traffic had been handled for some time. The principal traffic handled on the Morpeth line was wool, growing from 16,564 bales in 1872 to the amazing total of 82,361 bales in 1899. In the 1920s, however, this traffic commenced to decline considerably, a large quantity being diverted to Sydney. In more recent years, the improvements to general shipping at Lee Wharf, Newcastle, and the establishment of wool stores close by, gave Morpeth a knock-out blow. Shoaling of the lower Hunter River and the expansion of road haulage put an end to the river trade between Morpeth and Newcastle and on 1 August 1951, the Newcastle and Hunter River Steam Ship Company closed its siding with its queer truck turntable leading on to either of two sidings, at right angles to the railway, demolishing its large sheds and wharves on the river side of the line. The company's large iron sheds on the town side of the line still remain and have been leased to various firms from time to time. Prescott's have used one of these sheds as a store. W. D. & H. O. Wills established a tobacco factory in recent years on the old Newcastle & Hunter River Company's site and used the old siding, but the works are now closed. A trip on the line As there was only one man on the footplate on this branch, the locomotive always faced Newcastle so that the driver could "spot" the cars at the two intermediate short platforms on the Up side. Being worked as a "tram", a porter acted as guard and also sold tickets en route from a portable ticket rack carried with the train and collected all tickets in transit. Vigorously whistling for the ill-famed Melbourne Street open level crossing, the train left East Maitland and rounding the 1O chain curve, followed the Morpeth Road along the edge of the finest lucerne flats in the State, the rich black soil being renewed by the periodic floods as in the case of the Nile Valley in Egypt. The train ambled quietly along a narrow fenced right-of-way with easy curves and grades, passing Bakers Brickworks a little over a mile out where there was once a siding, and in another three-quarters of a mile passed Raworth timber platform with waiting shed on the Up side just beyond an open level crossing with cattle stops. Another three-quarters of a