The railway from
Dry Creek on the
Kapunda railway line to
Port Adelaide opened on 1 February 1868. Its original purpose was to allow goods and minerals from South Australia's mid-north (and from 1878, the
Murray River at
Morgan) to reach the Port without needing to travel via Adelaide. This line ran directly into
Port Dock station (now closed) which was Port Adelaide's main rail yard in the 19th century. Over the years, various alterations were made to the line as branch lines and goods yards opened and subsequently closed. One of the most important additions was the Rosewater Loop, which opened on 14 November 1915. The Rosewater Loop was built to help alleviate congestion at
Port Dock yard. It linked at Port Adelaide "A" Junction with a new route to
Glanville via the Commercial Road viaduct and
Ethelton and helped divert all through trains away from the Port Dock bottleneck. This relatively new addition to the railway infrastructure became the main line. In 1978, ownership and control of the line shifted from the
State Government-controlled
State Transport Authority (STA) to the
federal government-controlled
Australian National (AN). However the STA continued to operate local passenger trains over the route. The station and goods yards at
Port Dock closed in 1981. In 1988, the old Port Dock goods yard became the site of the
National Railway Museum and until 2023 was connected to the suburban Adelaide network, although the connection rarely saw any use.
ICI Osborne The ICI Osborne railway line was constructed for the
ICI Osborne works (later owned by
Penrice Soda Products) in the 1940s. The line branched off southerly near Hamilton Avenue,
Osborne to the plant. This line was extended at some point in the 1950s or 1960s southward to join the main line again near Seaborne Road. The line had industrial passenger service until 1980. The line was closed in 2014 following the cessation of the
Penrice Stone Train from the
Barossa Valley.
Renewal In 1982, the line was converted from
broad gauge to
dual gauge track. This coincided with AN's conversion of the
Crystal Brook to Adelaide line to
standard gauge that same year. The works included converting the Rosewater Loop to dual gauge, and a section of the
Outer Harbor line from the Rosewater junction to
Largs North railway station where the dual gauge would branch off on a new alignment to service sidings on the western side of the Port River. It also included providing standard gauge access to those sidings and the Pelican Point container berths. At some time, this was replaced by the
Birkenhead Loop which branched further south at
Glanville railway station and entered all the sidings from the south. The original route into Port Adelaide through the
Gillman marshalling yards closed when the Gillman yards were removed in the early 1990s. Following conversion of the Adelaide to
Melbourne corridor to standard gauge in 1995, a south-to-west triangle was constructed at Dry Creek. This link allows trains from Melbourne and the Islington Freight Terminal to travel directly to Port Adelaide without reversing in Dry Creek yard. In 2006, the seven kilometres of track on LeFevre Peninsula was upgraded in preparation for the opening of the
Mary MacKillop Bridge. The upgrade included closing many level crossings, increasing the track speed from 25 km/h to 60 km/h, reinstating a second track, and converting it from being managed as a long rail yard to being signalled and managed as part of the main line. It coincided with the new deep sea grain terminal at Pelican Point. The works also included a new 1500m crossing loop at Wingfield. In August 2008, work was completed on new road and rail bridges across the
Port River at Port Adelaide, downstream of the inner harbour. One of these, the
Mary MacKillop Bridge, diverted trains away from the Rosewater Loop and suburban rail network in Port Adelaide. Now all rail freight to and from the
Lefevre Peninsula travels along the Gillman Junction to Port Flat line and accesses the existing line to Pelican Point via the new bridge. Expanded handling facilities were constructed at Pelican Point and Outer Harbor, including a bulk grain handling terminal and overall rail tonnage is expected to increase. The main traffic using the Dry Creek -Port Adelaide line today includes: intermodal freight trains (import/export containers); bulk grain trains from agricultural areas of
South Australia for export via Port Adelaide; and other freight trains servicing industrial installations on the
Lefevre Peninsula (such as the
Mobil oil terminal). During 2019 ARTC commenced work to progressively remove the broad gauge rail and related infrastructure, retaining standard gauge only throughout. ==Passenger services==