Barmera railway line
The Barmera railway line was the second railway built to develop the Murray Mallee region of South Australia, in 1913. It followed the success of the Pinnaroo railway line in 1906. Both lines branched east from Tailem Bend to the north of the main Melbourne–Adelaide railway. The Brown's Well line was the more northerly, and extended into country which had not been developed much before the railway, partly due to the absence of any viable transport route for produce. The original terminus of the Brown's Well railway was at Meribah, not far from the Victorian border.
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Such was the optimism about this region, that three lines from the Brown's Well line to the Murray River, and an additional line between it and the Pinnaroo line, were approved even before it was completed. It was extended further to Renmark and Barmera in the 1920s, along with construction of another spur from Wanbi to near Moorook in 1925.