Ballarat Buninyong Railway Line (The Bunny Hop)

Commenced	1888
Opened	11 September 1889
Closed	2 February 1947 (to Eureka) 1 December 1986
Technical
Line length	11 km (6.8 mi)

The line was closed to passenger services in November 1930. The section from Eureka to Buninyong was closed on 2 February 1947, leaving a short branch to Eureka, which closed on 1 December 1986

The Argus – Melbourne – Thursday 20th November 1930 – Page 13 

As arrangements for the institution of a bus service have been completed sooner than  

anticipated the passenger train service to Buninyong will cease on Monday when the Buninyong line will be served by two goods trains a week. 

Link to THE PRESENT DAY MAP SHOWING THE ALIGNMENT OF THE LINE 

            

           

 

Peel St 

THE BUNINYONG RAILWAY OPENING.   

Ballarat Star (Vic.: 1865 - 1924), Monday 16 September 1889, page 3 

 

….....the children’s treat, which was on a scale deserving of more congratulatory mention. The idea of giving the children, a full share of the festivities of the day, and of creating for them a pleasant landmark of memory for their after years, was enthusiastically taken up, …. so that a sum of close on £4O was soon available. The funds being thus assured the three local bakers and confectioners were instructed to make lavish preparation for the day, and Messrs R. Graham, B. Pearce, and Lennox superintended the programme of proceedings. It was intended to muster the children at the Temperance Hall and parade them at the station, ready to give a song of welcome to the visitors by the special train. As, however, the train was about an hour late, the singing was reluctantly abandoned, as it. was found impossible to keep the excited children in a formal position for so long an interval. As considerably over 1000 children were present, contingents having arrived from Scott’s Marsh, Durham, Black Lead, Cambrian Hill, and Napoleons, they had to be conveyed to Ballarat in instalments, the first load of happy youngsters starting at about 2 p.m., and the remainder following in subsequent trains.  

THE BUNINYONG RAILWAY. 

Ballarat Star. Thursday 6 June 1889, page 4 

The junction of the Buninyong with the main line is half a mile from the Eastern station, at which point the track sweeps to the right through a cutting on a curve of 15 chains radius. That is to say, if one had a mammoth pair of compasses with a comfort able straddle from leg to leg of just 330 yards, and if one could stick one leg in the ground, and scratch a curve with the other, the line so marked would represent the curvature of the cutting in question. This is the one which became necessary owing to the after determination to carry the rails under Victoria street instead of across it on the level. It is, in one part, 21 feet deep, and from it there were taken 37,000 cubic yards of “spoil.” Once through this cutting the line enters upon the undulating country which extends, with a gradual rise to the foot spurs of Mount Buninyong. Skirting round the eastern side of Ballarat East we dive under Eureka street, which is carried overhead on a bridge 30 feet wide, and, soon after, under Clayton street at a point near the town boundary. The only other overhead bridge is in Barkly street, Buninyong. Besides these there are eleven level crossings most of which will be protected by “cow pits,” the traffic on the roads so intersected being too small to require a gatekeeper. Of culverts there are no less than 35, mostly if unimportant dimensions, the exceptions being those which take the flood waters of the steep gulches crossed by the hue between the summit and the Union Jack. Three of these channels are 5 feet by 5 feet in the clear, arched with bricks set in cement mortar. The highest bank on the line is at the approach to the Union Jack bridge, where the permanent way is carried 37 feet above the surface before entering upon the bridge proper. The deepest cutting is on the descent into the Buninyong valley, after topping the hill, it is 31 feet from the surface, and there are one or two more between the summit and the creek nearly as deep, besides a heavy one not far from the Buninyong terminus. The sharpest curve on the line is 15 chains radius and the stillest grade 1 in 40. The total amount of excavation in connection with the line is 220,000 yards. I have put these particulars in a corner by themselves, because they are always considered the thing to have in a railway report, and because nobody cares much about them, and because they don't assimilate kindly with other matter. Fancy a man saying, “The engine swept grandly with its living freight across the plain, on a glade of one in 100 along a bank 3 feet 9 inches high, mostly formed out of side cuttings, and boxed up with gravel ballast" There is a lot of poetry about a railway, and a lot of sober prose —but they don’t mix well. We must go back now to the Town boundary, near to which will be the first station miles from Ballarat East. This will be what is known as a fully appointed station as distinguished from mere platforms where folks are baked or frozen according to the time of year, and tramp to and fro, vowing that the train never runs to time. The Butts station will have a goods shed, and a ticket office, and a sheltered platform, a variety of mural advertisement, and possibly an automatic weighing machine. It will have much call on practising and match days, and the predominating character of its arrivals and departures will be distinctly military. Not altogether though Settlement has been creeping that way for years past, and the coming of the railway will quicken its pace. There are already in the close neighbourhood the Atlas soap and candle factory, and the Canadian battery of Mr Pearce, which has long been a notable landmark. Altogether the Butts station should give a very fair account of itself in the traffic returns. Hereabouts is a nice list of engineering which the casual passer-by may not notice. The railway station yard was located in its present position for sufficient engineering reasons, with which you and I, dear reader, need not trouble. But a vested right, in the form of a race connected with Messrs Pearce’s quartz mill was there before. The race couldn’t be carried over the line nor around it, so the only resource was to carry it under. This was done by means of an underground channel, which runs from side to side of the station yard, and has it either end a large settlement pit, lined with masonry and cemented. The expense was considerable, but the vested right had to be respected. As the engine moves rapidly along towards Mount Clear we notice more particularly that the grades are very much broken, and that, in fact, the line is a succession of varying slopes, mostly rising towards the way we go. This is because the constructing engineer interpreted, with almost painful conscientiousness, his instructions to “keep the earthworks down.” The traveller along the line will be apt to wish that these instructions had been followed less closely, not that the hue is not sound enough, and safe enough, but it is, in places, rather too suggestive of a switchback. Mount Clear station yard is reached in two miles from the butts, and here we are 4 1/4 miles from Ballarat East. Here, also, is to be a full-sized station, with goods sheds, and the usual etcetera's of accommodation for passengers. Where either passengers or goods will come from does not yet appear, as the old coach road is, I should judge, half a mile away or more, and the signs of settlement are neither impressive nor numerous. If the railway succeeds in robbing the rood of its present traffic, the station may in time become busy enough, but at the expanse of ruining the houses of business along the old route, which would seem very hard lines, and not exactly fair ones, to those whose property was depreciated and whose living taken away. If, on the other hand, the road traffic keeps on the old hue of travel, the Mount Clear station might come handy as a place of solitary confinement for some recalcitrant stationmaster. Leaving Mount Clear we skirt (that is, the railway does) the head of the old one eye Gully, rich as to its lower section in the days gone by, and patchy and stringy towards its head. But we are fast nearing the summit level of the line, and, after panting up a long incline of 1 m 46 we glide into a little stretch of level line before taking that steep and sinuous track to the beautiful valley below. At the summit is a good-sized pool of water which, for some reason or other, has been dubbed Lake Rogers. Here the road and the rail come to the closest quarters, being only some 60 or 70 yards apart, and here for the present we will leave them, only remarking that, at the summit, the rails are 1624 feet above sea level. At Ballarat East station the height is 1413, and at the Buninyong station 1468. That is to say the railway level hence to Buninyong falls more than 150 feet in a little better than a mile and a quarter. 

During the 1940s, five stations were closed, and the line continued to be used for goods traffic until 1947.

Tenders for the removal and disposal of station buildings at Mount Helen and Canadian were called for in January 1932. The last remaining building after that was the stationmaster's cottage at Buninyong.

Commenced	1888
Opened	11 September 1889
Closed	2 February 1947 (to Eureka) 1 December 1986
Technical
Line length	11 km (6.8 mi)

Researched and compiled by Andrew Parker 2020