Bunnerong Power House & Boral Branches

June 2011

Recent clearing of the area around the junction of these two lines lead me to a bit of a long weekend investigation of the area.

Despite an earlier belief that the clearing had seen the rails removed at the junction, a closer look revealed them to be still intact.

The Boral branch (to the left) followed alongside Botany Road until just prior to where the road is seen bending, at which time it gentle veers away.

The branch to Bunnerong is the one on the right, passing through those trees, across a canal and behind the Port Botany bus depot.

A few metres beyond the junction, the closer track being that to Boral.

A number of views of the canal bridge that lead into the Bunnerong Powerhouse.

Surviving trees make a really clear shot across the structure still very hard - at least legally.

This view gives a pretty good indication what Botany line fans will face if wishing to walk the old formation here. Its assumed that most of the surviving track (much has been built over) to Boral exists well and truly covered in bush, rubbish and dirt, making a full inspection hard.
Look hard, you will see the rail on the steep grade up to Boral. It lies in a shallow cut only about 10 metres from the earlier cleared photos.

My next aim is access to this work site for a further look.

Going by the angle of the formation just previous to this, it is expected that the track passed close to where the two 'X' appear. According to talks with Peter Neve, it is believed the rail must have then curved more and passed under a building just out of sight and to the left of the photo.

Despite a collapsed fence just east of here, the growth was just to dense for access.

It has been some years since I last visited this top road at the Bunnerong Powerhouse. The track is the last surviving within the area once containing the powerhouse itself. Many years ago an attempt was made to walk it to the junction, however, while the whole section seemed intact, the growth was just to much to penetrate.

Recent expansion of Botany Cemetery into this former powerhouse land has made access down to this rail a lot harder.

Question: Neville Pollard's book shows another point just beyong this junction that is labled the 'Switch House Siding'. I would be interested in photographing confirmation of its existence and to learn f this is the same line that ran to the top level of Bunnerong as shown in the last photo above.

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