LIKE a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Richmond Vale Railway, near Kurri Kurri, is a great survivor.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Despite almost being wiped out in a disastrous fire that swept through the site in late 2017, the railway museum has sprung back to life - but at a huge cost.
Regarded as the best preserved mine site in the Hunter (with an operating train), the Richmond Vale Railway (RVR) miraculously managed to celebrate its 40-year anniversary last month.
But keeping it going has always been a struggle, especially after three fierce, heart-breaking fires at the bush venue, four kilometres from Kurri Kurri on Leggetts Drive.
Run entirely by hard-working volunteers, the railway museum is within the historic, former Richard Main Colliery site (1888-1967). In the 1920s it was regarded as the most modern mine in the nation, and the pride and joy of autocratic coal boss John 'Baron' Brown until his death in 1930.
Brown's showpiece mine was also linked with a coal loader at Hexham by an ingenious, now closed, flood-free railway snaking about 26 kilometres west through bush behind Minmi.
To preserve this major part of the Coalfields' heritage, Cessnock City Council bought Richmond Main Colliery from Coal and Allied Industries in 1979 to turn the area into a mining museum.
It was a mammoth task, taking volunteers years to restore the rail line and trains. But in September 2017 priceless artefacts stored on site were lost when a raging inferno almost destroyed the dreams of the Richmond Vale Railway Museum workers.
The fire went in a curve: blackening stainless steel passenger cars, damaging kilometres of track along with a rail bridge and destroying at least 30 wooden coal hoppers and a 100-year-old rail brake van. The damage bill was expected to exceed $1 million.
For the devastated RVR volunteers, it was time to roll up their sleeves and start again. Due to their Herculean activity the railway museum continues to operate.
"We keep battling," former Richmond Vale Railway Museum chairman Graham Black says matter-of-factly.
"It's been hard. We'd had eight kilometres of track laid when we were almost obliterated two years ago. Luckily, nine fire units were here to fight the flames. I remember looking down the line at the blaze. It was like looking into the firebox of a steam engine.
"Yet, only six months after the fire, in March 2018, we had 520 metres of new track laid. By comparison, the famous but closed Zig Zag railway in the Blue Mountains is still not open. Keeping (historic) railways going is always an uphill battle.
"By December 2018, we were running trains again here. It was only half a kilometre, but we were operating again. But if the fire had got inside our big shed nearby, where we store our carriages, RVR would have had to close down.
"We soon discovered we'd lost three kilometres of sleepers alone and probably 60 wooden coal hoppers. Of these, 55 hoppers sitting out in the open awaiting restoration for 20 years were all gone."
The destruction of the historic, rust-red timber coal wagons, was very disappointing.
"Of the estimated 13,000 such wagons in the Hunter in the 1950s, there are probably now only 12 remaining, plus ones at places like by the roadside at Minmi and one at a Wallsend school," Black says.
"It's sad. Eight years were spent here restoring just 16 such wagons and two brake vans for public exhibition.
"Luckily, some other items are undamaged. We have locomotive ROD (railways operating division) 2004. It was the last one (of 306 units) sent to France in WWI and the last one to return.
"Some 13 of these engines later came to Australia. Now there's only three of them left in the world.
"One here and two at Dorrigo, " he says.
Richmond Vale Railway Museum now has about one kilometre of operational track, but progress hasn't been easy.
Black says since the site's major fire two years ago, RVR workers have laid 668 concrete sleepers and spread 380 tonnes of ballast on their Mulbring road branch line. As well, 557 concrete sleepers and 220 tonnes of rail ballast were laid and 23 rails replaced on the main site.
"A lot of the timber sleepers seemed fine, but they were really like cardboard cut-outs. Hit them with a shovel and they fall into ashes, being only a shell," he says.
"Timber is OK, but you have to let the sleepers season, or mature, otherwise they split under pressure. It takes up to two years before one can be laid.
"Timber sleepers can last up to 25 years, but up here it could be 10 to 14 years. We're replacing wooden sleepers all the time. In my 28 to 29 years on site we must have replaced 5000 wood sleepers.
"Pre-stressed concrete sleepers have a longer life, but it takes eight men to lift one compared with three men for a timber one. Up here, without constant heavy mainline rail traffic, our concrete sleepers could last 200 years, compared to the usual 50 to 60-year lifespan.
"Then there's the fires. Besides 2017, we were hit in 1993-94 and in 1995-96. You can't win. The night after our 2017 fire, it snowed on Barrington Tops and was five degrees the next day. It was so cold, backburning didn't work.
"So, what's next for us? We're between a rock and a hard place with costs and would love to be part of Steamfest, but Maitland council's boundary would need to be extended into our Cessnock area," he says.
Another dream is to have the full length of the RVR track re-opened all the way to Hexham as a major NSW tourist attraction.
"The line was opened in 1905 and it still has three old tunnels under the Sugarloaf Range," he says.
And there's an interesting story associated with a newer, but unused, train tunnel built in 1996 under the M1 motorway near Minmi. The arching concrete tunnel is a spectacular oddity used by cyclists. Measuring 83.5 metres long and 8.4 metres wide, it was designed (so it's said) to allow State Rail's largest trains to pass through - should locos ever start running again there.
"At one point, an individual proposed to open it for freight, to dump Sydney's garbage in old quarries beyond Minmi, but the idea was dropped," Black says.
"When the new tunnel was going to be built, railway buffs, heritage people and National Parks and Wildlife got together to have a say. I believe it's really to safeguard animals, that's it's actually a wildlife corridor."
While you're with us, did you know the Newcastle Herald offers breaking news alerts, daily email newsletters and more? Keep up to date with all the local news - sign up here.