The Don River Railway is a volunteer-run vintage railway and museum in Don, a suburb of Devonport, Tasmania. It provides a passenger train ride from Don to Coles Beach (operationally known as Don Junction) and return. The current line follows a reconstructed section of the former Melrose line that ran between Don Junction and Paloona. The Don River Railway is open seven days a week, closing only for Christmas Day, Good Friday, and Anzac Day. Train services operate from Thursday to Sunday, using either either a 1940s ex-Tasmanian Government Railways DP rail car, or a heritage carriage set hauled by either a steam locomotive or a vintage diesel locomotive.

History

The heritage operations consist of the northernmost stretch of the Melrose Line. The Melrose Line ran from Don Junction (now Coles Beach) to Melrose and Paloona. In the 1920s, the line was extended to Barrington, but this closed in 1928. Occasional trains ran on the closed section on Devonport Cup and Show days, but this ceased in 1935. The Melrose-Paloona section closed around this time, and following the 1948 closure of the Broken Hill Propiertary company's limestone facilities at Melrose, which had been the mainstay of operations on the line ever since it opened, the line was largely redundant. In 1963, the railway was fully closed, and ripped up between Melrose and Don Village, however the remaining section of the track remained in situ. In 1973 the Van Dieman Light Rail Society began pushing to restore heritage operation, which it did three years later. Ever since the VDLRS had operated on the line, under the trading name Don River Railway. The company used to run mainline heritage operations from Don Village and their Inveresk workshops prior to the 2004 removal of all T&H services from Tasmania's mainline. The service survived throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, opening the Two Tracks function centre in 2020. On 4 April 2023, a fire destroyed a carriage shed and some carriages.

Steam locomotives

A former Tasmanian Government Railways Pacific-type locomotive, M4, is the Don River Railway's primary operational steam locomotive. CCS 25 was reactivated in January 2023, but awaits approval to return to revenue operations. Fowler no.5268 is currently non-operational following the expiry of its boiler ticket, but there are plans for its reactivation following CCS 25's return to operations. Future plans include an overhaul of M4, including potential for refurbishment or replacement of its boiler, or the return to service of MA2 or No.8 Heemskirk.

Diesel locomotives