Traditional owners

We acknowledge the Whadjuk people, the traditional custodians of the land and waterways on which the rail trail is built.

Rail line history 

In 1871 a Crown Lease was granted to a consortium from Victoria to cut jarrah on condition that a timber mill was built at Jarrahdale with a railway to Mangles Bay and a Jetty at Rockingham.

A 38.5 km wooden tramway was built. The steep line down the Darling Scarp used horse-drawn wagons. There were many accidents as the   wooden wagons were only equipped with hand-operated brakes. A locomotive, the ‘Governor Weld,’ replaced the wagons but difficulties persisted until 1878, when the wooden rails were replaced by solid iron rails.

These remained in use until the line became redundant in 1962, when line was altered and upgraded for diesel-electric locomotives to haul steel trucks loaded with bauxite from the Alcoa Jarrahdale mines to Kwinana for refining and export. The line was mothballed in 1996 when bauxite mining moved south. More historical information is available from the Old Post Office Museum.