NSWRail & telegraph
Teralba
The railway and the pits made a lakeside village.
1880sNorthern railway is built
WHAT STARTED IT
Teralba grew from the camp of workers building the Gosford–Waratah railway along Lake Macquarie’s northern shore in the mid-1880s. Coal mines and gravel quarries gave the new rail settlement its work.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The Great Northern Coal Company began mining in 1886, its line joining the railway at Teralba station, and the mine became Pacific Colliery in 1914. The station opened in 1887, and the first Lake Macquarie Shire Council meeting was held in Teralba Court House in 1906.
TURNING POINTS
1884Amos and Co. open a gravel quarry and a railway construction camp forms.
1886The Gravel Pits temporary school opens in February.
1887The Great Northern colliery starts production in July; the station opens on 15 August.
1906Lake Macquarie Shire Council holds its first meeting in Teralba Court House.
1914The Great Northern mine, renamed several times, becomes Pacific Colliery.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie between Speers Point and Booragul, still served by trains on the main northern line. Quarrying continues nearby, and the former Sneddon house in Railway Street, marked with its owner’s initials, recalls its colliery days.