The Railway Line to Broken Hill
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RAILS TO THE BARRIER Broken Hill as seen from the top of the line of Lode. The 1957 station is in the right foreground. Image: Gary Hughes ESSAYS TO COMMEMORATE THE CENTENARY OF THE NSW RAILWAY SERVING BROKEN HILL. Australian Railway Historical Society NSW Division. July 2019. 1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION........................................................................................ 3 HISTORY OF BROKEN HILL......................................................................... 5 THE MINES................................................................................................ 7 PLACE NAMES........................................................................................... 9 GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE....................................................................... 12 CULTURE IN THE BUILDINGS...................................................................... 20 THE 1919 BROKEN HILL STATION............................................................... 31 MT GIPPS STATION.................................................................................... 77 MENINDEE STATION.................................................................................. 85 THE 1957 BROKEN HILL STATION................................................................ 98 SULPHIDE STREET STATION........................................................................ 125 TARRAWINGEE TRAMWAY......................................................................... 133 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................... 134 2 INTRODUCTION Welcome to Broken Hill. On behalf of the ARHSnsw Division and the Railway Luncheon Club I also welcome you to our tour which marks 100 years since the first NSW railway came to The Silver City. Almost everyone knows that Broken Hill is a famous mining town a long way from anywhere1, but Broken Hill is no ordinary mining town. It lies on the inland edge of the western plains of NSW, 1125 km by rail from Sydney. It is located in a strange and dry (annual rainfall average 253mm) strip west of the Darling River which has produced successful pioneers, beef and wool from apparent desolation and the greatest silver, lead, and zinc mines in the world. Broken Hill is the birthplace of the world’s largest mining company, the cradle of some of the country’s greatest industrialists2, and its wealth has contributed much to Australia’s industrial growth. From its humble beginnings with the first discoveries of its silver ores in 1883, it grew spectacularly to reach its pinnacle in the mid 1900’s, and then slowly declined. Currently (2019) two mining companies are extracting about 2 million tons of ore per year with about 500 miners, using modern mining methods. A far cry from the early days when over 8000 miners extracted a similar amount, much of it by physical labour. And whilst mining continues, Broken Hill’s main focus has now turned to other pursuits, particularly tourism. Broken Hill is a place which has seen absolute boom times, economic depression, water famine, dust storms, floods, industrial chaos, world class technical innovation, and, more recently, tourism and the film industry. And along the way it remains as the longest continuously lived‐in mining community in Australia’s history, and it continues as a regional centre. In 1920, whilst addressing a deputation of Broken Hill mine managers, the then NSW Premier John Storey described Broken Hill as “being on the edge of sundown and nobody seems to care what you do out there”. Such comments from the Premier of the day only tended to reinforce the opinions long held in Broken Hill that despite the huge royalties being paid by the mines to the NSW Government, the Government didn’t care much for Broken Hill and its basic needs such as water and transport. At 1125 km from Sydney, Broken Hill was just too far away. Little wonder then that Broken Hill tended to turn to South Australia, its border only 50 km west of Broken Hill, and its capital Adelaide only a further 450 km. It is against this sort of background that ARHSnsw Life Member Stuart Sharp has researched and written the essays in this compendium, to mark the centenary of the NSW railway serving Broken Hill. In this task he has received input and assistance from Paul Horder, Gary Hughes, Dr Bob Taaffe, Graham Harper, Frank Johnson & John Watsford. I take responsibility for this Introduction and the following material about Broken Hill itself. These essays tell the story of the NSW Railways’ connection to Broken Hill from the perspective of the political and social influences of the day, rather than a history of the railway construction. For the latter the reader is referred to the collection of articles by CC Singleton in the ARHS The Bulletin from 1 Opening sentence in The Richest Lode, historian R.J. Solomon’s 1988 comprehensive history of Broken Hill 2 BHP alone produced Guillame Delprat, Essington Lewis and Leslie Bradford, and from other mines came Sir Maurice Mawby and Sir George Fisher, to name just a few. 3 April to July 1962, and by J Harvey in The Bulletin in September 2003. Greg Blackwell has covered the history of the water trains between Menindee and Broken Hill, and also some of the history of the railway between those two points, in Australian Railway History (successor to The Bulletin) in August 2011. These publications and also a significant collection of material, including books, on Broken Hill are available in the ARHSnsw Rail Resource Centre. A bibliography is at the end of this compendium. Gary Hughes April 2019. 4 THE HISTORY OF BROKEN HILL Broken Hill as it appeared c.1888. The “broken hill” is apparent in the background. (Broken Hill City Library) EARLY EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT The explorer Charles Sturt trekked through this area in 1844 ‐ 1845, and he is credited with sighting and naming the Barrier Ranges. Whilst versions vary, he is also credited with noting a rugged feature at the southern end of these ranges that he referred to as a “broken hill”, but he did not name it. Within a few years of Sturt’s exploration, settlers moved into the area taking up large areas of land. Two notable properties were Kinchega and Mt Gipps, their dividing boundary almost splitting the site of the future Broken Hill city. George McCulloch became manager of the Mt Gipps Sheep Station3 in 1875, and he was later to play a prominent role in the development of mining in Broken Hill. By 1858 prospectors were in the Barrier Ranges but found little of value. Then in 1876, Julius Charles Nickel and his mate McLean discovered silver ore whilst dam sinking at Thackaringa, about 10km east of the South Australian border, and this was the first recorded discovery of silver bearing ore in the Barrier Ranges region. John Stokie pegged out the nearby Umberumberka claim in 1881 and this, and other discoveries in the region, gave birth to the town of Silverton. Broken Hill however took a little bit longer to reveal its riches. THE BROKEN HILL MINERAL DISCOVERY As mentioned above, the earliest discoveries made in the region were at Thackaringa, about 40 km west of Broken Hill in 1876 and at Umberumberka (near Silverton) in 1881. Silverton became a large town of over 3000 people by 1883, but its ores were only in small pockets and by 1900 it was a ghost town. Broken Hill emerged from 1883 and by 1890 it had overtaken Silverton. A German named Charles Rasp4 had migrated to Australia for health reasons in 1869, and was 3 Not to be confused with Mt Gipps railway station, which was opened some 20km away in 1919. 4 Recent research has cast doubt on his recorded past and whether his real name was in fact Rasp. 5 employed as a boundary rider at the Mt Gipps Station5, about 16km east of Broken Hill. He had some knowledge of minerals and was curious about the jagged ridge known locally as “the broken hill”, which rose conspicuously above the surrounding terrain. On 5th September 1883 he climbed the hill and collected rock samples which he thought to be oxides of tin, but on assay they were found to contain silver and lead. What he had discovered turned out to be the richest deposit of silver, lead and zinc the world has so far known. Rasp and McCulloch, the manager of Mt Gipps, together with fellow employees at Mt Gipps, formed the “syndicate of seven” to mine this deposit. On 10th August 1885, this syndicate was registered as The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd or BHP as we know it today6. Whilst there has been some suggestion that it was not Rasp who first found the Broken Hill ore, but one of his colleagues, it was certainly Rasp who first had the determination to explore the “broken hill”, against local opinion which considered it to be a “hill of mullock”, and he should be given the credit for its discovery. The Broken Hill ore body, showing the principal mining leases and major mining companies. Note that Pasminco went broke in 2001 and was acquired by Perilya. The activities of Minerals Mining and Metallurgy ceased in 1991. (Broken Hill – A Guide to the Silver City.) THE MINES 5 The original holding of about 1 million acres has since been subdivided, but ruins of some of its old buildings still exist. 6 Now BHP Billiton Ltd 6 The history of mining and the individual mining companies falls outside the scope of these essays, however as the mines were the reason for Broken Hill’s existence, it is appropriate to cover some of the history of the major mines. Whilst the discovery of silver and lead bearing ores was made in 1883, it took several years for the deposits to be proven and for serious mining to get under way. BHP was the major miner in the early days and its leases covered about 300 acres of the hill. Whilst the presence of other minerals, including zinc, was also discovered, it was silver and lead which were the most marketable. By 1886 mining by BHP was well under way and other companies were formed to acquire leases and try their luck. By 1890 there were over 120 mining leases in the region, extending well beyond what was to become the City of Broken Hill. Plan of the mining leases as they appeared in c.1889.