198403 – Dean – Picton Control Centre – Part 1: Signalling

In 1950 the majority of the Westrail system was single line, operated under the rules applicable to the Train Electric Staff System or the Train Staff and Ticket System. The South-West District was no exception, being entirely single line. The main traffic in this area was general goods between Perth and Bunbury, together with coal from Collie to various destinations. Considerable grain traffic was also carried to Bunbury for export.

At about this time, the service between Perth and Brunswick Junction was beginning t o over-tax the signalling system and proposals were put forward to convert from the Electric Staff System to C.T,C., controlled from Perth. Equipment was subsequently purchased for this project and installation commenced at Armadale, working towards Pinjarra in stages.

In the late 1950ts, the decision was taken to introduce diesel locomotives which enabled larger trains to be operated. At about the same time there was a downturn in the use of coal from Collie. These two factors meant that significant reductions in train services between Pinjarra and Brunswick took place, and the continuation of expenditure to provide C.T.C, signalling beyond Coolup could no longer be justified. Thus the Electric Staff System was retained South of Coolup. This was later to prove fortunate as some of the unused equipment was incorporated in extending the C.T.C. systems elsewhere. In the early 1970’s there was an upsurge of traffic, particularly coal from Collie because of the increasing cost of oil fuels. In addition a new traffic – Woodchips – was gained on the line from Lambert to the port of Bunbury. At about the same time, the output of Alumina from the refinery near Pinjarra was increased and some of this traffic was diverted from Kwinana to Bunbury. An improved harbour facility was provided at Bunbury to cater for the export of Woodchips and Alumina. This facility was served by s branch from the main line just North of the junction of the Perth – Bunbury and Bunbury – Northcliffe lines.

This increase in traffic, together with other potential growth, indicated the need to re-examine the traffic patterns for the whole of the area around Bunbury. The overall conclusions were that a new facility be provided at the site of the junction of the main line and harbour line previously mentioned. The Bunbury – Northcliffe line was to be diverted to form a balloon loop around this new station to allow traffic to proceed directly from Perth to Northcliffe and, with the addition of a link in the harbour area, direct from Lambert to the Woodchips unloading point without passing through the centre of Bunbury. In addition a chord line forming a triangle North of Brunswick was installed ta allow coal traffic to travel directly from Collie towards the Metropolitan area without the necessity of reversal at Brunswick.

These schemes all contributed to the overall plan to install C.T.C. from Picton to Coolup, with the possibility of future extensions to Collie and Donnybrook or Manjimup. Thus the wheel had almost turned full circle, but not quite so as it was still not possible to justify C.T.C. from Picton to Coolup.

Justification was initially provided for Power Signalling of the branch to Bunbury Harbour, followed by the new Picton Junction area, which would ultimately be developed into a new yard to replace the facility at Bunbury. Equipment was purchased to carry out these two stages of the project but once again, fate intervened after the Harbour Branch had been completed. This time, everything was in our favour – Alcoa was proposing to build a new Alumina refinery at Wagerup, near Waroona, which would produce additional traffic both to Bunbury and to Kwinana. This resulted in the justification for C.T.C. from Picton to Coolup and resulted in a rescheduling of the project to allow precedence to the C.T.C. over the signalling of the Picton yard area. Not long afterwards, yet another refinery was proposed, this time on the Collie branch near Worsley. This resulted in the justification of C.T.C. between Brunswick and Collie as the company required that coal be supplied from Collie and the output of the refinery be exported through Bunbury. This also resulted in the increase of facilities at Bunbury harbour by the provision of an additional balloon loop for unloading Alumina and loading Oil and Caustic Soda. This part of the project involved the construction of a new branch approximately ten kilometres long from Worsley to the refinery site.