Railway details

Waiting for the train

We went south to the village of Michelago today. It's 50km or so south of Canberra, just off the Monaro Highway. Once it was a busy town, but now it's quite small and without many of the services it used to have. Maybe that will change though, as it's cheaper to buy property there than Canberra, and it's within commuting distance to both Canberra and Queanbeyan.

You'd be waiting a while for the train at this station though. Opened in 1887, this branch line was eventually extended to Cooma in 1889 and Bombala in 1921, but in 1887, if you wanted to go to Cooma, you got off the train at the terminus here and boarded a stage coach for the rest of the journey. The branch line was closed in 1989, but opened as a limited heritage railway from 1993 until 1997, when the line was washed out near Royalla. However, there is a campaign to repair and reopen the line - if you're interested, there's a petition and more information here.