Fyansford Cement Works Railway
former industrial railway in Victoria, Australia
The Fyansford Cement Works Railway was an industrial railway near Geelong, Australia, built by the Australian Portland Cement Company to carry limestone from its quarry to its cement works at Fyansford.
The railway was notable for including a 1.3 km (0.81 mi) tunnel, the longest rail tunnel in Victoria apart from the underground sections of the Melbourne City Loop. It had a fleet of one diesel and 11 steam locomotives, the majority of which have been preserved by heritage railway operators, in particular the Bellarine Railway.
History
The line was built in 1926, replacing an earlier overhead ropeway from the quarry to the main works. The railway had two main sections: one from the works depot to an older quarry, and a longer track which used the tunnel and connected to a newer quarry. The length of the main line from the new quarry to the depot was 5.6 km (3.5 mi). The rail track had a gauge of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm), one not often used in Victoria, where the predominant rail gauge was 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm).
The cement works railway operated until 1966, when it was replaced by an above-ground conveyor belt between a new crushing works on the quarry floor and the cement works. At the time of its closure, the railway's motive power consisted of a diesel-electric locomotive (which was sold to the Victorian Railways), and six steam locomotives, which were donated to preservation societies.
Locomotives
Of the original twelve locomotives, seven (one diesel and six steam locomotives) are still in existence.
“Fyansford Cement Works Railway” enters the record as former industrial railway in Victoria, Australia. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fyansford, Cement and Works can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fyansford Cement Works Railway” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.