It is incredibly rare for a passenger train to travel along the Botany Goods Line, but as part of the Transport Heritage Expo over the October 2023 long weekend, I got to ride this line on a CPH Rail Motor and grab the best seat right at the front of the train!

Our journey starts at Port Botany, alongside the Ampol Oil Terminal, and then we make a leisurely journey through the industrial suburb of Banksmeadow, which is full of container terminals and other transport and distribution related businesses.

After passing old Botany Yard, Botany Industrial Park and a Kellogg's Factory, you'll see the first signs of work to upgrade and duplicate the 3 kilometre single track section. This is all part of the Botany Rail Duplication project, and includes quite a few new bridges, including one over the Southern Cross Drive M1 motorway.

Our journey on the Botany Goods Line then continues around the eastern edge of Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, where the Domestic Terminal is. Along this section, you'll see new bridges crossing O'Riordan Street and Robey Street and turnouts waiting to be installed for a new crossover junction close to Joyce Drive.

After Ewan Street, the line returns to double track (well 3 tracks for a while) and continues around Sydney Airport before crossing the Alexandra Canal. Along this section, you'll see several new roads that are being built as part of the Sydney Gateway Project, and these new roads will be Toll Free and most will have cycleways.

Its then over the south west approach to Sydenham Station via a Steel Pratt Truss Bridge, before running alongside the T3 Bankstown Line on the approach to Marrickville Station. At this point, our train joins the Main Goods Lines at Marrickville Junction. Both this and the Botany Line are part of the Metropolitan Freight Network, that keeps goods traffic off the busy suburban passenger lines.

We continue past Dulwich Hill Station, going under the new Aerial Concourse that opened a few days later, and then past Jack Shanahan reserve to the point where an old goods line used to join this rail corridor.

* Chapters *
0:00 Introduction
1:55 Port Botany to Banksia Street (Botany)
11:50 Banksia Street (Botany) to Ewan Street (Mascot) - single track section and duplication works)
18:51 Ewan Street (Mascot) to Marrickville Junction (End of Botany Line)
27:49 Marrickville Junction to Dulwich Hill

* Mentioned in this video *
Drivers Eye View of Botany Goods Line in July 2022 by Sydney Anonymous
-    • [CabView] Port Botany to Minto Trip T...  

Track Names came from ARTC and Rail Safe Track Diagrams
ARTC- https://www.artc.com.au/uploads/ARTCS...
RailSafe - https://railsafe.org.au/__data/assets...

Link to information about the duplication works and project updates - https://proj.artc.com.au/botany-dupli...

* Credits and Attribution *
OpenRailwayMap uses Map Data © OpenStreetMap contributors: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
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Sydney Airport Runway and Port Botany
Attribution - Maksym Kozlenko,
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
Page Link - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Botany Bay Ports
Attribution - MDRX
CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
Page link -https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

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