The Mount Pleasant railway line was a railway line on the South Australian Railways network. It was opened between Balhannah and Mount Pleasant in September 1918 and ran until March 1963 as a freight and passenger service.Adelaide Hills Rail Trail - History Part of its trackbed is now the Amy Gillett Bikeway rail trail near to Adelaide.Rail Trails news article
History The line opened on 16 September 1918 between Balhannah, 10 kilometres east of Mount Lofty, and Mount Pleasant.W.H. Callaghan, "The Mount Pleasant Line", Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, October 1994, pp.274-281. It had six stations and a number of halts; typically, the halts were located near level crossings. The six stations were Oakbank, Woodside, Charleston, Mount Torrens, Birdwood, and Mount Pleasant. The seven halts were Mappinga, Riverview, Kayannie, Muralappie, Milkappa Road, Crane Road, and Narcoonah.
The line was closed on 4 March 1963, and the way between Balhannah and Oakbank has mostly returned to private landowners.
Rail trail This former railway is in the jurisdiction of the Adelaide Hills Council, which in 2003 commissioned a feasibility study into the best use of the land. The report recommended it be converted to a rail trail, with which the council agreed but considered beyond their means to implement. However, since that time, the development of a rail trail led to the opening of the Amy Gillett Bikeway in 2010, named in honour of the late Amy Gillett, a South Australian-born Olympic cyclist who had died in 2005. As of 2015, the conversion had reached from Balhannah to Mount Torrens. The trail is in the process of being extended to Birdwood.
Line guide StationImageOpenedAdditional informationMount Pleasant1918Terminus; closed 1963Birdwood1918Closed 1963Mount Torrens1918Closed 1963Charleston1918Closed 1963Woodside1918Closed 1963Oakbank1918Closed 1963Balhannah1883Former junction station on the Adelaide-Wolseley line. Closed 1963
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