Etheridge railway line
The railway stations at Mount Surprise, Einasleigh and Forsayth and the route of the Etheridge Railway between Mount Surprise and Forsayth, including surviving railway buildings, rails, sidings, turning forks, loading banks, stone pitched bridges and culverts, stone cuttings, sandboxes, water tank, signage, and signals and points infrastructure, are important surviving evidence of the efforts of the Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company to supply copper ore to its smelters at Chillagoe.
Waverley Route
In the state in which it was acquired, the E&DR was of little use to the NBR as it had been operated as a horse-drawn tramway for the previous thirteen years, was built to a 4 ft 6 in gauge and was in a dilapidated state in terms of both infrastructure and rolling stock. Nevertheless, the concern brought with it a number of advantages: its proprietors had developed an efficient coal-marketing organisation which would greatly benefit its new owners, it consolidated the NBR's position in Edinburgh while also barring the rival Caledonian Railway from the Lothian Coalfields, and, perhaps most importantly, the E&DR pointed in the direction of Carlisle. Parliamentary authorisation for the line's acquisition was obtained on 21 July 1845 with the passing of the North British Railway (Edinburgh & Dalkeith Purchase) Act, which allowed the NBR to lay a spur from its Edinburgh-Berwick line near Portobello to the E&DR at Niddrie, thereby allowing NBR services to run directly from North Bridge station to Dalhousie.