By the 1880s, with the expansion of railways across NSW and Victoria, steam engines required ever increasing supplies of coal.
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The Mittagong Coal-mining Company was registered in 1883 and opened a mine in the Nattai River gorge, 6km northwest of Mittagong. By 1887 it had raised sufficient capital, mostly from Victorian shareholders, to build a four mile (7km) standard-gauge railway to transport coal from its colliery to the main Southern Line at Mittagong.
As the mine’s seam proved to be the best steaming coal in the Commonwealth, the Railway Department contracted to take a major portion of the output.
The colliery’s railway opened in 1888. A section of it ran parallel with the private Joadja Railway which had operated since 1879. Both lines commenced at main line junctions located near where the Caltex Service Station stands today. From there the lines proceeded across farmland in the vicinity of present-day Lyell St. After crossing the Southern Road (now Old Hume Highway) the lines parted company near the Wombeyan Caves Road turnoff, with the Joadja line heading westward.
The colliery line turned north, proceeded over Nattai Creek and almost immediately veered eastward up a steadily rising grade for about half a mile, entered a deep solid-rock cutting before crossing Kell’s Creek on a tall trestle bridge. The line then ran generally north-eastward through a series of deep cuttings and over high embankments to enter an 84m tunnel, which led to a final cutting and then on to a small level site, high up on the hillside overlooking the Nattai River.
Here the line terminated at the edge of a range of Hawkesbury sandstone, down the 170m precipitous side of which an inclined tramway was constructed to an area near the mine entrance. A winding engine brought coal skips up the incline.
The Company was provided with Railway Department engines and rail trucks to haul the coal to Mittagong, including a Manning Wardle Industrial 'Box Tank' engine hired to the Company. In a Railway Historical Society Bulletin of March 1954 the Company was said to have purchased two Shay-type locomotives, but this has since been disproved.
The Company maintained a daily output of 100 tons during the entire period of the 1888 coal strike, most of it sent to Melbourne by rail. The mine, when in full production, employed 21 miners working a 10 foot seam face.
Unfortunately, however, the seam contained a four inch band of stone running through it near the base. All went well for some time, then, due to too much stone in the mix adversely affecting its locomotives, the Railway Department cancelled the contract.
Locally, however, William Brazenall found the coal to be excellent for iron smelting at his small blast furnace on Gibbergunyah Hill. It was confidently predicted that the iron industry would be re-started at Mittagong, but failed to result.
In 1889 the Nattai colliery obtained another railway contract but it was soon cancelled. The mine then lay mostly idle until October 1890 when it was acquired by new owners, Owen Draper & Company, at a cost of £5,000.
Shortly afterwards the name was changed to Box Vale Colliery Company but trade did not improve, and for the next few years only two or three men extracted coal for local requirements.
The Railway Department altered junction arrangements with the Southern Line in 1891. A siding was provided northward from the Box Vale line junction to connect with the Joadja Railway siding and further extended into Mittagong railway yard. This would have been more for the benefit of traffic flow on the main line, than to improve arrangements for the Joadja and Box Vale railways.
With the onset of the bitter 1890s depression, business conditions worsened. When it eventuated that the Box Vale Company could not pay its mine workers, they took their case to Court, where a verdict against the owners was secured.
The Company’s financial affairs were so dire that the mortgagor foreclosed in June 1896 and almost immediately began removing the plant to safeguard against further losses.
The rail line would be dismantled and sold off.
- Berrima District Historical & Family History Society – compiled by PD Morton. Part 2 of a 3-part series.