Sydney Freight Network

Railway line in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Sydney Freight Network is a network of dedicated railway lines for freight in Sydney, Australia, linking the state's rural and interstate rail network with the city's main yard at Enfield and Port Botany. Its primary components are the Southern Sydney Freight Line (SSFL) and a line from Sefton to Enfield and Port Botany. The Network has been managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) since 2012. Prior to the completion of the SSFL, it was managed by RailCorp as the Metropolitan Freight Network.

One arm of the network starts behind the Flemington Maintenance Depot while another starts at Sefton with both merging at Enfield. Services from the state's north and west approach via the former and from the south via the latter. From Enfield, the line heads south to Campsie where it turns east and runs parallel to the Bankstown passenger line as far as Marrickville. From here, a connection to the Illawarra line provides a link to a sea terminal at Port Kembla, south of Sydney. From Marrickville, the line continues on its own alignment to the Cooks River and Port Botany container terminals. There was previously a loop line that completed a circuitous route of the inner suburbs. Diverging at Dulwich Hill, it headed north beneath the Main Suburban line at Lewisham to Lilyfield before heading east to Rozelle and Pyrmont, and then south under Railway Square through NSW's oldest tunnel to join the Main Suburban line outside Central. This line served the ports at Glebe Island (diverging via a spur from Lilyfield) and Darling Harbour. With the exception of the Marrickville to Port Botany and Lilyfield to Central sections, the network was electrified in stages. The Dulwich Hill to Rozelle section was electrified in October 1967 while the Marrickville to Tempe section was completed in 1985. But with electric haulage of freight trains ceasing in the late 1990s, this infrastructure is no longer used and has been removed in parts. As of December 2018, the only remaining sections of overhead wires are a short section from the tunnel under the Bankstown line to Tempe, along the Down line from Dulwich Hill to Campsie and both tracks from Campsie to where the line separates from the Bankstown line. The line had connections to allow suburban passenger services to operate on it including accessing the Canterbury Park Racecourse sidings on race days but these were out of use by the mid 1980s and have since been removed.

From the time when the Sydney Railway Company was formed in 1848, it had been the intention of the company to build a freight terminal at Darling Harbour. To this end, a railway line was constructed between the Sydney Railway Station (the predecessor to Central railway station) and Darling Harbour, which opened on 26 September 1855. Initial traffic was spoil for the construction of the Main Suburban Line between Sydney and Parramatta, then for the carriage of departmental coke for steam engines, and a small amount of timber from 1860. Initial reports of the traffic on the line suggested that freight revenue amounted to only £20 a year, and there was only 60 tonnes of coke carriage a week. On 14 October 1925, the line opened from Marrickville to Port Botany. An additional Goods Yard was established at Cooks River in 1947. This yard connects with the Port Botany line to the east of the Princes Highway overbridge. From May 1982 until July 1995, a weighbridge existed on the westbound track between Canterbury and Campsie stations. In January 1996, the Lilyfield to Central section closed. Much of the trackbed was used for the light rail that opened to Wentworth Park in August 1997 and was extended to Lilyfield in August 2000. A spur of the branch was retained from Central to connect the Powerhouse Museum to the network. A section of the spur fell into disrepair and was converted to a park and pedestrian pathway in August 2015. In 1995, the freight only network was extended north with a dedicated bi directional single freight line constructed from Flemington to Homebush where it joined a refurbished existing line to North Strathfield and Rhodes. During the 1990s, the section between Dulwich Hill and Rozelle also saw a considerable decline in traffic after handling of bulk grain moved to Port Kembla, Enfield yard was remodelled and marshaling of trains consolidated there, and operations at the Glebe Island and White Bay ports wound down. Rozelle yard became overgrown but was used intermittently for the storage of disused railway wagons and passenger carriages. Eventually, the sole traffic was a service to deliver cereals to Mungo Scott's flour mill at Summer Hill. In 2009, the mill relocated to Maldon and all traffic on the line ceased. In 2010, the NSW Government announced the Inner West Light Rail would be extended along the disused section from Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill. The extension opened on 27 March 2014.

Until their cessation in 1996, railway workers' trains operated from Canterbury to Enfield South, Enfield Loco, Delec and Hope Street.