The Bethungra Railway Spiral

A unique feature of the Melbourne to Sydney railway is the railway spiral at Bethungra, where the Up track (track for trains travelling to Sydney) climbs around the outside of a hill and 'loops' back across itself. This was created when the track was duplicated in the 1940's to ease the grade for loaded trains travelling to Sydney and allow them to carry heavier loads. The 'down' track for trains travelling to Melbourne takes a much more direct route with a steeper grade. The spiral is located between Junee and Cootamundra.

Although very useful at the time, in the day of high horsepower modern locomotives, the spiral is no longer needed and it as well the other significant track deviations to ease grades on the line to Sydney result in trains taking several hours longer than trucks on the Melbourne-Sydney route. This is one of the reasons why less than 1% of freight between Melbourne and Sydney goes by rail.

The Inland Rail Project, under construction as of 2021, will divert trains travelling between Melbourne and Brisbane onto a new track just South of the spiral which will also enable double stacked containers. The spiral will remain in use for trains travelling to Sydney.

QUBE train 3112 from Junee to Sydney is captured climbing the spiral, with locomotives 1107-8037-1108. The train conveys a mixture of agricultural products from the surrounding region and paper from the mill at Tumut.

If a train is the maximum 1.8km allowed for the section, the crew can see the rear of their train as they traverse the upper section of the spiral. Train 3112 was shorter that this on the day I captured it but I have uploaded the full video captured on the day which shows the time interval between the train disappearing around the corner of the hill and reappearing in the upper section of the spiral.