Railways and Tramways of Australia

D3 Class no. 635 hauling a mixed train on the Wahgunyah line, around 1920–1940. Photo: Buckland collection, National Library of Australia, BibID 3411327.

Stringybark Express

The first passenger train on the Wahgunyah Line in Victoria ran on 29 January 1879.

Wahgunyah is a town located near the Murray River in northern Victoria. It was reached by a 22.5-km branch line from Springhurst (originally named Springs).

On the railway’s opening day a train departed from Wahgunyah with around 50 passengers on board. There was little fanfare until the train reached Rutherglen, where it was met by a large crowd. The station was decorated with flags, and arches were erected over the line. After proceeding to Springs, the train then returned to Rutherglen, where refreshments were available in the goods shed, accompanied by speeches, toasts and cheering.

Mixed trains, known locally as the ‘Stringybark Express’, operated between Springhurst and Wahgunyah. Commodities carried included grain, livestock, parcels and mail. Rutherglen became a prominent wine-producing area, and wine was despatched by rail for domestic and export markets.

The New South Wales town of Corowa is located across the Murray River, around two kilometres from Wahgunyah. A rail link between the two towns was investigated but never eventuated.

When the last mixed train ran to Wahgunyah line on 13 April 1962, it was also the final branch line mixed train in Victoria. Goods trains continued to operate, while passengers were transported by road. From 1978 to 1985 a tour train operated irregularly, called the Rutherglen Red. A bus connection took passengers to visit local wineries.

Goods traffic dwindled until the last train operated on the line in 1993. A final tour train, hauled by steam locomotive J515, ran to Wahgunyah in July 1992.

From 2000 to around 2006 the Stringybark Express Museum and Heritage Park operated a small postal motor between Wahgunyah and Rutherglen. It was known as the ‘Stringybark Express’, recalling the mixed train on the line.

Bibliography

C Banger, ‘Victorian Railways’ Wahgunyah branch’, Australian Railway History, no. 882, April 2011, pp 13–27.

C Banger, ‘Victorian Railways’ Wahgunyah branch’, Australian Railway History, no. 883, May 2011, pp 28–44.

B Eadie, ‘The last Stringybark Express: the Wahgunyah tour – 18 July 1992’, Newsrail, vol. 21, no. 3, March 1993, pp 74–5.

‘The Springs and Wahgunyah railway’, Corowa Free Press, 31 January 1879, p 2.

Goods shed at Wahgunyah, looking towards Springhurst, with carriages from an Australian Railway Exploration Association tour train on the goods road, 29 December 1977. Photo: Weston Langford, www.westonlangford.com/images/photo/113946/