6-12-2012 ew South Wales - Australia Brad Peadon

It seems to be with increasing regularity that I am farewelling friends who have departed thisworld and moved onto the next, well, if you believe that next world guff anyway.However this sad duty took place 12 months prior and the 6th of December was the 12 monthanniversary of the loss of one of my best mates, William (Bill) Sullivan, a party being organisedin his memory at the suburban ewcastle suburb of Hamilton.Besides the railways of the Philippines, Bill shared a passionate interest in the history of theold ewcastle coal lines. Given the memorial location in Hamilton was surrounded by suchfamous old colliery railways as Glenrock, Dudley and John Darling, I felt compelled to returnto one that I used to frequent in the 80s and early 90s, until it also departed this earth.Like my other beloved local Hunter line, the South Maitland Railway, this line of the ‘RedheadCal Mining Company’ (later sold to the ‘ew Redhead Estate and Coal Mining Company’ wasprivately owned and went on to have government owned locomotives world the coal haulageservices.The line serviced a number of coal mines in the region, but slowly saw less and less use as theseclosed down, with the final one, Lambton B, finishing up in late 1991, with the line followingvery soon after.It would have been the mid to late 80s that I first come across the Belmont line as part of myregular visits to ewcastle. It was way to late for the variety that once existed there, includingALCO mainliners and even a brief quad 73 class experiment, but still in enough time to witnessthe dying days of trains along this interesting branch line.Most visits to the Hunter coal railways would start with a 4am departure from Sydney thatwould see us at Toronto station on sunrise to photograph the local passenger shuttles. Theseservices served only three stations, including the junction one at Fassifern and were operated bymembers of the 620/720 or 660/760 class DMUs.After a couple of hours photographing this line, which lasted only a few years longer thanBelmont, we would skirt around Lake Macquarie, not really knowing our way, until we foundBelmont and subsequently Redhead and Lambton Colliery, by then the last operating minealong the line.

In the earlier days the tracks still existed beyond here to the former Jewels station and thenoff the mainline to John Darling Colliery.I can’t recall if the former mainline to Belmont was still connected, but the track wascertainly still all there. The station building at Redhead was also extant in these days, Imanaged to get it in some video footage, but was later burned down by local vermin.More good luck than good management, I can never remember a time that we turned up anddidn’t find a train loading at Lambton. Even better, these trains always had one of the muchsought after, by me anyway, 47 class on the front (apparently two 48 class together wouldderail at the entrance to the Lambton Colliery sidings).Occasionally a second rake would turn up while we awaited departure, meaning that we hadtwo trains to chase (returning from Adamstown for the second) and we would not get deeperinto the coalfield territories of Maitland and beyond till well after lunch.There were only two variations to this ritual, the first being in the late 80s when travelled bytrain and bus (322 from ewcastle I seem to remember) to reach Belmont station.This trip was with the rather unusual Charlie Lewis, more commonly known around thehobby as C.A.Lewis, who had expressed an interest in walking the line back to Jewels andRedhead.The sight that greeted us at Belmont did not fill us with abundant hope. The platform andtrack bed were badly overgrown, very badly, and you could not even easily walk from one endof the station to the other. A photo was taken, sadly though I have likely packed it and cannotinclude with this report.However the first 50-100 metres beyond the platform appeared to have been used as awalking track, so of we set with Redhead being the goal - should all things go to plan.At this time the former departure signal still existed, albeit with broken glass, guarding theoccasional walking human movement than now was all that travelled the section. This signalhad gone by a visit in the 90s, possibly souvenired by a lucky railfan, or hopefully a historicalgroup.It didn’t take all that long before we started encountering many years of growth along wherewe wished to walk. ow days I would likely turn back, but back in the time of my youth I wasless concerned about such things as spiders, snakes or getting ones self hopelessly lost with nomobile phone.Here things get a bit sketchy, I remember crossing a very low little bridge and then findingthe trackbed totally disappear beneath undergrowth and sand. For a while we found ourselvesnavigating solely through a sense of the right direction. I doubt any sort of search for relicsIt is pretty hard to believe I was standing on the platform in both of the aboveshots and photographing the same direction.

was conducted at this time, with us just desperately looking for the junction to John DarlingColliery which, given I am writing this some two decades later, I obviously achieved beforeperishing.Shortly beyond this we were to find Jewels platform, by this time a platform was all it was,along with very high grass.Beyond Jewels the walking became far easier. Despite the trains having ceased, the track wasstill reasonably clear. A few metres from the station the line crossed Kalaroo Road then curveda little to the east before crossing over Crockers Creek.Here Charlie’s high dislike proved a problem and he opted to return back to the road, cross thecreek and then push his way through the bush back towards the track on the other side. This 15minutes of entertainment, well it was entertaining for me, saw poor ol Charles actuallydisappear in growth that was much taller than himself.Once Charlie had rejoined me, we walked the final unexciting section down towards Redheadstation and Lambton Colliery, obtained some more photos and then boarded the 322 back toewcastle, after briefly toying with the idea of continuing to Whitebridge.Looking in Adamstown direction at Jewels station. The left photo shows a tour train fromBroadmeadow operated by the ‘Railmotor Society’. It was the last of a days worth of shuttletrips and represented the last train to traverse the Redhead to Jewels section, the line onwardsto John Darling Colliery was no longer in use.To the right is the scene today looking towards Belmont.Two views takenfrom just beyondthe points atRedhead andlooking towardsBelmont.The second lasttrain betweenJewels andRedhead is at left.