Barnes Crossing
The rich Riverina district of New South Wales, which lies between the Murray and the Murrumbidgee Rivers, was sadly handicapped in the middle of the 19th century by its distance from the seaboard. The Victorian Government sought to capture the trading potentialities of the area.
A broad gauge (1600mm) railway was opened between Melbourne and Echuca in 1864. Echuca lies on the Murray River, the southern border of New South Wales. Consequently, pressure arose to have the line extended across the river, northward to Deniliquin. However, the New South Wales Government was adamant in its refusal to construct a railway which, to a large extent, would have only served Victorian interests.
In a weak moment during March, 1874 and under considerable political pressure, the Government of New South Wales passed an Act which enabled the construction by a private syndicate of a 1600mm gauge railway from Moama to Deniliquin. The line was 71 km (44 mi) long, connecting with the Victorian Railways line at the bridge over the Murray River, near Echuca.
Work commenced at Echuca where a junction was made with the Victorian northern railway. The initial crossing of the Murray was made over a temporary trestle bridge, 518m in length and built from red gum piles. As it was necessary to permit the passage of river craft, a lifting span was incorporated.
Clear of the Murray, the railway entered Moama. The country from Moama to Deniliquin comprises a series of almost level plains. The permanent way was laid on the surface and ballasted with sand. Throughout its length, there were only five curves of 1.6 km radius. The line was built within a period of 12 months.
On 4 July 1876, Moama celebrated the opening of the line with great gusto; a bullock being roasted and eaten in honour of the event. The Official gathering was held at Deniliquin where some 600 guests enjoyed the hospitality of the Directors of the company. The only member of the N.S.W. Legislature present at Deniliquin for the opening was the local Member for Deniliquin. Such was the disinterest by the N.S.W. Government in providing a rail connection to the town that it was reputed to have quipped that "The New South Wales Government would as soon think of proposing to make a railway to the Moon as to Deniliquin".
There remains no rail connection at Deniliquin with the N.S.W. Railway system.
Barnes Crossing is just one of a number of crossings along this stretch of the railway line heading north. Most of these crossings are uncontrolled and in need of a fair bit of maintenance.
Barnes was used as a loading point during its heyday and consisted of a small loading platform and goods shed but nothing now remains apart from some signal and point controls
The line north from Echuca is pegged closed, but has not been booked "out of service". The last train through Barnes was in 2007. Hopefully one day we will once again see mighty grain trains passing through Barnes on their way to the Melbourne Ports.
UPDATE...Trains returned to the Deni line in mid 2011. A daily service heads north around 11am to collect bagged rice from the mill at Deniliquin returning around 6:30pm each week day. A varied range of motive power has been used recently including B76, B80, S313 and a number of T class locos. Usually running in pairs trains have also been seen running 3 or even 4up.
Another update...
During the early part of 2018 VicTrack and ARTC converted the crossing signals over to central control and removed the original semaphore signal. A sad day for history buffs.
The Cache...
WP1 is just off the Cobb Highway at Barnes. At about head height there is a small sign with five letters printed on it. They are represented by @#$%&.
Convert the letters to numbers using the simple A=1, B=2 etc
Now do the maths...
S 36deg 01.8 % (@-2)
E 144deg 47.3 ($-6) #
GZ is within a few hundred metres.