A Derwent Valley heritage rail group is hopeful trains could one day run on both sides of the River Derwent after the state government agreed to extend a neighbouring volunteer railway’s lease through Hobart’s northern suburbs.
The Tasmanian Transport Museum’s corridor lease will be extended from Mentmore Street in Chigwell through to Granton, including the former Granton railway station.
Derwent Valley Railway (DVR) chairman Matthew Davey said it was “a good day for heritage rail in southern Tasmania”.
He hopes trains could eventually run from Glenorchy to Granton on one side of the river, alongside services on the Derwent Valley Line on the other.
Beyond Granton, the line is no longer connected to the rest of Tasmania’s rail network following construction of the new Bridgewater Bridge.
“These lines were built as one system,” Davey said.
“In time there is no reason southern Tasmania cannot have complementary heritage services … with room for statewide tours in partnership with the transport museum and Don River Railway.”
“That only happens if governments keep leasing corridors to the volunteer groups who are prepared to do the work.”
The DVR holds a 3.1-kilometre lease on the New Norfolk to Boyer corridor and is restoring track and rolling stock at New Norfolk.
The group said it remained committed to running heritage passenger services towards Westerway and Mount Field National Park as access, safety accreditation and partnerships allow.
Last month, Derwent Valley councillors voted to progress plans, without committing to construction, for a 32-kilometre walking and riding trail along the disused line between Hayes and Maydena.
The DVR opposes the proposal. Under state law, rail and recreational use cannot share the same corridor.
“We support light passenger rail and historic tourism rail because it works,” Davey said.
“It brings people into towns, it keeps skills alive and it uses infrastructure that is already there instead of ripping it up and calling that progress.”
“What the museum is doing at Glenorchy and what we are doing in the Derwent Valley is the same job on different stretches of the old network.”
The museum has run passenger services to Berriedale since December 2025.
It has said the Granton lease is not yet signed, with Building Tasmania to survey the line and seek parliamentary approval in a process expected to take around 12 months.
Davey said heritage rail was worth preserving.
“The significance of heritage rail should not be thrown away,” he said.
“Get the leases right, back the people on the ground and get back on track.”
