The Manning River breakwater railway--Part 1 - The Private Contractor Years (1895-1900)

摘要

The Manning River Breakwater Railway was a short standard-gauge railway linking a large rock quarry at Crowdy Head to the breakwater walls at Harrington on the NSW mid-North Coast. Few traces remains today, but once it was a key part of one the largest public works schemes of its day — the construction of ambitious breakwater complexes to safeguard river entrances for coastal shipping. During its chequered history, the railway carried hundreds of thousands of tons of quarried rock in support of the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to tame the unpredictable Manning River. Previous accounts of the Breakwater Railway have appeared in local histories of Crowdy Head and Harrington by local historian Rebecca Linton1,2, and in a 1948 piece by pioneer rail historian CB Thomas3. This article draws in NSW Public Works Department (PWD) records and contemporary newspaper reports to relate the inter-twined history of the Manning Rver breakwaters and the railway that helped build them.