Travel Australia

Dowds Hill Tunnel, Peterborough, SA

The single track Dowds Hill tunnel, also known as the Ucotra Tunnel, to the east of Peterborough, was the only tunnel on the originsal narrow gauge Peterborough - Broken Hill railway line. Dowds Hill is located 5.8km to the east of the town of Peterborough, and is at an altitude of about 620m above sea level.


A 400 class Garratt exiting Dowds Hill Tunnel

Dowds Hill Railway Tunnel was the only tunnel on the entire South Australian Railways narrow gauge network and is 95 m in length. With the construction of the new standard gauge line in the late 1960s, a new cutting and track alignment slightly to the north replaced the tunnel, it is interesting to note that while construction on the cutting was being undertaken for a short time a dual gauge track (both narrow gauge and standard gauge track) passed through the tunnel. After the new cutting was built, the old railway line though the tunnel was severed and removed. Dowd's Hill, also known as Tunnel Hill, was named after Andrew Dowd who farmed in the area in the early 1900’s.

Broken Hill - Peterbrough Line

The railway station at Peterborough originally opened in January 1880 as Petersburg when a narrow gauge line opened from Port Pirie to the west. In November 1881, the line was completed to Petersburg from Terowie, connecting it to the south; in 1882 it was extended north to Quorn. In 1888, the Port Pirie line was extended eastwards to Broken Hill. The new narrow gauge railway line transported silver, lead and zinc from the newly established BHP mining operation in Broken Hill to ships in Port Pirie, in South Australia's mid north.

As part of the standardisation project, the line between Port Augusta and Broken Hill was converted to standard gauge in 1970, thus Peterborough became a break of gauge station. As part of the project, the narrow gauge from Terowie was converted to broad gauge to match the rest of the line to Terowie from Adelaide resulting in Peterborough having all three South Australian track gauges.

Today a Heritage Rail Trail follows the remains of the narrow gauge Broken Hill to Port Pirie railway line, a relic of the steam age, a 400km piece of history that descends from the red dusts of New South Wales to the gulf waters of South Australia.