Western Australia was the last of the five mainland states to build a
railway;
this didn't happen until 1879, in the Geraldton area. Since then,
Westrail
has grown to now have around 90 locos on some 5200 km of track. Like
other
operators, most of Westrail's freight tonnage is made up of minerals,
as
well as some grain traffic. Westrail was all narrow gauge until the
mid-60's,
when the discovery of iron-ore deposits at Koolyanobbing made a
standard
gauge line linking Kalgoorlie and Perth viable.
As well as the government-owned WAGR/Westrail, a private company, the
Midland
Railway, operated a line from Walkaway (near Geraldton) to Midland
(Perth),
from the 1890s to 1964, when the WA Government took it over. There are
now
around 85 locos in service.
The freight section of Westrail was sold in October 2000 to Genesee and
Wyoming,
who then merged Westrail with Australia Southern Railroad to become
Australian
Rail Group (ARG). The former Westrail portion is known as Australia
Western
Railroad (AWR).
ARG's locos with alphanumeric numbers are likely to be renumbered to an
all-numeric
numbering system.
The locos in AWR/ARG livery are: 1203-1204, A1202; AB1501, 1503; 1907,
DAZ1902,
1904, 1905; DBZ2301-2305, 2307-2308, 2312-2313; 3101-3104,
LZ3105-3107, 3109, 3111-3112, 3117, L3110; P2501, 2503, 2505-2506,
2508-2510,
2513, 2515-2517; Q4001-4006, 4009-4010, 4012, 4014-4016, 4019; S2109,
3304, 3307, 3310; 901
and 907.
Passenger services will stay in government hands.
In early 2006, QRNational bought out the operational section of
ARG/AWR,
the infrastructure was bought by Babcock & Brown.
Some of QRN's locos have been moved from Queensland to WA.
Locomotive Page Introduction
© Copyright John Cleverdon