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Hume Highway (Decommissioned)

National Route 31 trailblazer with button copy from 1954. Hume Highway was the first route to receive a National Route number, which began as a trial. Image © Department of Main Roads. Scanned from The Roadmakers, A History of Main Roads in New South Wales, ISBN 0 7240 0439 4

Statistics:

• Length: 500 km
• Northern Terminus: Narellan Road (Metroad 9) interchange at Mt Annan, near Campbelltown on the outskirts of southwestern Sydney.
• Southern Terminus: NSW-Vic border at Albury
• Miscellaneous: Continues as Hume Freeway (M31) at the Victorian border and travels for 303 km to the Metropolitan Ring Road (M80).
• Suburbs, Towns & Localities along route: Campbelltown, Wilton, Tahmoor, Bargo, Mittagong, Berrima, Sutton Forest, Marulan, Goulburn, Gunning, Yass, Jugiong, Coolac, Gundagai, Tarcutta, Holbrook and Albury.

Route Numbering:

• Former:
• Decommissioned: 2013
• Road Authority Internal Classification: HW2 1

General Information:

The Hume Highway is one of Australia's most vital highway links. Providing access between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's 2 largest cities. The National Highway section of the Hume Highway consists of almost 100% dual carriageway road, either rural expressway or motorway standard. Works to duplicate small sections of highway that are not dual carriageway are well underway.

In NSW, the highway in one form or another started life as the Great South Road, linking Sydney with the southern highlands and eventually beyond. The highway was named in 1928 after Hamilton Hume (1797-1873), a famous explorer in the early 19th century who, in 1824, in conjunction with William Hovell first found an overland route between Sydney and the infant colonial outpost of Port Phillip, the original name of Melbourne.

NH31 is the main freight and commuter route between Sydney and Melbourne and has gone through a massive amount of transformation over the past 30 or so years, with many towns being bypassed along its route as well and gradual upgrades to motorway standards. Since the 1960s, the road has either been duplicated, where alignments allow for it, and also large deviations have also been part of the upgrade process.

The route around the Mittagong area averages around 16,000 vehicles every day, in other sections the number drops off a little or closer to Sydney increases.2

The route forms the Remembrance Driveway which honors war veterans, click here for the Remembrance Driveway web site.

Here are some interesting statistics on the Hume Highway: 1

• The Mittagong Bypass is 15 km long.
• The Goulburn Bypass is 13 km of concrete dual carriageway.
• The Cullerin Range Deviation consists of 34 km of dual carriageway.
• 17 km of dual carriageways between the Cullerin Range Deviation and the Yass Bypass.
• The Yass Bypass, has 15 bridges and 18 km of dual carriageways.
• The Jugiong Bypass, features 13 km of dual carriageways.

History (Covers Entire Hume Hwy Length in NSW):

• 1914: Sydney-Melbourne road (Great South Road) is declared a main road
• 1920: Cullerin Range route built on abandoned sections of the old Main Southern Railway
• 1928: Sections of Great South Road renamed to Hume Highway
• 1928: Razorback Range deviation construction. 3
• 1930s: Raising of the wall of the Hume Dam on the Murray River forced the highway to be realigned north of Albury. Also during the 1930s the Marulan section of Hume Hwy was concreted from Mt. Otway to Marulan South.
• 1931: Lorry checking station built at Marulan.4
• December 1938: Tumbalong-Tarcutta deviation construction, a major roadworks project which was partly funded under the significant Unemployment Relief Works Program. 1
• 1939: 95% (557 km) of the Hume Highway paved with a bitumous surface. 3
• 1942: Construction of Ten Mile Creek Bridge at Holbrook 1
• 1950s: In 1952, a group of citizens met and formed a committee under Lt-General Sir Frank Berryman to create a national memorial to servicemen by using trees and shrubs as living memorials. The NSW Premier, J J Cahill, officially launched the scheme on 9 December 1953. The Remembrance Driveway project as it was called started on 5 February 1954, when trees were planted at either end of the Driveway at the War Memorial, Canberra, and in Macquarie Place, Sydney, by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. By June 1959, 10,000 trees had been planted. Since then, planting of trees in avenues or groves has continued. When the M5 Motorway replaced the Hume Highway (and also Camden Valley Way) south of Liverpool, it became the focus for planting trees and shrubs in remembrance. 1
• 1951: Upgrade of old timber Cabramatta Creek Bridge, also known as Ireland's Bridge, at Cabramatta, to then modern standards. Also planning for the F5 Freeway (South Western Fwy) commenced 2
• 1956: Duplication of the Landsdowne Bridge at Carramar to carry southbound traffic. 3
• 1957: An additional carriageway for the highway was completed at Lansvale. 1
• 1958 Truck weigh station built further out of Marulan along the highway, replacing the one built in 1931.4
• 1959: an experiment using advisory speed signs on curves on the Hume Highway between Camden and Berrima was successful and was extended to other roads. 1
• 1960s: The route over the Mundoonen Range rebuilt in the 1960s - it was designed to be duplicated.
• December 1962: A major project on traffic management was the completion of a set of overhead traffic signs and signals at Villawood where Woodville Road, Henry Lawson Drive and the Hume Highway met. Due to large traffic volumes at this intersection, it was selected as a suitable location to install the system. The site has become known over the years, as the "Meccano set". 1
• 17 March 1967: The last single-laned bridge on the Hume Hwy was eliminated when the bridge over the Bargo River and Main Southern Railway Line at Tahmoor opened. The bridge length is 191 metres. 3
• 1970s: Construction of high standard 4 lane freeway between Campbelltown and Prestons
• 1970: Dual carriageway and new bridges built, bypassing the old bridge from 1930s at Boxers Creek, north of Goulburn 1
• 1972: Completion of the grade separated interchange between Hume Hwy and Federal Hwy at Wollogorang, south of Goulburn. Also computer based roadsign design trialled for the first time. The first signs designed using the system were for installation on the Hume Hwy at Yass. 3
• 26 March 1973: Governor of NSW, Sir Roden Cutler opened the Macarthur Bridge and Hume Highway deviation (now Camden Bypass) to traffic, covering 8 km, it acted as a bypass of Narellan and Camden town centres. 3
• 26 October 1973: A six mile (9.7 km) section of the South Western Freeway (formerly F5, now Hume Hwy (Metroad 5)) from Cross Roads to Raby Road opened. 1
• 1974: South Western Freeway extended to Narellan Road near Campbelltown.
• 1976: Completion of the 8 km Gundagai deviation and bridge over the Murrumbidgee River. 3
• May 1977: South Western Freeway between Yanderra and Alpine opens to traffic
• 1979: The area south of Connors Creek was rebuilt with the earthworks being done for a second carriageway, which was built in 1994.
• December 1980: Opening of freeway between Campbelltown and Yanderra north of Mittagong. This section of the Hume Hwy features the highest bridge ever built in NSW was the Pheasants Nest Bridge across the Nepean River, which is 76 metres above water level. 2 When this section was built, it formed part of the longest freeway in Australia at the time and won the DMR world wide design and engineering awards.
• 1983: The highway between Conroys Gap and Coolac, had most of the earlier alignment replaced, also a new Tarcutta deviation completed - 11.5 kilometres in length. This bypassed the bowstring arch across Hillas Creek from the 1930s. The new section of road featured a dual carriageway.1
• 1986: Marulan Bypass opens, with new truck weigh stations (those were built in 1985) 4
• March 1989: Berrima was bypassed by the South Western Freeway 5
• 1992: Mittagong and Goulburn Bypasses open
• 1994: Most of the highway route between Breadalbane, west of Goulburn, and Derringullen Creek, west of Yass, was deviated. This included a bypassing of the Cullerin Range
• 2002: Replacement of bridges over Nattai River and Gibbergunyah Creek near Mittagong 2
• March 2007: Albury Bypass opens. The freeway was officially opened by the Prime Minister John Howard at a community event on 4 March 2007. The freeway opened to traffic on 6 March 2007. 1

Aside from what is covered here on this page, further Hume Highway information can be found elsewhere on this site. This is because the route has had many changes in its life, and parts of the Hume Highway named route form other routes within the state. See Metroad 5, State Route 31 and State Route 89. For images of the former Hume Highway alignment within the context of the current route, see the individual sections marked on the map below.

1 Roads and Traffic Authority
2 Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
3 Department of Main Roads. The Roadmakers, A History of Main Roads in New South Wales, ISBN 0 7240 0439 4
4 Argyle County web site
5 Berrima Business Houses

Last updated: 26-Feb-2017 14:32

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