Fairy Hill

[admin]

48??/48?? Through Fairy Hill heading to Casino on up freight. Fairy Hill loop taken from the mast of up home signal towards Casino. (Philip Tatarinov)

[admin]

Fairy Hill, layout diagram

[admin]

44223 leading a ballast train departs Fairy Hill 13/9/91 (Gavin McLaughlan)

[admin]

Fairy Hill 15/9/91 (Gavin McLaughlan)

[admin]

Up goods at Fairy Hill, 14/1/1992 (Doug Knowles)

[admin]

Ken Date:

Fairy Hill was the last location to use the auto exchanger and that occurred on 17 July 1986, when the northbound Brisbane Limited used the device. Noel Reed and I inspected the train registers during an inspection at Fairy Hill and the other signal boxes to Border Loop in June 1987 to isolate the day of the exchanger's last use. They were still in place at Fairy Hill at that time and we talked the signalman into setting one of them up for us for a photo. I wrote a short piece in Railway Digest about the end of the line for the auto exchangers in NSW, which appeared in the September 1987 issue, together with said photo. I am reasonably certain they were also finished in Victoria by then (SA stopped using them in about 1981), which would make Fairy Hill the last place in Australia an auto exchanger was used. There was no fanfare about the last occasion and not even an official edict to discontinue their use. The demise just evolved over time due to a variety of factors, one of them being practical issues of locos without exchangers (81 class, which were on the NC by then, as well as 48 class locos often leading) and the lack of bull rings, which were taken out of service when faulty and not repaired, leading to a shortage. Ground equipment was also increasingly prone to failure. The signalmen we spoke with preferred hand exchanges to lifting the exchanger out of the ground, especially at night and when there were snakes around. Drivers were apparently also increasingly resistant to continuing to use the auto exchangers. The exchangers had given very good service over many decades but, like most things on the railway, their time eventually came to an end.

[admin]

Fairy Hill, February 1982 (State Archives)

[admin]

Construction of the line near Fairy Hill (State Archives)

[admin]

3801 at Fairy Hill, 18/9/1988 (Winney Collection)

[admin]

A couple of days ago I posted a pic of the tiny halt at St Helena on the Mur'bah branch. Here is another such structure, this time on the main line between Casino and Kyogle. I think this was called Fairy Hill, locals can confirm. I lived 3 years in Northern Rivers but it is over 40 years ago, the memory fades. I do recall the hill adjacent to Kyogle township is known as Fairymount. In this 1986 view, 44231 and a 45 class are working a freight from Brisbane to Sydney. (Chris Sim)