Northern Coalfields – Hunter Valley & Lake Macquarie region Coal from the northern coalfields was loaded at
Hexham on the Hunter River,
Carrington (The Basin, The Dyke) and
Stockton near
Newcastle, on
Lake Macquarie, and at the ocean jetty at
Catherine Hill Bay. In the early years of the trade, coal was loaded at Newcastle itself, on the southern bank of the Hunter River, at the river port of
Morpeth, and at a wharf at Reid's Mistake at
Swansea Heads. The coalfields to the north of Sydney had the advantage that the Hunter River and its estuary, while not ideal, could be used as a port. Mining commenced on the northern fields first. The first coal mines were initially operated by the government using
convict labour. Sporadic mining operations started around what is now Newcastle and, in 1799, a cargo of coal was shipped to Bengal aboard the
Hunter. The first "permanent" mine at Newcastle was opened in 1804. When Newcastle ceased to be a penal colony in 1821, the government continued to operate the mines.
Commissioner Bigge had recommended that the mines be given over to private operation. In 1828, there was an agreement struck between the Secretary of State for colonies and the
Australian Agricultural Company that made
coal mining a monopoly of that company. One other company was able to persuade the government to allow it to mine coal from 1841, the
Ebenezer Colliery at
Coal Point on Lake Macquarie. The monopoly was broken when challenged in 1847 by the
Brown family, who began mining coal at Maitland and using the river port of Morpeth. They undercut the price of coal mined by the AAC. Coal was accessible in many places throughout the Hunter Valley and on both the eastern and western shores of Lake Macquarie. Once the monopoly was broken, many mines were soon in operation throughout the northern coalfields. The known coal reserves of the northern coalfields were greatly increased, in 1886, when Professor
T. W. Edgeworth David discovered the
Greta coal seams, the coal resource which allowed a rapid expansion of coal mining on the
South Maitland Coalfields. At the end of the 19th century, the four most important companies on the northern field were the
Australian Agricultural Company,
J & A Brown, Newcastle Wallsend, and Scottish Australian (
Lambton Colliery). Of these, only the Scottish Australian was not a member of the Associated Northern Collieries. This was essentially a cartel that divided production as quotas for each of the participating colliery owners. There was a monetary mechanism under which collieries selling above their quota compensated those selling under their quota. To avoid companies just leaving coal in the ground, quotas were adjusted based on actual sales for the previous year. The arrangement was known as "the Vend" and operated for most of the years between 1872 and 1893, when it collapsed due to competition in the export market. Many collieries on the northern coalfield of NSW were named after collieries in the United Kingdom. Other names referenced the coal seam being mined and that confused the locality and identity of the mine further. With changes of ownership, mine names often changed and sometimes names associated with good-quality coal were moved to completely different collieries. Most mines of the northern coalfields were connected to the ports at Hexham and Carrington by an extensive network of railway lines; some were
government lines and others were privately owned. Coal was loaded into four-wheel wagons owned by the mining companies. The type of four-wheel wagon used consisted of a frame with wheels and a removable wooden hopper. Trains of wagons were hauled to the port, where the removable hoppers were lifted out of the frame by a crane and dumped by opening the bottom of the hopper. The worker who opened the hopper was known as a 'pin boss', probably because he used a large hammer to knock out a locking pin that secured the hopper gate. The wagons were known as "non-air" wagons because they did not have
air brakes. At their peak, there were 13,000 of these "non-air" wagons in service, belonging to around sixty operators. Larger modern bogie wagons were introduced in the 1960s and "non-air" wagons were banned from Port Waratah in 1974 but continued to be used to bring coal to Hexham. There were still 3,000 in use in 1975 and 900 when the
Richmond Vale Railway closed in September 1987. "Non-air" wagons came in different capacities between 7 and 12.5 tons. Large letters on the side of the wagon identified the owner, and small letters its capacity. , after construction of the breakwaters.
Hunter River ports Ships bound for the river ports of Newcastle (Port Hunter), Stockton, Carrington, Port Waratah, Hexham and Morpeth had first to enter the river mouth between
Nobbys Head and
Stockton The mouth of the Hunter was difficult for sailing ships heading south to Sydney. Sailing ships leaving port could not negotiate the east-north-east facing channel leaving the river, when winds favourable to a southern passage were blowing. From 1859, these ships were towed out by steam tugs and the situation improved. From May 1866, ships entering the port could align with two 'leading light' beacon towers; a red tower with a white light and a white tower with a light. One tower was at a higher elevation, viewed as a pair they were intended to provide a correct heading to enter the channel at the harbour entrance. When one beacon appeared over the other, the heading was correct. However, some saw the lights as being of dubious value, and noted that the horizontal distance between the two towers was insufficient to provide an accurate heading. New 'leading lights' entered service in 1918. The construction of the breakwater and land reclamation between
Nobbys Head and Newcastle increased the safety of the port. . Just to the north of the river mouth is the notorious Oyster Bank, actually a series of shifting sandbanks. At least 34 vessels were lost on the Oyster Bank. The shape of Nobby's was altered by lowering its height, so that its wind shadow did not cause sailing ships to lose
steerage and end up on the Oyster Bank. Construction of the northern breakwater somewhat reduced the hazard to shipping entering the river. Around the same time as the northern breakwater was built over the Oyster Bank, a southern breakwater was extended from Nobby's on the southern side of the river, using material taken from the top of Nobby's. The shallowness of the entrance to the Hunter River continued to be a limitation on shipping into the 1920s and a hazard during bad weather. Work continued to improve the river mouth, during the 1930s, culminating in the excavation of a deep channel 600 feet wide, with 27 feet of water depth, effectively removing the
rock bar at the river's mouth. The improvements to the river entrance were a major engineering project for their time and a paper on the work won a
Telford Premium award from the
Institution of Civil Engineers for
Percy Allan in 1921.
Newcastle (Port Hunter) Coal was shipped from Newcastle to Sydney, from around 1801 onward. Initially mines were located in what is now the inner-city of
Newcastle and coal was loaded from wharves on the southern bank of the Hunter River. Newcastle was the main port, during the time of
the Australian Agricultural Company's monopoly on the mining of coal (1828–1847). The
Australian Agricultural Company built the
first rail line in Australia, from its mines to the Newcastle port. By the 1860s, Newcastle was a busy coal port with both the privately owned coal staiths and the government-owned Queen's Wharf in operation. The Queen's Wharf (often but not always known as King's Wharf, from 1901 to 1952) was connected to the
Great Northern Railway The westernmost staithes were the privately owned staithes of
Australian Agricultural Company, which were connected to their private railway line. The staithes to their east were connected to the Great Northern Railway and to the Glebe Railway. With the completion of the port at nearby Carrington and the decline of coal mining in Newcastle itself, the importance of the old port of Newcastle as a coal port decreased greatly. Steam cranes were relocated from Newcastle to the Dyke at Carrington Morpeth was the effective
head of navigation of the Hunter, because farther upstream there were many large bends in the river between Morpeth and
Maitland. Aside from greatly increasing the distance by water to Maitland, these bends were difficult for vessels to navigate. It also lay just upstream of the confluence of the Hunter River and the
Paterson River, below which the river broadens. Morpeth had been a river port from the 1830s. showing the location on the coal staiths and the siding. Note the bends in the river above Morpeth. The importance of Morpeth as a port began to decline, once the railway from Newcastle reached
East Maitland in 1857. A
branch railway to the old port was opened in 1864. There were coal staiths and a railway siding for these at Morpeth. These new staiths were still unfinished in early 1866. Once completed, the Morpeth coal staithes were used, but infrequently. By the late 1870s, little coal had been loaded there and, by the late 1880s, the coal staiths were in a derelict and dangerous condition. Construction of the
Morpeth Bridge, downstream of the staiths, in 1896 to 1898, ended any possibility of their revival, as only very small steamers could pass under it. Morpeth continued as a port but mainly for agricultural products. Morpeth was disadvantaged by its distance up river, the shallowness of the river, and the impact of river floods. It was overtaken, as a coal port, by the downstream river ports at Newcastle, Hexham, and Carrington, which had better railway connections to the coalfields, could handle greater volumes and larger vessels, had better port facilities, and were closer to Sydney. However, local interests continued to advocate coal loading at Morpeth. Regular shipping port operations at Morpeth ceased in 1931, but some shipping continued in a small way after that time. Due to wartime constraints on transporting coal by rail, in 1940, coal from
Rothbury was shipped at Morpeth but not directly to Sydney; it was brought to the port by road and then sent by barge for transshipment at a downstream river port. The river gradually silted up—no longer being dredged—leaving Morpeth to fall into further decline. The branch line closed in 1953.
Stockton There was a colliery at
Stockton, the Stockton Colliery. Coal, exclusively from that mine, was loaded on the Hunter River side of the Stockton peninsula, from 1885 to 1908. Coal was carried a short distance from the mine, in railway wagons, onto an elevated structure and dumped, via a staith, into the ship's hold. Later, two steam cranes were relocated from Queens Wharf at Newcastle. It was the only significant ship-loading operation on the left bank (northern side) of the Hunter River estuary.
Drop Ship From October 1859 to late 1868, an unusual mechanised ship loading arrangement, known as a 'Drop Ship', was in use. It was operated first by the Tomago Colliery; the mine was inland from the left bank of the Hunter River, at
Tomago, opposite Hexham. who then used it to load vessels too large to be able to use their staiths at Hexham. The Drop Ship—made by equipping the hulk of an old 400 ton sailing ship,
Antrocite—was permanently moored, in a deep part of the Hunter River channel, between Stockton and the Dyke wharf. Upstream, coal was carried by rail from the Tomago mine to the river bank of the north channel, in wagons of four tons capacity but subdivided into two sections of two tons each. The coal was then dumped into boxes, of two tons capacity each, inside a barge. Each barge contained multiple boxes, variously reported as 21 or 30 boxes per barge. A steam tugboat,
Aquarius, then towed the barge downstream to the Drop Ship. With a barge alongside one side of the Drop Ship, a box was then lifted by a crank mechanism on the Drop Ship, which carried that box across to the other side of the Drop Ship and dumped its contents into the hold of the ship being loaded. The same crank mechanism then returned the empty box to the barge, before repeating the process for the next box. The crank mechanism was powered by a steam engine and was capable of loading 300 tons of coal per day. The Drop Ship was still operating in August 1868. It was removed to a dock, in January 1869, as it required an overhaul and repairs, but does not appear to have ever been used again.
Carrington – the Dyke, the Basin – and Port Waratah to the left, 1904 (aerial photograph by
Melvin Vaniman) The port at
Carrington was the largest of all the coal ports of the coastal coal-carrying trade. The Basin and the Dyke could handle larger ships and were also used for coal export and coal bunkering, as well as loading sixty-milers and interstate colliers. The area was originally shoals fringing a low-lying island, Bullock Island, within the estuary of the
Hunter River, and was submerged at high tide. Sailing ships using the old port of Newcastle tipped
stone ballast in the area and, with other reclamation work, the line of The Dyke was created by 1861. The first wharf facilities on the Dyke were jetties used to unload ballast. Beginning in 1874, work began on the creation of a new coal port. Land was reclaimed behind the original Dyke, which became the large rail-yard for the port. Coal was loaded at The Dyke from 1878. The Basin is an artificial harbour, to the west of the Dyke, which opens into the junction of Throsby Creek and the Hunter River. Originally a part of low-lying Bullock Island, and being completed around 1893. The first wharves on the Basin were those on the eastern side, opposite the wharves of the Dyke. essentially as an extension to the loading operations of the Dyke. In 1913, work was underway on another line of wharves, on the western side of the Basin. Those new wharves were completed in 1915. The Carrington coal port used twelve hydraulic cranes powered by water under pressure supplied from a
pumphouse nearby. There were also three steam cranes, which had been relocated from Queens Wharf. Electric lighting was introduced in the early 1890s, replacing the open coal fires that had previously illuminated nighttime coal loading operations. In 1907, the government bought the Waratah Coal Co.'s railway lines—by then owned by Caledonian Coal Co—to Port Waratah. The aim was to alleviate the congestion of trains and wagons that was occurring at the busy wharves of The Dyke and The Basin, by rerouting the trains to those wharves via Port Waratah. instead of
Wickham. More land was resumed by the government in 1913. The availability of coal and river frontage for wharves led to Port Waratah becoming a site of heavy industry, first for copper smelting and later as the site of the large BHP
Newcastle Steelworks.
Hexham )
Hexham is located on the Hunter River upstream from Newcastle. It is where the Hunter River separates into its north and south channels. It is the lowest point on the river where vessels leaving a port on the right bank can have access to the North Channel. Upstream of Hexham the river, although still tidal, becomes meandering and more difficult for vessels to navigate. As a river port, care had to be taken so ships made use of the tides to avoid running aground in shallow
Fern Bay, when laden with coal and heading downstream, via the North Channel of the Hunter, to the sea. There were three coal loaders at Hexham. The most downstream loader was
J & A Brown's staithes that were supplied with coal by the
Richmond Vale Railway, via a right-angle crossing (across the government-operated
Main North railway line), from 1856 until November 1967. The next loader upstream was the
RW Miller coal loader, located next to the Hexham Bridge. It was built in 1959 and supplied only by road. After the merger of RW Miller with
Coal & Allied in the mid-1980s, it was used by Coal & Allied to load coal washed at the Hexham Coal Washery and destined for Sydney. This loader was closed 1988 after the closure of the washery.
Commonwealth, Himitangi, Euroka, and ''Doris However, movement of sand at the entrance, and the infrequent dredging, constrained the volume of coal that could be carried, even below the capacity of such small vessels. The shipping of coal from the lake was commercially marginal at best, and that, in turn, affected the viability of those mines that depended upon lake shipping. There had been a jetty at Coal Point used by the
Ebenezer Colliery from the 1840s, from which coal was ferried across the lake There were other collieries near to the northern, eastern and western shores of the lake, but most of these were connected to railway lines and sent their coal to Carrington and some for local consumption at the
Newcastle Steelworks. Cardiff Colliery to the north of the lake did ship coal via Lake Macquarie.
Catherine Hill Bay Catherine Hill Bay was the only ocean jetty port on the northern coalfields. Coal from the
Wallarah Colliery was loaded here for Sydney and Newcastle. By using an ocean jetty, this colliery could exploit the coal seams of Lake Macquarie, without ships needing to enter the Swansea Channel. The port could still be dangerous, under unfavourable weather conditions, and
some ships came to grief there. Over the life of the port, there were three jetties. The second jetty was destroyed by a storm, in 1974, and replaced with a jetty of concrete and steel construction. It was the last port used by the coastal coal trade in 2002. Coal was last loaded for the short trip to Newcastle, where it was loaded for export. The last Wallarah Collliery operations, the Moonee Mine, nearby the jetty, closed in the same year.
Cabbage Tree Bay, Norah Head Cabbage Tree Bay is sheltered on the south by
Norah Head. There had been a wharf there from the 1830s, largely due to the activities of timber getters, cutting down
red cedar trees near the
Tuggerah Lakes. A new jetty and moorings were completed, around late 1902, for the purpose of landing materials for the construction of the
Norah Head Lighthouse, which was completed in 1903. A lease application for land for a coal mine and jetty there was made in 1901. By 1903, it was planned to open up coal seams there and extend the new jetty to be 700 feet long, with the expectation that coal would be mined and shipped from that minor port. However, it seems that Cabbage Tree Bay / Norah Head never developed as coal port.
Southern Coalfields — Illawarra Region mine of the Southern Coalfields. (Date unknown, within 1900–1927. Photographer: Broadhurst, William Henry, 1855–1927, from collection of the State Library of N.S.W.) Although lying much closer to Sydney, the southern coalfields were not developed early, due to the absence of any natural port. Coal in the southern coalfields was generally more easily won than in the northern field. The coal outcropped in sea cliffs or part way up the
Illawarra Escarpment and adit mining was feasible.
Adits were less costly to construct and operate than the shafts and sloping drifts of the northern coalfields. The southern coalfields could be worked profitably, if the problem of shipping could be solved. The absence of a suitable port held back development of the southern mines, until around 1849 when the
Mt Kiera mine opened. Coal from the southern coal fields, at various times, was loaded at
Wollongong Harbour and
Port Kembla and at the ocean jetty ports:
Bellambi;
Coalcliff; Hicks Point at
Austinmer; and
Sandon Point, Bulli. Port Kembla was originally an ocean jetty port but two breakwaters were added later to provide shelter. . (Date unknown, within 1900–1927) The wagons in the foreground are owned by South Bulli Colliery. (photographer: Broadhurst, William Henry, 1855–1927, from collection of the State Library of N.S.W.) Loading at the southern coalfield jetty ports typically used four-wheel wagons with hoppers fixed to the frames, which were tipped into chutes that led to high staithes from which the collier alongside the jetty or wharf was loaded. At Wollongong Harbour only, some loading was done by crane using wagons with removable hoppers, similar in concept to the ones used in the northern coalfields. After 1915, four-wheel bottom dump wagons were used to bring coal to the new No.1 Jetty at Port Kembla, via an unloading rail loop and dump station. This bottom-dumping operation was similar in concept to the coal-handling practice of today. Unlike the northern fields, mines of the southern coalfield were usually named after a locality or geographical feature and their names rarely changed over their lifetime. The number of mines was also less and the mines tended to have longer lives. (2006) Most of the southern coalfield mines were members of the Southern Coal Owners' Agency, which had as one of its aims "prevention of ruinous competition". It was a cartel-like organisation, controlling production volume, prices, and transport costs, but only for the southern coalfields. It lasted from 1893 to 1950, being renewed every few years by agreement. Although the collieries that were members owned sixty-miler ships, those ships were chartered by the Agency. The Agency managed the operations of the ships and paid the owner a monthly fee based on each ship's capacity. Although the operation of the ships may not have been profitable, the collieries seem to have seen controlling the shipping of their coal as important to ensure reliable delivery, and as a necessary cost. Collieries received an initial low payment upon delivery of their coal to a customer but also later received a share of the actual profits from all sales, in proportion to their market share. After the construction of the
Illawarra railway line, some mines using shafts appeared at the northern end of the field. Shafts were used so that the mine could be sited close to the railway line, for ease of loading. Examples were the South Clifton Colliery and the later (1910) arrangement of the Coalcliff Colliery. Over time, it would emerge that coal from the southern field is superior for making
metallurgical coke, when compared to the coal from the northern field. Southern coal came to dominate coke production—some southern mines were taken over by the steel producer,
Australia Iron and Steel, and other mines had their own cokeworks Belmore Basin is in the left foreground - with its coal staithes on the far-left - and the "Tee-wharf" is in the centre. Mt Kembla is in the centre-background with Mt Kiera on the right. The rail ine from Mt Kiera can be seen running from that mountain and that from Mt Pleasant running along the beach. Red Point - near the site of Port Kembla - is in the distance at the very top left. Wollongong was for a time the only safe anchorage on the southern coalfields and the third largest port in New South Wales. The
coal port at Wollongong Harbour consisted of the man-made Belmore Basin and the "Tee Wharf". On Belmore Basin, there were four coal staithes on the western side of the basin and two steam cranes on the eastern side. Loading at the "Tee Wharf" was by a single steam crane. The "Tee-Wharf" was exposed to weather from the north and north-east; the existing northern breakwater was not built until 1966–67. The port was connected to the
Mount Kiera and
Mount Pleasant Collieries by rail lines operated by the respective collieries. Originally these were horse-drawn but later used steam locomotives. Both lines opened using an unusual
narrow gauge of 3 foot 8½ inch. The Mount Kiera line was converted to
standard gauge in 1878. From then on, two staiths had standard gauge tracks and the other two had narrow gauge tracks. The tracks to the "Tee Wharf" were
dual-gauge. From 1875 to 1890, there was a cokeworks, which converted unsaleable fines to
coke, some of which was loaded at the port for Sydney. The Tee Wharf and its steam crane were occasionally used for loading coal, probably more commonly during replenishing of coal bunkers. Belmore Basin constrained the size and depth of vessels that could be loaded there, but it was better sheltered than ocean jetty ports. It was used by
sixty-milers, including small wooden vessels, such as
Dunmore, and relatively small sailing vessels, such as
Amy. By 1927, there was only one coal staith in operation at Wollongong. The last coal was loaded there in 1933, by which time it had been eclipsed as a coal port by Port Kembla. A second jetty belonged to the Southern Coal Company and was opened in 1887. It loaded coal sent by rail from the company's mine on the south face of Mount Kembla, behind
Unanderra, and from another mine that it purchased, the
Corrimal Colliery. In its earlier years—much like the other ocean jetty coal ports—Port Kembla was exposed to rough seas during bad weather, Between 1901 and 1937, first an eastern breakwater and then a northern breakwater was constructed, resulting in a large protected and safe anchorage now known as the "Outer Harbour". By 1937, the No.1 Jetty was loading coal from all the southern mines that shipped coal by sea, except those mines still using Bellambi or Bulli. After 1952, Port Kembla was the only coal port on the southern coalfields. The No.1 Jetty remained in service until it was replaced in 1963, by a new export coal loader located on the new "Inner Harbour".
Port Kembla remains a major coal export port.
Port Bellambi (date unknown). Sandon Point, Bulli is the first headland, in the lower half of the photograph, with
Bulli Jetty just visible. The long headland in the upper half of the photograph is Bellambi and its dangerous reef.|left —a scheme known as 'Bellambi Harbour'— to protect its two coal jetties, but that never happened. The Bellambi Coal Co. Jetty was damaged in a storm in 1898 and thereafter all coal went across the South Bulli Jetty. Coal was sent from the mines by rail to the jetty, where there were two rail tracks on the jetty—one for full wagons and the other for empty wagons—and two loading chutes (one for each hold of a sixty-miler). The coal then passed through a chute, directly into one hold of the ship moored alongside the jetty. In 1909, six colliers were loaded with a total of 4,500 tons in 14-hours. The jetty was also used, from 1901, for the loading of
coke, destined for the South Australian port of
Port Pyrie. The coke was made, using fine coal from the South Bulli Colliery, by the Bellambi cokeworks. It was established by
BHP, in 1901, to provide coke for its smelters at
Broken Hill, and from 1905 its new smelters at Port Pyrie. From 1915, the cokeworks at Bellambi and the smelters at Port Pyrie were owned by Broken Hill Associated Smelters. The cokeworks closed in July 1932; it was dismantled, with the equipment going to
Mt Isa. Bellambi was a particularly dangerous port. Bellambi Point protected the jetties from the south but its reef extends 600m to seaward The South Bulli Jetty operated until 1952. The jetty partially collapsed in 1955 and was demolished in 1970.
Coalcliff ) The Coalcliff Colliery, opened in 1878, was originally developed as a jetty mine. Coal from the mine, after screening, was brought directly onto the jetty. This arrangement made working the mine difficult, as there was limited storage for mined coal and only coal that could be shipped promptly could be mined. The jetty at Coalcliff was the smallest of the southern ocean jetties. It was very exposed to ocean swell, and shifting sand shoals added to the danger by changing the depth of water near the jetty. The jetty was used only by the colliery's own sixty-milers and then only in favourable weather. Even in weather described as moderate, it was unsafe to load at the jetty. Storms in 1878, 1881 and 1904 caused considerable damage to the jetty, further restricting shipping operations while damage was repaired and the jetty design modified.
Hicks Point, Austinmer Hicks Point is an old name for what is now known as Brickyard Point,
Austinmer. The Hicks family were early settlers of the area. The site of the landward end of the jetty was on a small
rock platform, on the beach in Hicks Bay. It was just to the north of Brickyard Point and its broad rock platform, which provided some shelter from southerly weather; today the area is used to launch boats. The Hicks Point jetty was built in 1886 for the North Bulli Coal Company's colliery at
Coledale Coal was railed from the mine to the jetty in wagons with bottom opening doors, which were opened over a hatchway cut in the jetty deck. The coal flowed onto loading chutes and from there into the hold of the ship. The jetty was damaged by storms in November 1903. The Hicks Point Jetty was no longer needed and fell into disuse. It was destroyed by fire in 1915. in 1945 and in 1949, when the centre section of the remaining structure collapsed and stranded four fishermen at the sea-end. Some of the structure was still standing in the mid-1960s but was gone by the end of the decade.
Planned port on Lake Illawarra A coal port on
Lake Illawarra was to have been developed by a company known as
Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation. Enabling legislation was passed in 1890, and land was purchased on the western foreshore of the lake. Some limited work was done on a breakwater at the entrance of the lake at
Windang. in 1893, Australia entered a serious
economic depression, which involved a
banking crisis. By 1895, it appeared that the port scheme had stalled. However, in that year, a
select committee was told that, while the original purpose had been a port for coal, there was now a plan to erect a smelter for
sulphide ores. An advantage of the smelter to the port scheme would be that ships could arrive ballasted with ore, for smelting, and depart carrying cargoes of coal. A railway was constructed from the planned site of the 'Ocean View' Colliery to near Elizabeth Point, just to the north of Tallawarra Point, where it was intended to develop the port and a township. The railway crossed, but was also connected to, the
South Coast railway, a little south of
Dapto railway station, around where Fowlers Road crosses the railway line now. It opened in December 1895, but was only used by
Dapto Smelting Works. The dredged channel across Lake Illawarra and the wharves at Elizabeth Point were never constructed, no coal was ever shipped, and the mine and jetty scheme was abandoned in 1902. Construction of the breakwater at Port Kembla had begun in 1901. == Sydney ==