The Sydney–Brisbane railway corridor consists of the 987km (613miles) long standard-gauge main line between the Australian state capitals of Brisbane (Queensland) and Sydney (New South Wales), and the lines immediately connected to it.[1]
The main line consists of:
Freight trains operate along the entire corridor, as does a daily (each way) XPT passenger service, in addition to a service to Casino.
Originally the corridor consisted of standard gauge track in New South Wales and narrow gauge track in Queensland, which met at a break-of-gauge station at Wallangarra. In 1930 the NSW North Coast line was extended from Casino to Brisbane making through services possible,[2] [3] using a rail ferry for the river crossing in Grafton until the Grafton Bridge opened in 1932.[4] The superseded Main Northern railway line, which went to Wallangarra, now terminates near Armidale.
| A daily XPT service between Sydney and Brisbane travels the full 987abbr=offNaNabbr=off length of the corridor | The northbound Brisbane Limited at Yeerongpilly in 1987 was locomotive-hauled | |||
| A southbound goods train in 1987 near Kyogle, where until 1930 passengers and freight alike had to change between standard gauge (NSW) and narrow gauge (Qld) | Staff operation, in which tokens authorizing access to track sections are physically exchanged, has now been superseded by Centralised traffic control in the corridor |