Old Hume Highway - Major Deviations

Major Deviations

The section of the Hume Highway between the Cross Roads, at Prestons on Sydney's southwestern fringe, and the Medway Rivulet near Berrima, was completely superseded in the period 1973-1992 by a new route built as a freeway.

Most of the highway route between Breadalbane, west of Goulburn, and Derringullen Creek, west of Yass, was replaced during 1994. This included a bypassing of the Cullerin Range. The previous route of the highway over the Cullerin Range was itself a deviation built in 1920, using sections of railway formation abandoned several years earlier when the Main Southern Railway was deviated at the time it was duplicated. The deviations were an attempt to ease the gradients against heavily-laden Sydney-bound steam trains.

The Breadalbane-Derringullen Creek deviation is in most places quite close to the previous highway, most of which remains for local use. This section also included the abandoning of the route over the Mundoonen Range which, when it was rebuilt in the 1960s, was designed to be duplicated.

Between Conroys Gap and Coolac, most of the earlier alignment was replaced in 1983 and 1996 by realignment associated with dual carriageway construction, although sections such as that south of Connors Creek were rebuilt in 1979 with the earthworks being done for a second carriageway, which was subsequently built in 1994.

The current route of the highway between Tumblong and Tarcutta is the third route of the highway in this location. The original route led west from Tumblong along the Murrumbidgee River, before turning south over difficult country, crossing what is now the Sturt Highway and rejoining the current route of the highway as Lower Tarcutta Road. This was replaced in December 1938 by the first Tumblong deviation, to the east of the current route. The main features of this section of the highway were a deep, narrow cutting and the reinforced concrete bowstring arch bridge over Hillas Creek. This has been preserved, and is visible on the western side of the highway close to the interchange with the Snowy Mountains Highway.

North of Albury, a major deviation of the highway was constructed in the 1930s due to the inundation of the original route caused by the raising of the wall of the Hume Dam on the Murray River. The deviation commences at Bowna and terminates at Guinea St Albury (the first part of the Riverina Highway east from Albury as far as what is now Old Sydney Road was until then the Hume Highway). At either end of the original route is the strange sight of the road disappearing into the waters of Lake Hume.