Portage railway

Updated on Dec 10, 2024

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Turntable portage railway huntsville august 17 2013 017

A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigable river or between two water bodies which are not directly connected. Cargo from waterborne vessels is unloaded, loaded onto conventional railroad rolling stock, carried to the other end of the railway, where it is unloaded and loaded onto a second waterborne vessel. A portage railway is the opposite of a train ferry.

The allegheny portage railway

Examples

The following are or were locations of portage railways:

Australia

Victor Harbor to Goolwa – originally horse drawn – mouth of Murray River often silted up or was useless due to low water levels.

the first railway in Queensland started at the inland river port of Ipswich rather than the capital of Brisbane to save money. Twenty years later, the line was extended to Brisbane.

several rail lines terminated at river ports, such as Robertson, Echuca, Bourke, Morgan, Brewarrina

Brazil

Madeira-Mamoré Railroad (365 km; 227 mi) along the huge rapids of upper Madeira

Canada

Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad

Chignecto Ship Railway

Huntsville and Lake of Bays Transportation Company

Nosbonsing & Nipissing Railway

White Pass and Yukon Route

China

The Three Gorges Portage Railways, on each side of the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges Dam area (see Three Gorges Dam#Portage railways). Preliminary work on this project started in 2012.