers flooded road traffic, including road trains, made use of the much higher railway bridges such as those over the King River, Katherine River and Furgusson River bridges. At Katherine, road trains used the railway bridge even in the dry season, especially as it saved them about six miles on their journey north to Darwin. The new standard gauge railway passes over the Fergusson River bridge over which the old 3ft 6in Narrow gauge from Darwin to Larrimah passed.
There are scenes driving a car over these bridges in narrow gauge days.
The narrow gauge railway between Darwin and Larrimah was closed in 1974 or 75 after cyclone Tracy and a bad collision in Darwin yards which destroyed three locomotives and many loaded ore cars. Locomotives were changed on loaded trains as they passed the depot before arrival at Darwin allowing returning locomotives to be serviced. There was a long grade down to the rail yards at Darwin and the train brakes were apparently not connected properly between the replaced locomotives and train which caused the train to pick up speed and run out of control and collide head on with the goods train for Larrimah that was waiting to depart Darwin. This video was recorded some years ago from the original 8mm film using first generation video camera and tape from which a DVD was made to be able to edit the film. The old equipment did not reproduce near as well as does modern digital equipment. It is hoped one day to make a better copy eventually from the film but is posted as-is for now.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• north australia railway
• railways
• diesel electrics
• iron ore
• trains
• northern territory
• 1969
• darwin
• locomotive
• narrow gauge
• Train
• Station
• Rail Transport
• Railroad
• Class