Windmill Hill Cutting

Windmill Hill Cutting is a large cutting on the dual gauge railway east of Toodyay in Western Australia. The cutting was constructed between 1963 and 1964 for the Eastern Railway route through the Avon Valley, and is part of the interstate standard gauge railway connecting Perth with the rest of Australia.

At the eastern end of the valley, Leighton Contractors Ltd. began work on three large cuttings near Toodyay. At the Windmill Hill, where it had been planned to bore a tunnel, they had to drill and blast through solid granite rock to a depth of almost 35 metres. Nearly half a million tons of rock were to be moved, yet only thirty men and a few large machines were used.

Prospector railcar WDA001 on the approach to Windmill Hill Cutting (February 2004).

[1][2]

The route became operational in February 1966.[3][4][5][6][7] The lookout point for the cutting has a plaque that claims one of the deepest in Australia, with the depth at 35 metres and length as 175 metres.[8] The Avon Valley cuttings had also uncovered sections of unstable rock, and effort was made to fix walls where required.

Due to the size of the cutting, the underlying geology is exposed to give a clear exposure of rock formations. It was nominated as a geological heritage site in the 1990s.[9]

  • Plaque at lookout.
    Plaque at lookout.
  • Looking east towards Northam.
    Looking east towards Northam.

See also

References
  1. page 104 of Affleck, Fred N; Clark, Bill; Western Australian Government Railways Commission (1978), On track : the making of Westrail, 1950 to 1976, Department of Conservation & the Environment, West, ISBN 978-0-7244-7560-5
  2. Western Australian Railways Institute (1950), Western Australian Railways Institute magazine, W.A. Railways Institute, retrieved 4 July 2023: December 1962 and into early 1963 editions of the Railways Institute magazine had articles about the engineering achievements of the Avon Valley works
  3. http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/artcollect.nsf/f799bfff1d02d8fa482570bd002af177/95b70e20e89b189548256d260022dd69?OpenDocument Archived 19 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine - painting during construction of railway
  4. Lee, Dorothy (1966), Windmill Hill Cutting, near Toodyay, Western Australia, archived from the original on 3 July 2023, retrieved 3 July 2023
  5. Windmill Hill railway cutting near Toodyay 1960s, 1966, archived from the original on 3 July 2023, retrieved 3 July 2023
  6. Steam train - Windmill Hill, 1970, archived from the original on 3 July 2023, retrieved 3 July 2023
  7. https://www.railheritagewa.org.au/archive_scans/displayimage.php?pid=19804 Archived 3 July 2023 at the Wayback Machine Rail heritage WA photo collection has 44 named images of the cutting
  8. See photo in gallery 'Plaque at lookout'
  9. National Trust of Australia (W.A.), (issuing body.) (1991), Windmill Hill railway cutting, National Trust of Australia (W.A.), archived from the original on 3 July 2023, retrieved 3 July 2023

31°35′S 116°30′E

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