Unusual Drawbridge Railway Crossing in Australia

South of Rockhampton in Queensland, Australia, are a number of drawbridge-like crossings that carry 2-feet tracks of the Sugar Cane Railway operated by private sugar mills over the electrified North Coast Line of the Queensland Railway. When locomotives of the Sugar Cane Railway, also known as Tramways, need to cross the mainline, the drawbridges are lowered, and after the trains have passed, the two leaves of the bridges are raised up again. Queensland is (possibly) the only place in the world where drawbridges carrying railway tracks over another pair of railway tracks are found.

From the engineering point of view, drawbridges for tracks-over-tracks crossings are not necessary because such crossovers are easily handled by junctions, sometimes also called diamond crossing in reference to the diamond-shaped center. The two tracks need not necessarily be of the same gauge.