The Limestone Coast is also home to a large number of lost railway stations and disused railway lines which are fading into South Australian railway history.
The Mount Gambier railway line was a railway line on the South Australian Railways network. Opened in stages from 1881, it was built to narrow gauge and joined Mount Gambier railway station, which was at that time the eastern terminus of a line to Beachport. It connected at Naracoorte to another isolated narrow gauge line joining Naracoorte to Kingston SE, and to the broad gauge Adelaide-Wolseley line at Wolseley, at around the same time that was extended to Serviceton to become the South Australian part of the Melbourne–Adelaide railway. There has been regular calls for its standardisation between Wolseley and Heywood since its closure over the past two decades.
Rivoli Bay to Mount Gambier
Another narrow gauge railway was built from the port on Rivoli Bay at what is now Beachport inland via Millicent to Mount Gambier in 1878. The line and jetty at Beachport provided the ability for farms in the district to export wool and grain. When the line was converted to broad gauge in 1957, it was cut back and no longer served Beachport, but only Mount Gambier to Millicent until it closed in April 1995.
Part of the line was used by the Limestone Coast Railway tourist service, until it ceased on 1 July 2006
The Limestone Coast Railway was a tourist railway in the Australian state of South Australia which operated a tourist service from 1998 to 2006 between Mount Gambier and stations at Coonawarra, Penola and Millicent, Tantanoola, and Rennick on the 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) Mount Gambier and Millicent lines which have been closed for freight services since 12 April 1995.
The railway operated four ex-South Australian Railways Redhen railcars which it purchased from the Government of South Australia in the years 1997 to 1999.
Due to problems with public liability insurance, it was forced to suspend operations in about the year 2000. It resumed a limited service to Penola and Tantanoola and but again suspended its operations as of 1 July 2006.
All rail operations ceased as of December 2006. A letter dated 11 October 2007, sent to members and volunteers, said that the railway would cease to exist as an operating entity as from 31 October 2007 and would surrender its lease of the lines it operated over.