Oberon Tarana Heritage Railway president Greg Bourne gives update on Oberon to Hazelgrove project

A contract was signed in Bathurst in June last year to bring the almost six-kilometre line from Oberon to Hazelgrove (part of the longer line from Oberon to Tarana) back to life and work got started not long after.

The rebuild is being funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Government and the work has been carried out by Dubbo company Complete Asset Management with assistance from volunteers from the Oberon Tarana Heritage Railway (OTHR).

OTHR has a long-held ambition to reopen the line as a tourist attraction.

President Greg Bourne says the track has been completed to Hazelgrove, north-east of Oberon, but more work remains to be done.

"We've just about finished the work for accessible access to the platform, and even though none of that work could be called 'heritage', it had to be done," he said.

"We've acquired the rails and points we need to build the turnaround at Hazelgrove and we've got to rebuild the station there.

"There's a lot of work still to do, but we'll get there.

"There is also certification of train crews to be done.

"Drivers have to be certified to work on specific lines, so we will get onto that as soon as we can run trains over the track.

"The track and rolling stock also have to be certified by the appropriate regulatory authorities."

The original plan was for trains to be running again on the line as part of celebrations for the centenary of the opening of the Oberon to Tarana line, but Mr Bourne said that is not a certainty.

"There have been some delays which weren't expected but we will be going ahead with the centenary celebrations, the ball, the picnic in the [Oberon] Common and basically everything except train trips to Hazelgrove, but we are optimistic that we still might be able to run the trains," he said.

"We'll know more as we get closer to the date."

He said OTHR has about 15 volunteers working on the project - "some retired and some with jobs".

"We would love more volunteers, but some of the work requires specialised skills and experience," he said.

"For example, the carpenter working on some of the timber replacements in the carriages needs to be able to work to tolerances of fractions of a millimetre and painters need to know how to use the sorts of paints that were used on old trains.

"These aren't general DIY skills, but we've got the people who know how to do them."

Mr Bourne said he had been volunteering with OTHR since 2017, "but things only got really busy in the last year or two when we received some government grants".

"Until then there was a lot of wishful thinking, but now we have the money to put our plans into action," he said.

REGION'S RAIL REFURBISHMENTS: