The closure of a railway line is always a point of sadness for me and I always regret it if I never rode the line when I had a chance to. In this case it was to be but a short length of track, a mere two stations. Surprisingly I've only visited New South Wales' second largest city proper once in my life. It was back in 1986, staying in a leaky caravan en route to Melbourne and Adelaide. Yet I remember admiring the trains running straight along the waterfront and into the historic centre of the city. Oh, I've gone through the outskirts of Newcastle plenty of times, driving to Port Stephens or on the XPT from Brisbane. It's a pretty line, but I've long wanted to travel the entire electrified length into the city, just never got around to it. The time for excuses had ended. On Boxing Day the stretch between Broadmeadows/Hamilton and the Newcastle Terminus will be closed . By the end of 2016 it will return as far as Wickham, but the remaining two station str...
The journal of a travel addict.