Bulliac Gates

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Type : Halt, associated with the Bulliac gatekeeper's cottage
Line : North Coast Line
Distance from Sydney :
321.225km
Opened : 1st October 1955
Closed : Unknown
Status : Closed
Name meaning : An Aboriginal word meaning "bend in the river"
Notes : 4.8 metre platform built for fettlers and used by the gatekeepers

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Vintage Train 100 years Anniversary of the North Coast Line (Lorraine Jones)


Date is actually 13/12/2012


The hut marks (roughly) the spot that was the location of the small platform.

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Bulliac Tunnel road crossing 1960's (Lorraine Jones)

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BULLIAC TUNNEL PLATFORM - LATE 1960's (Lorraine Jones)

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Bulliac Tunnel Road Crossing - 1960's

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"Charles Cox gives way to a Down train at Bulliac Tunnel. Having pulled off into the [re]cess to let the approaching train pass, he'll have to lift the trike up over the ballast shoulder and closest rail before re-railing it-no easy task." Credit is attributed to the Michael Hort Collection - unfortunately the photo is not dated but I would suggest the 1940/1950 era would be approximate.

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Bulliac Gates, (1966, Lindsay Bridge) - gatekeepers cottage on left

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XPT Down Service Crossing Bulliac Gates 22nd July 2015 (Lorraine Jones)

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View of railway crossing at Pitlochry, undated, Records NSW

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Gatekeeper's cottage at Bulliac.


Lorraine Jones:





I stayed in this cottage occasionally in the early 1960's when Mrs Wolski was the gatekeeper and "Ziggy" her husband worked as a ganger based at Bulliac. Their daughter and I were good friends.
Mrs Wolski worked all hours of the day and night opening and closing the gates for passing cars who would sound their horn when approaching the gates.

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Lorraine Jones:


Some time ago in another related post, I mentioned an incident involving "Ziggy" Wolski in the 1960's when he was riding a hand trike inside Bulliac Tunnel and encountered a train coming the other way. I discussed this today with my friend who lived there at the time and she not only confirmed the incident occurred but also confirmed she was riding with her father at the time this incident occurred.
Her father pushed her off the trike into one of the refuges which fortunately was level with the trike and he dived into a refuge on the other side of the track. They both survived uninjured but the oncoming engine completely destroyed the trike - she doesn't remember what happened afterwards regarding the destruction of the trike or how it might have been "covered up".
How it happened was most likely due to her father ignoring/forgetting to take the elementary safety precaution her mother used regarding opening the road gates for passing road traffic. When a car sounded its horn to indicate gate opening was required, her mother would use a railway phone installed in the gatekeeper's cottage to find out if any trains were likely to be in the vicinity of the crossing before opening the gates to allow the vehicle(s) to pass. If a train was due, she would wait until it passed before opening the gates.

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4467 on 272n  7-10-83 (Garry Holt)

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Bundook Rd near Gloucester just south of Bulliac looking south. Wed 30 Nov 2011. (Alan Graham)

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North Coast Daylight at Bulliac. (Bob McAlpine)