Gympie North Branch - Poll and discussion

[#Metro]

Colinw raised an interesting point re: Gympie North section.
There is a branch off the railway that goes into the town centre.
I don't know what the status of the branch line is (is it operational?) but it looks convenient and there are
3 rail stations/locations for stations present (Monkville, Nashville, and Old Gympie Station).

There looks like space for stabling could fit at this location too.
The use of the branch line would take trains off a section of the main line- would this help or have no effect on freight train movements? The location of Old Gympie station could also have a bus interchange fit comfortably and would be much much faster than the current situation. The main street would be within a 500 meter walk, this would be even more convenient with a bus.

Of course, all this requires money, the question is, is it worth it and is there support for this?

Connection from the main line via Monkland ---> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Gympie+North+Station,+QLD,+Australia&sll=-26.331268,152.876472&sspn=0.128927,0.375595&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gympie+North+Station,+Queensland,+Australia&ll=-26.211107,152.689919&spn=0.008625,0.023475&t=h&z=16

Old Gympie station http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Gympie+North+Station,+QLD,+Australia&sll=-26.331268,152.876472&sspn=0.128927,0.375595&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Gympie+North+Station,+Queensland,+Australia&ll=-26.187387,152.66432&spn=0.008626,0.023475&t=h&z=16

And why is the new Gympie station so far away from where all the action is?

[#Metro]

Gympie North replaced the still-existing Gympie railway station as the rail hub for the area, as a result of deviations made in the 1990s. The old Gympie station is now used as the home station of the Mary Valley Railway steam train, which travels to Imbil on heritage and scenic tours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gympie_North_railway_station,_Queensland

The 'new' line appears straighter and faster than the branch line, but surely this benefit is more than eclipsed by the fact a bus must now be used to get into the town centre.

[colinw]

Hi TT,

There are actually two routes available into the town centre, and it is the northern route via Banks Pocket that I propose using, for reasons I will outline below.

First some history.  Like many places in Queensland, Gympie's railway history is complex and heavily influenced by politics & skulduggery.

The first railway to reach Gympie was not from Brisbane, rather after the discovery of gold at Gympie it was in fact a southern extension of the Maryborough system, the other branches from Maryborough being the line to Kilkivan (and eventually Kingaroy & Nanango) and a northern line to Howard (for coal!) which eventually reached Bundaberg and North Bundaberg.  The Gympie town centre station was thus the terminus of a line from the north, and the first Gympie station was built Cleveland style across the end of the track, Maryborough interests not wanting a through line to Brisbane stealing the traffic from the Gympie gold rush away to the south.  The line not being designed for extension can also be seen in that it climbed to one of the highest points for miles around, and extension beyond Gympie to the south required a very substantial bridge over Deep Creek.

While all this was happening from Maryborough, what eventually became the NCL from Brisbane was struggling its way northward from Petrie in bits and pieces, eventually reaching Cooroy.  The link from Cooroy to Gympie followed a few years later, so down came the first station at Gympie and a through station was born.  The line through Monkland and Nashville, and the big bridge between Nashville and Gympie are a reminder of this era.  A horrible substandard bit of railway it was too - Cooroy to Gympie was very much a branchline standard of construction with 25 mph (40 km/h) curves which we still put up with today in many places.

Going forward a few decades to the early 1900s, all these diverse systems were tied together to form the NCL from Brisbane to Cairns.  The NCL was not designed as such, it was cobbled together from bits & pieces of local networks and even shire tramways radiating out from Brisbane, Maryborough, Bundaberg (two separate systems, one each side of the river), Rockhampton, Mackay, Bowen, Townsville and Cairns.  Thus the southern & northern lines of the lightly laid Maryborough system became the "main line" NCL, with Theebine to Kilkivan and beyond as a branch.

This state of affairs persisted until the electrification of the NCL between Brisbane and Rockhampton completed in 1989.  As part of the electrification, a high speed deviation bypassing Gympie was built, and Gympie station was moved out of town to North Gympie.  The original line was left as a loop line through town, servicing the Mary Valley branch to Brooloo, local freight trains from Gympie (some Kingaroy runs starting there too), and for a period the Sunlander still used the loop and called at the town station while the electric Spirit of Capricorn ICE train to Rockhampton used the new station.  With the use of 3900 class ELs on the Sunlander, the Sunlander moved to the new route as well.

Then, in the 1990s, the Mary Valley branch closed after QR ceased hauling pineapples & timber from Melawondi around 1994.  The Mary Valley Heritage Railway was born, with a base at Gympie, and took over operations to Imbil.  At this time, the points from the NCL leading into Gympie were disconnected at the southern end of the loop.  The two lines run parallel for a short distance before the branch diverges off to Imbil, the line through Gympie now taking the form of a very circuitous branch from North Gympie to Imbil via Gympie town.

At the northern end of the loop line there is a triangular connection at Banks Pocket.  This triangle is electrified, with the wires continuing for few hundred metres towards Gympie town.  This triangle can be used to turn ELs, and I think it is long enough to turn a complete ICE train.    The line through Gympie has been leased to MVHR, but the northern route into Gympie is still QR up to the yard limit at Gympie town.

Here's the Network access diagram for Gympie, yellow is MVHR, red is QR.  Note the boundary between the two operators just past Ampol siding -
click here.

I therefore propose that to service Gympie it would be best to avoid taking back the heritage line from MVHR.  Nice as it would be to service Monkland and Nashville, the most practical way to get to Gympie is via the northern route into town.  Only a few km needs to be electrified, and the QR boundary moved south into the yard, with the Gympie station made a shared QR / MVHR facility.

Electrifying the southern route into town would be much more costly, would involve complexities of taking back a significant length of preserved line, would interfere more with the MVHR's operational base, and would probably also require a significant upgrade to the bridge over the creek at Nashville.

cheers,
Colin

[somebody]

A pretty radical suggestion there, Col, to loop around the town then come in from the north?  I do see how that is an improvement over the current situation.  It'd be nice to leave the heritage operator alone, but is there no solution which can affordably allow both to co-exist?

[#Metro]

Ownership does not always mean no access.
It would be cheaper, but it would also be more indirect.
The cheapest solution is the status quo- but we are missing benefits here, travel time savings and patronage increases, but it is a hard case to call...

[colinw]

A pretty radical suggestion there, Col, to loop around the town then come in from the north?  I do see how that is an improvement over the current situation.  It'd be nice to leave the heritage operator alone, but is there no solution which can affordably allow both to co-exist?

I suggest looping in from the north because :-

1.  I don't want to cause a giant sh*t fight with the very successful & established MVHR
2.  I think it would not pass cost/benefit analysis due to the longer amount of line to electrify and the need to do major bridge works.
3.  I don't actually think it would be significantly slower than looping via North Gympie.

I've travelled over all of this track a few times, and my recollection is that the old line into Gympie from the south is not a fast bit of line, is quite steeply graded and has a lot of curves.  Gympie to North Gympie is shorter, and not as badly curved or graded.

I therefore suspect that the actual running time to Gympie via North Gympie would be similar to branching off and taking the southern approach.

In an ideal world we would have both routes electrified, and an intact Gympie town route with suburban stations.  The reality is that from where we are now I think it is a lot more acceptable to use the line QR still owns, with a minor adjustment in the town centre.

[colinw]

Ok, looks like not many people care about the Gympie North service.

Current result is a 3 way split between Northern Approach, Electrify Whole Loop and Do Nothing, so a 2:1 majority for those who want the service to go to the old Gympie station.

I would love to be able to catch a comfortable ICE train from Roma St on a Saturday morning, enjoy a liesurely breakfast on the train, then step across the platform onto the Valley Rattler on arrival in Gympie.  A Gympie North ICE service should allow eating on board, and even have a food & drink trolley service like they did when the old Spirit of Capricorn ran.  Now that was an enjoyable service ... did it to Gladstone & Rocky a few times in the early '90s.