RailWA is a webpage of Railway
Photographs taken over the last 40+ years, with an emphasis on our own state of Western Australia.
The
Railscene in W.A. has changed considerably in the last three decades. The days of the Metropolitan- Vickers X class diesels
hauling rake's of 4 wheeled wagons, have been replaced with diesels with touch screen technology hauling wagons, which singularly
can hold the capacity of 5 or 6, 4 wheeled wagons.
Western Australia's rail system is a number of systems.
In the North-west Hammersley Iron, Cliffs Robe River, Mount Newman
Mining and Goldsworthy Mining are now part of either
the BHP Billiton rail network or that of Rio Tinto. FMG (Fortescue Mining Group) have also built their own line as have
Roy Hill. Whilst in the South the network used to be dominated by the State owned Westrail. Today operating
over the former Westrail system are the following companies:
Aurizon who were QR National (QRN) which was formerly the Australian
Railroad Group (ARG)
Pacific National (PN)
SCT Rail (Specialised Container Transport)
Watco Rail operating trains on behalf of CBH and also Infrastructure
trains.
All this makes a fairly diverse rail scene. With Company names and colour schemes changing over the time since we first started this website we will update the pages to reflect those changes
as time permits.
These
pages have been put together by the father and son's combination of Phil, David, Daniel, Christopher &
Joshua Melling using mainly our own photos (with some from our late friend Joe Moir). We hope you like it.
A special thanks to the various people in the railway industry who over
the years have provided information, access etc. to allow us to pursue our hobby.
ACN4168/ P2508 haul a loaded Mount
Gibson iron ore train through Bringo heading for Geraldton Port on 22 September 2012.Mount Gibson trains ran in the Geraldton
area from 19 January 2004 right through to the 1st February 2019
V1213 is seen hauling a freight train to Avon Yard on its mainline trial on 27 May 1992 through
Windmill Cutting near Toodyay. Today the V class is out of service and is stored in Pemberton in south west W.A.
CBH/ Watco CBH003/ CBH005 haul a loaded grain train into Geraldton Port
on 16 September 2012. The CBH locos were built by Motive Power Industries in Boise, Idaho in the U.S.
A vastly changed scene exists today (including an electrified
rail service) but back in 1979 we see B1609 hauling a short shunt train onto the Victoria quay at Fremantle Port on 31
May 1979.
In classic Commonwealth Railways colours we see GM5/ GM21 between
Parkeston and Golden Ridge (east of Kalgoorlie) on the Trans Australian Railway with an east bound Indian Pacific passenger
train on 17 January 1981. Today the Indian Pacific runs only once a week (twice a week in peak periods) and normally
has a Pacific National NR class on the front.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE COPYRIGHT OF THE WEBMASTERS. COPIES TO BE DOWNLOADED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY. COMMERCIAL USE PROHIBITED WITHOUT
THE CONSENT OF THE WEBMASTERS.PLEASE EMAIL THE WEBMASTERS FOR CONSENT.
