Ferny Grove railway line

The Ferny Grove railway line is a 13 km suburban railway line in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Queensland Rail City network.

History


A branch line was opened from a junction at Mayne railway station (Bowen Hills) to Enoggera railway station in February 1899 to serve the new cattle sales yards at Newmarket. The line was extended to Samford in 1918, and to Dayboro, the terminus in 1920. The additional traffic on the line led to its duplication to Newmarket in 1921. The sales yards were moved to Cannon Hill in 1931.

On 5 May 1947, a packed excursion train derailed at Camp Mountain, after Ferny Grove railway station, in what is Queensland's worst rail tragedy, the Camp Mountain train disaster.

The line was duplicated to Mitchelton in 1953, and the first automatic level crossing boom gates in Queensland were installed at Wilston Road, Newmarket in 1954.

The line was closed beyond Ferny Grove in 1955 after the freight traffic was lost to road transport. Ferny Grove was initially known as Ferny Flats, but the railway department changed the name of the railway station because of a Ferny Flats in New South Wales; the surrounding area followed suit.

Recent upgrades
Between 2008-12 the remaining single track section between Mitchelton and Ferny Grove was duplicated, including an upgraded Ferny Grove station, an additional 1000 car parking spaces and construction of a new bus interchange.

Line guide, frequency and services
Typical service frequency on the Ferny Grove Line is four trains per hour (every 15 minutes) on weekdays and two trains per hour (every 30 minutes) at night and on weekends, increasing to 8 trains per hour (every 7.5 minutes) during weekday peak times for faster travel times for commuters working in the Brisbane central business district. Most services stop at all stations to Roma Street railway station. The typical travel time between Ferny Grove and Brisbane City is approximately 27 minutes (to Central).

Ferny Grove line services typically continue as Beenleigh line services.

Passengers for and from the Airport, Caboolture, Doomben, Nambour and Gympie North and Shorncliffe lines change at Bowen Hills, and all other lines at Roma Street.