AUSTRALIA: Port Dock station on a spur from the Outer Harbor line in central Port Adelaide has reopened after 43 years.
The line from Adelaide to Port Adelaide opened in 1856 when the first station was located in a thriving commercial area. Over time, it became one of the least used on the network, and it closed in September 1981 with people using the Outer Harbor line instead. Part of the site is now the National Railway Museum.
In 2016 the South Australia government looked at two options for the future of the Outer Harbor line: electrification and the provision of a short spur into central Port Adelaide, or conversion to light rail and construction of a new on-street branch to Semaphore.
In the 2017 state budget, the Labor government allocated A$16·4m to rebuild Port Dock station and construct a 1 km spur from the Outer Harbor line using the rail connection to the museum. However, a new government put the project on hold in June 2019 citing a cost increase to A$40m.
Labor made the new line and station an election promise, and when re-elected in 2022 it agreed to commit A$51m for the project and a bus interchange.
The project was delivered by the Public Transport Projects Alliance of McConnell Dowell, Arup and Mott MacDonald.
The first timetabled train service ran from central Adelaide on August 25.
