Eleanor and another reef and, concurrently, they ordered tramway materials from England. The tramway was operational by 1895. The tramway was still in place in 1912 when surveyors plotted the route of the extension of the North Australia Railway from Pine Creek to Katherine, but was abandoned by 1914 when construction teams arrived. The locomotive was moved to the Maranboy tin mines in 1916. North Australia Railway The first stage of the lightly built narrow-gauge North Australia Railway was built between Port Darwin and Pine Creek, reaching the town in 1889. Additional sidings were added to the rail yards in 1914 in preparation for the extension of the line south to Emungalan (Katherine), which opened in 1917. An unsealed road was constructed in the 1930s, following the same route as the railway from Adelaide River to Larrimah, and passing through Pine Creek. Much of this poorly maintained road would later become the Stuart Highway. The railway closed in 1976. The old Pine Creek railway station (1888) and some rolling stock remained and were preserved as the Pine Creek Railway Precinct; Commonwealth Railways steam locomotive NF5, built in 1877, was restored to operational condition in 2001. The North Australia Railway's standard-gauge successor, completed in 2004 between Alice Springs and Darwin – part of the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor – is used by heavy freight trains and the experiential tourism train, The Ghan; it passes east of the town. Mining Between 1967 and 1974, iron ore was mined at Frances Creek, about 25 kilometres north of Pine Creek. About 6 million tonnes of ore were extracted over that period. In June 2007, Territory Resources (trading under the name Territory Iron) commenced mining iron ore and gold at the Frances Creek mine. In October 2014, the mine was used for filming an episode of the BBC television program Top Gear. The mine ceased operations in January 2015, after a drop in the price of iron ore, leading to the departure of many local employees. In April 2020, it was announced that mining would resume in May 2020, after a 5-year hiatus. In 1985, Pine Creek Goldfields Limited opened an open-cut gold mine adjacent to the town, on the site of an old shaft mine. Over a ten-year period, it yielded of gold. Since closure, its main pit has been filled with water to prevent acid build-up. A lookout is located at the south-western end