Fledgling colony baulked at costs of rail line

In part 1, I wrote of the December 1873 proposal for a Railway Line from Sydney to the Illawarra that would pass along the Port Hacking River valley. Sydney businessman Alexander Stuart, who entered the NSW Parliament in December 1874, had, one year earlier, and soon after the route for the railway line was announced, taken out mineral leases along the Hacking Valley from near the nowadays Joan Holland Bridge, below Waterfall, to near today’s township of Otford.

The proposed line from Sydney was to enter the Hacking Valley near Audley and continue southwards to Otford then via tunnels to Stanwell Park, then Clifton and thence along the lower escarpment and into Wollongong and to Kiama. In early 1874 a team of Government surveyors were delegated to survey the proposed route and by July of that year they had reached William Hamilton’s property at Bulgo (Otford). In February of 1875 the survey crew reached Wollongong.

Importantly, the Hacking Valley route would open up the anticipated coal lands to its east, in the vicinity of today’s Maianbar and Bundeena. Indeed, in December 1874, the Sydney and Melbourne Coal Mining Company was formed. This company with £100,000 in funding took-up 42 acres of land near Maianbar and acquired a further 6 x 320 acres (780ha) of abutting mineral leases that ran southwards to the Wattamolla Inlet. Included in their plans was a relatively short rail line to connect their proposed mine to the Illawarra Railway in the Hacking Valley. Others also took-up speculative mineral leases in the area. It seems that all were under the impression that coal would be found at a reasonably shallow depth of 80 to 100 metres.

However, in 1875 the prominent geologist, Rev. W.B. Clarke, after looking at the area, gave the opinion that the coal seams were likely to be at depths of 1000 to 1500 feet (300 to 450 metres).

Without the Illawarra railway to transport the coal, and no great certainty as to the depth of the seams, no mining was undertaken in the Maianbar area. (It was to be 1878 before the diamond drill arrived in Australia, providing a reliable method of drilling deep holes to prove mineral deposits.)

Meanwhile, debates continued in the NSW Parliament as to the merits of a rail line to the Illawarra. One thing was certain: it would be a very expensive undertaking for the fledgling colony.

Also, and concerning to coal-industry investors of the time, was the fact that an Illawarra Railway Line along the proposed route would open up competition between mines with rail-based transport, and Illawarra and Newcastle mines that relied on ships. Powerful men were involved.

For interested persons: The State Library of NSW has an 1881 map of the National Park that shows the then proposed railway route.