Ropes Creek railway line
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The Ropes Creek Line is a closed railway line in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia.
The Ropes Creek Line was named after a nearby creek bearing the same name. It was built during World War II to transport munitions factory workers to and from St Marys. The line opened from St Marys station to Dunheved on 1 March 1942 and Dunheved to Ropes Creek on 29 June 1942. When electrification arrived in the 1950s, there was a plan to electrify the Ropes Creek Line. For the most part all the sidings in the Dunheved station area were electrified to enable the NSWGR to use electric locomotives of the 46 class to shunt trains without the need to change to diesel-electric or diesel-hydraulic locomotives.
While the line was being electrified, a new station named Cochrane was opened on 2 September 1957. Towards the end of train operation on the line, freight wagons were shunted into the Sims Metal plant which was about two kilometres from the junction with the Main West line, and there was normally one passenger train in the morning and one in the afternoon, generally formed by a 4-car single-deck suburban train, locally known as a .
The line was closed to passenger rail traffic in the early 1980s, following a downturn in passengers and munitions traffic, but remained open to freight traffic for Sims Metal. However, when that was then switched to road traffic the line closed and lay idle for a number of years. On 22 March 1986, the line was officially closed forever, with an enthusiasts' special being the last train to traverse the section and not long after that, the overhead power supply was removed.
Between Boxing Day 1990 and 8 January 1991 there was a major shut-down due to track work between St Marys and Glenbrook stations, and the line was temporarily reopened as far as Dunheved to allow suburban trains that normally stabled at Penrith to be stabled in the four-track yard, and on the platform 2 or "down" track on the branch. At the completion of the track work, the line was once again closed.
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