Southern Sydney Freight Line
The Southern Sydney Freight Line is a freight-only railway line in the south-western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The line was built to segregate freight trains from the Sydney Trains network. It forms part of a dedicated freight only corridor between Port Botany and Macarthur. The line is managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation.
Route
The SSFL runs from Chullora to Macarthur. It is an unelectrified, bi-directional single track with 1,800 metre long passing loops at Leightonfield and Glenfield. Apart from its end points, the SSFL has no interface with the Transport Asset Manager network.The line commences at Chullora connecting with the Metropolitan Goods line from Port Botany, passing beneath the Bankstown line from where it parallels the Main South line. Just to the north of Glenfield, the line crosses to the west of the Main South line via a flyover. It joins the Main South line to the south of Macarthur station.
History
Delays to freight services operating to and from Sydney via the Main South line had long been a problem, but it wasn't until the formation of the National Rail Corporation that any plan was devised to resolve it.In February 1992, the Federal Government allocated $71 million for the construction of a dedicated freight line from Chullora to Macarthur as part of the One Nation infrastructure project. It soon became apparent that to complete the project would cost in the region of $250 million. Instead the funding was used to complete a number of smaller projects, including building a 6.6 kilometre relief line between Glenfield and Ingleburn. This single, non-electrified line was used by both CountryLink passenger and freight services.
Construction
In May 2006, the Australian Rail Track Corporation revived the project. Approval was obtained in October 2008 and construction commenced in early 2009, focusing on the section between Sefton and Cabramatta. By August 2009 construction was under way along the whole corridor. In November 2009, poor planning led to the ARTC suspending the project for 10 months while it relocated utilities.In September 2010, the ARTC announced the resumption of the project. On 24 June 2012, the Chullora to Leightonfield section opened allowing the connection from the BHP yard at the latter to the RailCorp network to be severed. The rest of the line opened on 21 January 2013.
In 2019, a triangular junction to the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal opened.