Branch

"Branch: Lost Railway Lines of New South Wales and Victoria" is a richly illustrated journey into the vanished branch lines that once threaded their way through rural Australia. From the foothills of the Snowy Mountains to the forests of the Pilliga, from goldfields towns to soldier settlements, these lightly built railways connected small communities to the wider world and helped shape Australia's social, economic, and cultural history.

Drawing on meticulous research and a lifetime of railway photography, William Cope captures not only the trains and their stations, but the human stories that travelled along and beside the rails: Aboriginal dispossession and resilience, migrant arrivals, agricultural co-operatives, wartime mobilisations, and the quiet decline brought by the motor age.

Most of these lines have long since fallen silent. Yet their embankments, bridges, and repurposed stations remain as traces across the landscape. Through words and images, this book restores their presence, preserving the memory of a railway network that once reached far and wide across southeastern Australia.

The Lines:

Cootamundra > Gundagai > Tumut
Gilmore > Batlow > Kunama
Wagga Wagga > Tumbarumba
Culcairn > Holbrook
Goulburn > Taralga > Crookwell
Queanbeyan > Cooma > Bombala
Demondrille > Young > Cowra > Eugowra > Blayney
Parkes > Forbes > Cootamundra
Binnaway > Gwabegar
Castlemaine > Maldon
Wodonga > Tallangatta > Cudgewa
Everton > Myrtleford > Bright