About SideTracked Caches
This cache belongs to the SideTracked series. It is not designed to take you to a magical place with a breath taking view. It's a distraction for the weary traveller, but anyone else can go and find it too. More Information can be found at the SideTracked Website
About Kilkenny
The railway line from Adelaide to Port Adelaide opened in April 1856, forming one of South Australia’s earliest and most important railway routes. However, there was no station at Kilkenny when the line first opened. Kilkenny station was established in 1881, when the original single-track Port Adelaide railway was duplicated.
As Kilkenny developed, the railway became increasingly important to the surrounding industrial area. A network of goods sidings was constructed on both sides of the main line, providing rail access to a number of factories and businesses. By the early twentieth century, Kilkenny had become a busy combination of passenger station and industrial railway facility.
The sidings served industries in the surrounding area, including engineering, machinery, brickmaking and other manufacturing businesses. A 1913 railway siding drawing survives, providing evidence of the complicated network of tracks that once surrounded the station. Among the businesses associated with the area were Duncan & Fraser, Forwood, Down & Co. and other industrial concerns.
By the early years of the twentieth century, Kilkenny also had two signal cabins. One, at the Adelaide end of the station, controlled access to the sidings, while the other was at the Woodville Park end and controlled the level crossing at David Terrace. In 1930, three-aspect colour-light signalling was introduced along this section of the Port line to cope with the heavy railway traffic of the period.
Kilkenny remained busy with both passenger and goods traffic for many years. However, as heavy industry declined during the 1960s and 1970s, the amount of goods traffic handled at the station also fell. The goods sidings were closed in September 1977 and were subsequently removed, along with the signal cabin.
The railway itself continued, carrying passengers through Kilkenny as Adelaide's western suburbs changed around it. The nearby industrial landscape also gradually disappeared, with some of the remaining factories eventually demolished in November 2018.
Today, Kilkenny remains an active railway station on the Grange, Outer Harbor and Port Dock lines. The busy industrial sidings and signal cabins have vanished, but the railway alignment remains, providing a direct connection with Adelaide and the western suburbs.
Standing at Kilkenny today, it is easy to see only the modern railway. Yet beneath the present-day tracks lies a much more complicated history: a railway established in 1881, surrounded by sidings, factories, signal cabins and goods traffic that helped shape Kilkenny into the industrial suburb it became.
The surviving railway is therefore more than simply a means of getting from one station to another. It is a living reminder of the industrial and suburban development of Adelaide's west, stretching back more than 140 years.
note the cache is at the list coordinates and the stamp can be unscewed from the base of the cache. you will need to bring your own stamp pad