Newcastle branch line

Not to be confused with the Central Coast and Newcastle line

The Newcastle railway line is a branch railway line in the city of Newcastle, New South Wales. The line branches off the Main North line at Islington Junction near Broadmeadow and travels in an easterly direction through the inner suburbs to Newcastle Interchange. NSW TrainLink operates electric passenger train services over this line as part of its Central Coast and Newcastle line service, and diesel railcars to Maitland and beyond as part of its Hunter line regional service.

History
A line between Newcastle and the then much larger settlement at Maitland was first proposed in 1853 by the proponents of the original Sydney to Parramatta railway. The Hunter River Railway Company was formed later that year and the line was surveyed, however the private company failed and was bought out by the NSW government. Construction continued until the line opened in 1857. It was electrified in June 1984.

The terminus at Newcastle moved to various locations throughout the years, and has variously been named Honeysuckle and Honeysuckle Point. It was finally renamed Newcastle in 1935 when Wickham and Civic stations opened. A mortuary station opened in 1883 to serve trains departing for Sandgate Cemetery. It closed in 1933. A large goods yard, the Newcastle Goods yard was constructed east of Newcastle station in 1858. This was closed in the late 1980s and redeveloped as a bus station and park land. The line was duplicated in 1864. With the opening of the Main North Line from Sydney in 1887, Hamilton Junction was built, allowing trains from the Newcastle branch to turn towards Sydney.

Partial closure
Criticism of the line has been that it cuts Newcastle off from its own harbour foreshore. Since the 1990s there were a number of proposals to close or at least pare it back.

In 1990 CityRail proposed closing the line beyond Civic in response to a study on Newcastle's transport and development.

As a proposed solution to this, since 2003 there have been studies to close the line and have Broadmeadow station become the major rail transport hub for the Newcastle region.

In 2005 there was a move pushed by business and property development interests to close the line with the proposal to redevelop the foreshore. This was widely criticised by among others Upper Hunter Valley users, and former Deputy Prime Minister and rail enthusiast Tim Fischer. Originally the New South Wales government had decided to close the line but later in 2006 and after a huge public outcry the Premier Morris Iemma announced that the line would stay open although in 2007 tenders were placed for a study into the lines future, including possible removal of the overhead wires and 'dieselisation' of services.

In October 2008 in response to demands from the developer General Property Trust that the rail line be removed from the city centre the Minister for the Hunter, Jodi McKay MP commissioned a consultation with the online consultation website Bang the Table. It yielded over 90,000 page views and 2800 comments from the community. A survey on the site showed in excess of 70% of respondents favoured the removal of the line from the current city centre terminus.

In December 2012 the New South Wales government announced the line east of Wickham would close to open up the area for redevelopment. This occurred in December 2014, resulting in the closure of Wickham, Civic and Newcastle. The line is now replaced by the Newcastle Light Rail.

Route

 * ↑ Maitland (Islington Junction - Main North railway line)
 * ← Sydney (Hamilton Junction - Main North railway line)
 * ↓ Up direction
 * as the line opened well before the line to Sydney, the up direction on this line is not towards Sydney
 * Hamilton station and yard (opened 1872)
 * Newcastle Interchange station (opened 2017, current terminus of the line)
 * Civic station (opened 1935, closed 2014)
 * Newcastle station (opened 1858, closed 2014)
 * ↑ Down direction

Services
The line was originally served by both goods and passenger services to Sydney, Maitland and Toronto on the now closed Toronto branch line. The line is currently served by two NSW TrainLink passenger services:
 * Newcastle Interchange to Sydney (Central) via Wyong
 * 🇭🇺 Newcastle Interchange to Telarah, with some services extending to Scone or Dungog