Grain Store Driveway

The sandy two-track road that leads into the Mount Russell Grain Silo site passes a low rendered building capped with a rusting domed roof, with a tall narrow elevator structure rising behind it and power lines crossing the overcast sky. Tall grasses and flowering weeds press in from either side of the track. This is what the approach to the site looks like more than fifteen years after its closure.

The silo at Mount Russell, in Inverell Shire on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, has two concrete structures at its core. The first, a type S041 concrete silo with a capacity of 4,100 tonnes, was constructed in 1934 by a NSW Government grain authority, a predecessor body to the later Grain Elevators Board. The second, a substantially larger type A285 scalloped concrete silo with a capacity of 28,500 tonnes, was constructed in 1955 alongside the original structure. Together the two buildings gave the site a combined capacity of approximately 32,600 tonnes. The 1955 structure became the dominant presence on the site and remains so in the photograph.

The silo's connection to the broader grain network ran through the Inverell branch line. Mount Russell station opened on 10 March 1902, and the branch carried grain outbound from the tablelands for decades. Passenger services on the line ended in 1983. The Delungra to Inverell section closed entirely when the last train ran on 22 June 1987, with the line formally decommissioned on 2 December 1987. The railway sidings that once served the silo site fell out of use from that point.

GrainCorp, which had assumed responsibility for the country silo network following the privatisation of the NSW Grain Handling Authority in 1992, was the operator at closure. The Mount Russell facility was closed by GrainCorp in 2007. The structure has remained standing and intact in the years since. Photographs taken on site in 2007, 2015, and 2023 all show the buildings in intact condition, with vegetation advancing steadily along the access road and around the base of the structures. This photograph, made in 2023, records that condition from the driveway: domed roof, elevator tower, power lines, and the two-track road returning to grass.