Railway Reserves Heritage Trail

The Railway Reserves Heritage Trail – also on some maps as Rail Reserve Heritage Trail or Rail Reserves Historical Trail, and frequently referred to locally as the Bridle Trail or Bridle Track – is within the Shire of Mundaring in Western Australia.

The Trail Loop (Bellevue to Bellevue via Mount Helena) is 40.8 km in length - it constitutes two routes travelling east of Bellevue.

The Eastern Extension within this trail, Mount Helena to Wooroloo is 22.5 km in length.

The Kep Track continues along the old railway route as far as Northam, and is 75 km in length.

In Kalamunda there is a railway heritage trail that follows the alignment of the old Upper Darling Range Railway.

It was created following the Western Australian Government Railways (the WAGR, as it was commonly known) ceasing to operate on the Bellevue to Northam railway following the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway in 1966.

The first two attempts at the Eastern Railway from Bellevue to Chidlow, Western Australia both constructed before 1900 failed to have sufficiently low gradients for the increasing tonnages on the railway system. The Avon Valley route taken by the new Standard Gauge line, was the third and final attempt to take the railway system out of the metropolitan area across the Darling Scarp.

The first two Eastern Railway formations were closed by an Act of Parliament in the 1960s, and the lands were vested with the Mundaring Council. As a result, most of the removable property of the WAGR - was removed from the reserve. Notably the Mundaring and Darlington concrete railway platforms remain, and approximately three telegraph poles remain along the original formation. Otherwise all rails, sleepers and buildings no longer remain. The Koongamia platform, although in use for only about five years in the 1960s, was re-built as public sculpture in the 2000s.

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Wikipedia