Type : Station
Distance from Sydney : 816.513km
Opened : 26 June 1910
Closed : 30 June 1974 (station closed, passenger service discontinued), 1995 (signal box closed)
Status : Closed
Name meaning : After Fairy Mount, the private station of Messrs Fawcett and Maine
Notes: Last site on the line to gain CTC. Down side platform was 76.2 metres in length, later reduced to a 46.02 metre platform relocated to the Up side in 1930. The platform contained a station building with general and ladies waiting rooms and an out-of room. 26/9/1930 - 385 metre long interlocked loop installed. 20/11/1978 - platform and station demolished. There was a loop siding on the Down side with a pig race. The nearest town was 4km away to the west. The original platform had a type E cream shed and B2 waiting shed.
NSWGR loco 4479 and a 45 class haul a goods train about to exchange electric staffs at Fairy Hill, north of Casino, 1987 (Wikimedia Commons)
Signalman changing staff with driver of up train about 1995, Michael Harley
Location of Fairy Hill (Six Maps)
Fairy Hill track diagram (Cheech Cat)
Inside Fairy Hill box (Rodney Foster)
Terry Waldron:
"No Staffs in instruments suggests the last rights had been given and CTC introduced"
Rodney Foster:
"Terry Waldron i think from memory it was the last day of service. I was out there with the bridge gang doing something"
Peter Lougher:
"not quite CTC but certainly closure. All the boxes north of Casino were closed and replaced by long modern motor point worked automatic crossing loops for another 10 years or so."
Fairy Hill, 1994 (Chris Harrison)
48??/48?? Through Fairy Hill heading to Casino on up freight. (Philip Tatarinov)
Fairy Hill loop taken from the mast of up home signal towards Casino (Philip Tatarinov)
Fairy Hill signal box - January 1994. (Steve McElroy)
Graham Moses:
I remember doing signal maintenance there in the early 90's and seeing the signal branch painters painting what would become the last colour palette prior to the station closing.
John Parker:
Graham Moses I got that frame as well!
Graham Moses:
John Parker neither of the painters are working anymore. You'll need to repaint it yourself.
Richard Butcher:
Used to visit the local school at Fairey Hill, my mates farm adjoined, he owned a HRD, Vincent Black Shadow very rare and I rode it, thanks Warren R. They grew peanuts in the red soil there. Used to watch the C 35's and the ground frame staff exchange...
Graeme Leese:
Joan Dad's playground
Wal Browning
Graeme Leese I was a friend of Bruce Leese back in the 40`s any relation ?
Graeme Leese:
Wal Browning no idea sorry mate. Few different spellings of Leese but our side knows no Bruce
Ken Date:
I stopped there once to get a shot of the Brisbane Limited and the dog at the house across the tracks would not stop barking. Luckily I wasn't shooting video in those days.
Stephen Martin:
I have never been so cold in all my born days as I was out there one morning waiting for possession , the breeze from the ranges cut like a knife , they got gas wells out that way now and that box is gone I think , everything was dozed up in a heap near the level Xing and the dogs were still there , we were on the curve easing project
Richard Butcher:
Thanks Warren, peanut brand Fairy Glen, wow, a lady by the name of Norma Reeves was on the switch Board at Fairy Hill located under a cool shady, MortenBay fig tree, as it got bloody hot up that way. Also flooded just down the grade towards Kyogle.
Steep grade at Fairy Hill (Philip Tatarinov)
Fairy Hill, 1969 (John Shields)
When our Brisbane National Rail ex QR men had to learn the signal boxes on the coast. L-R Greg Rootsey , Wayne Horton & Larry Matters ( DIC) in Fairy Hill box, between Kyogle & Casino. (Philip Tatarinov)
NSW Structures Fairy Hill 27-04-1999 (Bob Richardson)
48??/48?? Through Fairy Hill heading to Casino on up freight. Fairy Hill loop taken from the mast of up home signal towards Casino. (Philip Tatarinov)
Fairy Hill, layout diagram
44223 leading a ballast train departs Fairy Hill 13/9/91 (Gavin McLaughlan)
Fairy Hill 15/9/91 (Gavin McLaughlan)
Up goods at Fairy Hill, 14/1/1992 (Doug Knowles)
Ken Date:
Fairy Hill was the last location to use the auto exchanger and that occurred on 17 July 1986, when the northbound Brisbane Limited used the device. Noel Reed and I inspected the train registers during an inspection at Fairy Hill and the other signal boxes to Border Loop in June 1987 to isolate the day of the exchanger's last use. They were still in place at Fairy Hill at that time and we talked the signalman into setting one of them up for us for a photo. I wrote a short piece in Railway Digest about the end of the line for the auto exchangers in NSW, which appeared in the September 1987 issue, together with said photo. I am reasonably certain they were also finished in Victoria by then (SA stopped using them in about 1981), which would make Fairy Hill the last place in Australia an auto exchanger was used. There was no fanfare about the last occasion and not even an official edict to discontinue their use. The demise just evolved over time due to a variety of factors, one of them being practical issues of locos without exchangers (81 class, which were on the NC by then, as well as 48 class locos often leading) and the lack of bull rings, which were taken out of service when faulty and not repaired, leading to a shortage. Ground equipment was also increasingly prone to failure. The signalmen we spoke with preferred hand exchanges to lifting the exchanger out of the ground, especially at night and when there were snakes around. Drivers were apparently also increasingly resistant to continuing to use the auto exchangers. The exchangers had given very good service over many decades but, like most things on the railway, their time eventually came to an end.
Fairy Hill, February 1982 (State Archives)
Construction of the line near Fairy Hill (State Archives)
3801 at Fairy Hill, 18/9/1988 (Winney Collection)
A couple of days ago I posted a pic of the tiny halt at St Helena on the Mur'bah branch. Here is another such structure, this time on the main line between Casino and Kyogle. I think this was called Fairy Hill, locals can confirm. I lived 3 years in Northern Rivers but it is over 40 years ago, the memory fades. I do recall the hill adjacent to Kyogle township is known as Fairymount. In this 1986 view, 44231 and a 45 class are working a freight from Brisbane to Sydney. (Chris Sim)