Railway Bridge at Hookina Creek on the Leigh Creek line.

The Hookina railway bridge is on the Port Augusta to Leigh Creek broad gauge railway line.

This bridge first constructed in the early 1950’s, when the new broad gauge line was being built from Port Augusta to Leigh Creek.

On the 14th of February 1955 a huge flood flowed down the Hookina creek and washed away the narrow gauge bridge on the Old Ghan line at Hookina railway siding (township of Wonoka) and this the new partly constructed bridge. (see the B&W image)

In the images below you can see the large concrete bridge pylons laying on their sides. The weight of these would be at least 80 tons and the cement was mixed by hand.  An older local person told me that some pylons were not found after the flood in 1955 and it was believed the the swirl of the water around the pylons base created a self drilling action and the pylons sank into the gravel base of the creek.

In 2007 the Hookina creek again raged a large flood, the water must have been over the top of the bridge as debre was left on the railway lines. From the images you will be to see how high the bridge is.