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TRAINS-
OF-
AUSTRALIA
Generated by Australia Post
Croup
Philatelic
Written Patsy
by
Adam-
Smith
VJTA Designed by
Sue Passmore, Australia Post
Group
Philatelic
r^A © Australia Post 1993
VMA Produced by Sprinpak
Pty Ltd
Production
co-ordinated by
Wayne Shaw
Vj^A Colour separations by Scotf
Graphic
Arts Pty Ltd
r^A Printed
by
Canberra Press Pty Ltd
ISBN
642
18858
V^A Part of first
Patsy
Adam-
Smith,
We
this text
appeared
When
Rode
the
Rails. Dent,
Melbourne,
1983
1^
Australia Post
in
[
Q
[
N
The Iron Horse Arrives
The Spirit of Progress
•10
Goir)g on the
From Coast
to
Ghan
Coast
20
Tracks to the Hinterland
26
Silver City
Comet
30
Trains in
Tasmania
34
Keeping Track with Stamps
38
Acknowledgments
MO
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and excitement associated with the steam
thrill
locomotive sparked people's imagination more than
any other contraption invented. 'The Railways' quickly
I
caught on in Australia and
a lore
men who
the engines and the
soon grew up around
drove them. The spread
of railways across the
country helped to blaze
and tame the outback,
to
When George
a trail
open up the continent.
Stephenson's steam engine ran from
Liverpool to Manchester on 15 September 1830, Victoria,
the
along
a
colony
first
railway
in Australia to
Europeans. Before the building Australia every State had
new
Construction and with
social,
scarcely
its
of railways
no man's land
began
in
to cross.
settlements followed, along
economic and
been time
send a steam train
had not yet been settled by
line,
industrial
There had
life.
horse-and-buggy age
to develop a
before the railway engine arrived. In the days
when
locomotives
crossed the land,
first
Australians began an affair with the 'iron horse' that exists to this day.
as
The romantics
though they are
The
breathing things.
living,
romantic. The 1836 convict line fitted the
less
conveyance
definition of a railway as "a
and
A
af
Goofwa, SA, C.1854
freight,
drawn along
power".
ment
The
It
for passengers
fixed parallel rails
statutory authority" except for
hoTie
tramway
speak of engines
railway in Australia, though, could not have
first
been
still
its
...
was hauled by men from the prison
at Port
Arthur
line ran for
in
under
unorthodox "motive settle-
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).
seven kilometres across Tasman
Peninsula, an idea of the prison
commandant. Captain
O'Hara Booth, to save travellers from Hobart the rough sea voyage across
Storm Bay and around Tasman
Island to the penal port.
Convicts
first
pelled the
constructed the earth works, then pro-
'carts'.
Captain Stonor wrote from a passen-
ger's perspective: The
many
ascents
and
descents
form a
very amusing transit, for as you rise the incline the prisoners
puff and blow pushing the carriage but
away you go. affair.
dashing, crashing, tearing on
On one
...
...
descending
...
a quite nervous
section the train reached forty miles an
hour (64 kph) composure
when
...
it
requires
some
the least obstruction
their contents to
little
nerve
would send
to
keep one's
carriages
and
immortal smash.
Horses that had been bred for more than 50 years to haul
rail
trains
were
still
being used after the turn of
Sketch of the
locomotive that
hauled Australia's first train
was
the century. As late as 1902 a horse-drawn track
down
laid
in
western Tasmania as the
Tullah, a rich
first
outlet
from
mining mountain fastness that had no
road outlet until 1963. But generally the age of steam
had overcome
isolation long before this time
and horse
traction disappeared.
The
first
was
laid
permanent way
for a
steam train
between Melbourne and Hobsons Bay. The
knew no bounds.
pride and excitement of the citizens
When
in Australia
the driving wheels turned at
last
the Melbourne
Argus of 12 September 1854 exulted: At length the iron horse starts fairly on
mission in Australia. The inaug-
its
uration of the Hobsons
Bay Railway
will be a
memorable
event in the annals of the Antipodes. The shrill scream of the steam whistle will indicate today
dawned upon
When we
us.
up
the railway opens
...
that a
scream
we may
well hail with listen to 'the
'.
The engine held the passengers spellbound. first
era has
contemplate the future which
in Australia,
our loudest hurrahs the great day in which we first
new
locomotive constructed
sphere, the
work
Co., Victoria.
It
in the
It
southern hemi-
of Messrs Robertson, Martin,
had been
built
was the
Smith
and completed
in
&
ten
weeks. The engine provided 30 horsepower and the train
was
able to achieve speeds as high as 25 miles per
hour (40 kph). "Travel sceptics said. travel they
"It will
at
twenty miles an hour?" the
addle your brains!" Maybe. But
An
would.
ironic
view
of the 'Comforts
The development
of the railways
elements of
If
farce.
was not without
its
Federation had taken place before
railways arrived the infamous break-of-gauge in Australia
might never have happened. As
it
was, railway
I
of Railway Travelling' in
1890
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building began nearly half a century before
ÂĽ
dation of the
Commonwealth,
colonial authorities
I
New
much
as
spirit of
own
of their
independence
any other
as
various
were demanding separation from
South Wales and control
ment. The
foun-
tfie
when
time
at a
S
[
1/
in the air
was
govern-
blame
to
factor for the varying gauge-
widths between neighbouring Colonies.
There
no engineering
is
nicety about the width of 4 feet
inches (1.4 m), the width between
8'/2
make
dard gauge, nothing to tracks than
it
rails called
to
The wheelwrights
in
have received an
George Stephenson's parish were
built his first railway in
became
and
said
official seal.
wagons when
using this measure for the axle of their
he
stan-
suited for railway
over the years that the phrase 'standard
assumed
is
more
any other. But so much has been
written about
gauge'
it
his gauge.
thumb
England; this rule of
Wheelwrights
in
other parishes and
other counties might well have provided him with any
width from
1
foot (30
cm)
m) according
to 7 feet (2
to
the gauge current in their area.
The
relative merits of the various widths differ only
slightly.
The important thing about any gauge
should be the same
all
the break-of-gauge problem arises
widths meet, as happened
By 1846 the experience to the realisation that
the country
is
over the one land mass;
of
when
that if
it
not,
the different
in Australia.
two gauges
in Britain
had
led
one uniform gauge throughout
was necessary. When the
British Parliament
passed the Railway Act of 1846 the Secretary for Colonies, William Gladstone,
recommended
to all the
The level crossing,
a
colonies, including the Australian ones, that
if
they
familiar
sight in Ausf-
constructed railways they too should adopt a gauge of
ralian towns
4 in
feet 8'/2 inches.
1850 decided
South Australia took the advice and
to construct the Adelaide to Port Adel-
aide railway with standard gauge.
New
South Wales
at this
time had an engineer from
Ireland, F.W. Shields, to advise
on the railway they
intended to build. Because the gauge
been
5 feet 3
inches (1.6 m) he
in Ireland
had
recommended
this
comfortable width and the Government agreed. The
Railway Act was amended to allow
it
to be used in
Australia instead of the standard gauge. Victoria therefore ordered
new
rolling stock of this
wider gauge. South Australia decided to change to stay
uniform with
Victoria. For the only time in the history
country (when there were as yet no trains run-
of the
ning)
on
a
all
those involved with building railways agreed
uniform gauge. But not
placed by a Scotsman, the gauge
of
New
Wallace,
J.
was
for long. Shields
who
immediately had
South Wales returned
to
4
Australia's rail-
way
re-
I
feet 8'/2
inches by Act of Parliament. Victoria
was already committed
for
equipment
for the
broader gauge and refused to change yet again; South Australia agreed. So began the 'gauge problem', the cost of in
which has never been estimated,
money, inconvenience and
a cost not
only
disunity, but a threat
tci
the safety of the country in wartime.
John Whitton, the new Engineer-in-Chief in
New
South Wales,
of Railways
tried unsuccessfully in
1857
to
persuade his Government to conform with Victoria because he foresaw
difficulties
when
the
two
rail
lines
eventually met. But yet another problem was looming
Queensland, Arthur Macalister intro-
to the north. In
duced
a
Railway
Bill to
Although he believed South Wales
rails
it
the House on 19
was desirable
May
1863.
that the
should eventually be met by
New
rjTA Railway garigers repair-
a rail-
ing lines in
way
in
Queensland, he supported yet another gauge,
an economic
3
feet
6 inch (1.07
m) narrow gauge.
Victoria c.
1920s
system
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Railway construction
is
hot woHc in the
outback
Neither Whitton nor Macalister would compromise.
Each was suspicious and aloof from the other.
New
South Wales
tres of
number
built the greatest
of kilome-
standard gauge in Australia; Victoria the most
broad gauge in the world. Queensland and Western Australia used
all
narrow gauge, putting more
of
it
into
use than either of the other two gauges.
South Australia Victoria
down
and
first
later,
built
broad gauge to coincide with
when
finance was meagre, put
the narrow gauge. Later
Australia line
(now the Indian
still,
when
Pacific)
standard gauge. South Australia was
gauges to be sorted out
in a vast
the Trans-
opened with
left
with three
marshalling yard
at
Port Pirie. This state of affairs remained until the middle of the 20th century.
Working horses were important in
building
new
railway tracks in
Western
Australia
10
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ighty-three years after that
U
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II
train emitted
first
scream", the speed and style of
rail
travel
S
S
[
its "shrill
had altered
considerably. In 1937 the Spirit of Progress fairly fled
I
through the Victorian countryside. The S-class engine
was
Newport Railway
clad with steel raiment at the
Workshop near Melbourne
to
make
appear 'stream-
it
lined', the latest fashion fad of the day. This
The observation car of the Sp\n\
added
little
to
the populace
gimmick
speed or comfort but the sight pleased
who saw
it
as the harbinger of a
new
of Progress,
1937
dawn The
after the long depression of the 'thirties.
train,
with
its
locally constructed steel alloy pas-
senger cars, was hailed by newspapers as a proud product of Victoria
and was part
Wales railway scene
for
of the Victoria-New
South
seventeen years. The Age, for
instance, ran feature articles and there
were photo-
graphs of the train speeding through the countryside
on an
official trial
run
to
Geelong on 17 November 1937:
The sight of the royal blue and gold express train
at the No.
1
platform at Spencer Street attracted at least 1000 people.
When
the train started off with
Federal state
and
railway
State Ministers, officials,
its
300
prominent
there were cheers
guests, including
and
inter-
stirring
march
citizens
and a
was played by the Newport Railway Workshop band. At the end of the day,
Mr
Clapp,
Chairman
Commissioners, "expressed himself happy with the
train's
of the
as
Railway
completely
performance". The top speed of
79 miles per hour (112 kph) would have been exceeded,
he was sure, had not several
cattle
along the route
prevented the attempt. Boarding the train
at 8 p.m.,
passengers travelled for
three hours to Albury, where, because of the break-of-
The Newport
Workshop,
1899
^54:31
:Âť:-KfcKi.^
gauge, they had to change to the Sydney Express. The four
'Spirit'
locomotives, Matthew Flinders (S300), Sir
Sir
La Trobe (S303), were converted to
and replaced by B-class
oil
burning
diesels in 1954. In
in
Harold
Clapp
Thomas Mitchell (S301), Edward Henty (S302), and C J 1952
1962 the
journey was shortened and inconvenience lessened by the introduction of the standard gauge, allowing a
through-service on the Southern Aurora.
The vision and showmanship associated with the
was
a part of the
wayman, Harold
'Spirit'
enthusiasm of Australia's greatest
rail-
Clapp, Commissioner of Railways in
Victoria. Clapp's father, Francis
Boardman
Clapp, had,
An
with 1,600 horses and 178 horse-drawn buses, established the strictly 'on-time-all-the-time'
Melbourne
construction
Omnibus Company. The young Harold Winthrop Clapp had
a similar drive.
He
the Austral Otis Engineering
did his apprenticeship at
Works
in
South Melbourne
I
before working for nineteen years with leading railway
companies
in
America. With
this
the 45 year-old Clapp erupted
when he became Chairman
experience behind him
on the Victorian scene
of the Victorian Railways
Commissioners on Friday, 17 September 1920.
The public
called
him
a
megalomaniac but the railway
employees immediately appreciated
his direct, sincere
approach. He came to them with the words of the American president of the Southern Pacific Railroad
S-class loco-
motive under
Company
r^A An
ariist's
impression of the streamlined Spirit of
Progress
>\2
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only ten per cent iron, the
his lips: "Railroads are
other 90 per cent are men." Clapp never doubted
L
it.
Clapp not only electrified the Melbourne suburban he
lines in the 1920s,
his original ideas
whole
electrified the
State with
and high pressure methods.
Clapp's railways started to
When
vegetables and
sell .raisins,
cheese, shopkeepers, parliamentarians and aldermen
asked what this had to do with running
a railway.
Everything, said Clapp: The primary producers must their produce. If they
don
sell
none of us will have any money.
't,
Railways are the biggest industry in Australia and can help the primary producer by advertising pluses.
and even
Merely carrying their produce, even
if
selling his sur-
we
carried
it
for
nothing, wouldn't get them or us anywhere.
By 1922 the Victorian trains 'Eat
way
and railway
More
Fruit'.
travelling public
found their
stations plastered with the slogan
And they
fruit stalls sold
did.
That
year the
first
ÂŁ2,000 worth of
fruit that
rail-
would
otherwise have been dumped. Next year they sold ÂŁ7,000 worth. At the same time they freighted canned fruit. In
1922 there was
was not
a
1923 there
in
can over, and in 1924 the output went up by
9,000 cans and the
He introduced first
heavy surplus;
a
lot
was
sold.
fresh fruit juice
time natural
fruit juice
on the platforms, the
had been sold seriously
The next Clapp slogan was
as a drink in Australia. Flinders Street Station,
Melb-
'Raisins Every
Day
in
When
Every Way'.
that
first
ourne, showing
appeared on posters there were only three or four
the signs of
Melbourne bakers making
raisin or sultana bread.
Harold Clapp's
campaign
for
better eating
Soon there were seventy. His 'Eat More' campaigns paid off in
sold surpluses, freight.
showed
a profit
many
He never worried whether the
tonnes of oranges from Mildura was
He was concerned about ensuring
ways; they
and created railway freight
on
a
few
in itself profitable.
the prosperity of the
Mildura orange growers so that they would be able to
The Victorian National Resources
Development Train,
known as
the 'Reso'
S
John Richards'
stamp tion
illustra-
of f/ie
Spirit
of Progress
Harold Clapp's fruit
juice stall
at Flinders Street Station,
Melbourne
buy from the back
to the
city
goods that the railways could carry
grower
high freight.
at a
Clapp stressed personal cleanliness and neatness as basic essentials a
and wrote
memos on
staff
pleasing personality which
money
women
working on the railways but by
employed 968
the mid-1930s Clapp had various jobs around
worth more than
is
There had been considerable
in the bank".
opposition to
"developing
women
Victoria including several
in
hundred
as railway station-mistresses.
He
trained the staff well built
up the
powerful educative influence
of the
worked
Victorian Railways Institute,
ment
Technical College.
meals
and
of apprentices
to the
He
beaches and at
in
started hills,
a
for the
advance-
1923 opened the Newport
cheap Sunday excursions
put on good, solid, cheap
the railway refreshment rooms and ran fast
parcels delivery vans to the suburbs. -
in-
Street, set
Spencer
stalled a creche for babies at
basis for the
huge locomotives,
uniformed station attendant
people's questions
-
was
his idea.
The
who
Man
in
Grey
could answer
He knew how
baffling
railway stations could be.
He introduced the long-welded learned
when he was
'an Agricultural College Train,
-
a
technique he had
with Southern Pacific Railroad
Company; he inaugurated
Development
rail
the Better Farming Train,
on wheels', and the Resource
known
as the Reso, that
brought
city
The S-302 locomotive,
businessmen and primary producers together. Sir
Harold Clapp died in
Oaober
1952, only a few
after taking the throttle in the first
new
HenJy
weeks
diesel-electric
main-line locomotive began service bearing his name.
Edward
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he locomotives, railwaymen and the track
B8
commands most is
I
affection in the Australian
that
itself
community
the one that ran from Port Augusta to Alice Springs.
The It
'
'old'
Ghan
spoken
is
became known
trains in the world, stories in the
way
one
as
way
of in a
that begets legend.
of the last great
and those
of travellers
who
rode on
adventure it
told their
on exotic caravan
routes.
This line heading north was originally expected to join
the line coming south from Darwin, a project begun by the South Australian Government, the most courageous
railway builder of to the north
all.
A
proposal for a land-grant railway
had been put
South Australian
to the
Parliament as early as 1862. This north-south railway
would be more than 3000 kilometres
long,
would
cover land only recently explored but not yet surveyed,
and
for
length would pass through no settlement.
its
many schemes and
There had been The Ghan, c.
1960, at
Heavitree Gap,
when
but
suggested routes,
the Overland Telegraph threaded north
through the Centre
in
1872
it
be the logical route for the
seemed
that this
would
Construction began,
line.
near Alice Springs
but of
it
was not easy country
James Smith, who was
Ranges
in
in
which
to
work. The diary
in the area of the
Macdonncll
1872-73, records daily temperatures higher
than 120 degrees Farenheit (49"C).
The Great Northern Railway began
at Port
Augusta
1872 and by 28 June 1880 had reached Hawker,
in
skirt-
ing bogs, flooded plains, quicksands and river crossings.
The interminable track
was
lot of
every
man who worked on
this
dust, sand, heat, flies in a desert plain subject
to flash floods in
summer
up and twisted miles
that tore
of iron rails.
This mainly dry, waterless land inspired the introduc-
They were so successful
tion of camels.
than
a
that for
generation they were the main carriers
T
Overland
more
in half
-
Telegraph on the
Ghan c.
1
railway
111 1
940, en route
to Alice
Springs
^S^^^^ *
iiib?y"* .i*
.
--"
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1891.
meant
H
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fi
and came
Port Augusta in 1881 in
I
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EUAN
[
Oodnadatta
to rest at
bad seasons in South Australia
series of
that the railway
remained
point in one of
at this
the driest and most arid tracts of land between Port
Augusta and Darwin.
It
on
did not go
to Alice Springs
until 1929.
But before the
stretched to Alice Springs the
rails
first
motorised road train had passed through Oodnadatta. Brigadier Dollery,
on
ation
in their
along. It
who was
in
charge of the army oper-
that path-finding trip said, "All the
camel drivers
turbans stood watching our big truck trundling
We
were the
finish for
Ghan was named
has been said that the
many
'Afghans' because so
they and their families
them, and they
of
them
made up
travelled
knew
it."
after the
on
it
and
half the population of
both Oodnadatta and Marree. Driver George Williams has a more likely explanation of the naming of the Ghan.
A
There was a
lot
through train
of chiaking about
to
who was
Oodnadatta. (At
to
drive the first
this time. 1923.
three days to get there
from Adelaide.) There was
turn-out at 'Oodna'
to
Smith
said.
welcome the
to
it
took
be a big
express. Driver Ernie
"I'd laugh if all that turned
up was an old
Afghan." Charlie Hill was the driver and 'Sweater' Woods the other crew.
man
off
was
When
the local
the train got to Oodnadatta the first
Afghan
priest.
Ernie Smith. The story beat the train back
when
Camel
trains
transported
many supplies
said
to
the south
and
they returned the crew were greeted with, "So you
drove the
Ghan
ing
Ghan.
it
"
"There you are.
the
Howard of the
express,
eh?" Before long everyone was
Pickford, a stationmaster, has vivid
Afghan camel men.
call-
memories
Before you heard the sound of
the whistle blowing out on the prairie to
warn
us railway
for the construction
railway
of the
families that the
you'd hear the
Ghan was on
cries
its
way
in to
Oodnadatta.
of the camel teamsters hooshing their
^^5ii :^--'i^^*--'*^
*]7
camels down, Hoosh! Hoosh! Hooshta!, unloading the wool they'd brought in from the sheep runs out across the desert
and getting ready ing for them to to
take on freight that the
to
hump
back across the sands
some hundreds of miles away. When
in
my pyjamas and
I
Ghan was
to the settlers
was a kid
for
camel
men were
man
everything on railroad building
ting with
hammer and
My
and
drill
three brothers
a bit of
scoop driving with
-
dog spikes into
horses, spiker (driving
was.
Afghans. Harold 'Spider' Willard,
example, an all-rounder of Oodnadatta, did
father
up
go out
They were as much a
...
part of the railway scene in Central Australia as any all
I'd
watch them at sun-up, down on their
prayer rugs reciting the Koran aloud
Not
bring-
rails),
rock cut-
and camel driving.
-
VJTA Afghans load-
worked on construction of
the
ing supplies on their
east-west line but most of the time I
Frome
Creek, 35 miles (56
was
camel depot at
km) north-east from Marree out
near Lake Eyre. There were three
to
four hundred camels
there all the time being handled, yarded, in to pack, saddle
at a
branded and broken
and team work. Some of
the
men were
Afghans, some of us not. ...We met the train at Marree, and later at
Oodnadatta when the
did almost all the carting
went on
our teams
the rail until the line
Alice Springs in 1929.
to
'Spider' then
went
who was
surveyor
line reached there,
away from
Oodnadatta south
as camel-driver for a
government
to search for a different route
from
to the east-west railway. "It
was
1926 and we crossed the great Nullarbor plain from north to south. trip
saw
and a
(72.4
in that
I
was away two and
time
I
never
fence or a road until
km)
off
Oodnadatta.'
slept I
a half years
on
this
under an iron roof or
was near home, 45 miles
I
camels
The
Ghan
the
1960s
in
G
I
11
II
Almost
H
i;
famous
as
H
J
Ghan' was the
as 'the
H
G
i
south
line
from Darwin. This Hne had been expected
H
H
to
meet
with the Ghan, thus spanning the continent from
I
north to south, but fruition.
of
this
brave dream never reached
was beaten by droughts,
It
money and
floods, cyclones, lack
too few people scattered over a vast area.
Ernest Tambling of the Northern Territory travelled
one
this line often in
among
of the rarer occupations
railwaymen. He was an itinerant school teacher whose students were the children of railway workers
down
the length of the Northern Australia line of the
Com-
monwealth Railways. From Darwin down 'Tammy' taught the the expression /
John Richards'
stamp tion
illustra-
of the
Ghan
was
was
came
I
km) up and down
miles (450
who would need my
my
in those days.
young when
very
them
out, then
the railway to find children
teaching. I travelled in the guard's van.
When
kerosene
tins,
my
find
train at
any
got near
I
bike
I
and
had a
my
change of throw
jump. I'd pick up
ride along the clearing
my
under
up any
time.
side of the track with the crew. to the
tin,
destination I'd
special permit to pull
was camping overnight with
If I
my
bike, then I'd
my
the telegraph wires.
went 280
the Territory. I
to
books were packed in one kerosene
clothes in another.
to Larrimah,
white and yellow' as
kids, 'black,
the train I'd doze off at the
The
lepers
would be chained
wheels of the truck further up. I'd have a yarn with
them. I taught
taken from
many
my
lepers.
class at
scourge in those days but
You saw people
worse.
Seven children in one week were
Bagot I
to
go
to
a lazaret.
It
was a
always thought malaria was
sitting all over
down
the line with a
rag dipped in vinegar over their forehead, vague with fever.
came with good
My young had
'the fever
to these
-
winds'
in April.
Len
Scott the
guard was
he'd rustle up some quinine for them.
and
I
wherever
I
railway pupils were a tough, bush-bred
become part of the
to
threw
people
my swag
off.
It
life
One boy
that
was
I taught,
lived
lot
Harry Chan, became
Lord Mayor of Darwin, the first Chinese
to
have
this position
in Australia.
The
line
south from Darwin was closed in June 1976.
The brave plan
of the
South Australian Government
Railways nearly a century earlier to build a railway joining the southern part of the continent to the north
by
rail
had
failed.
Gone too
is
the famous old 'Ghan'.
That line closed on 9 October 1980 as the
new
stan-
dard gauge to Alice Springs opened from Tarcoola.
>19
The
Ghan
hauled by diesel in the
1960s
VJTA Gangers keep the line in repair
20
H
/
was
efore the gauge
s
c
I
S
throughout the
fully standardised
continent in 1964, a group of railway enthusiasts wrote
NSW
Rail Trans-
Museum. "Steam locomotives" ihey
suggested,
to the various State systems
I
port
"have been the backbone appropriate for them to
when
from the
of railways
make
...
...
it
would be
token appearance
a
the railways are freed of this burden (of multiple
gauges)." The group then began to organise the great rail
endeavour
-
the
first
and only steam
train to cross
the Australian continent from coast to coast, leaving
Sydney bound Construction on the east-west link
across
Australia
ed
in
Hill,
down
to Kalgoorlie
Augusta
to Port
thence to Perth.
The permanent way had been upgraded along the 3,960-kilometre route.
start-
1912 and
camels were a vital
Broken
for
and across the desert
mode
of
who
For the passengers and the country folk the side of the railway track to
waited by
wave goodbye
to the
old 'Shaker of Mountains', as the big steam engines
had
transport
been named,
it
was an awesome reminder
of the great
and the men who drove them
service these engines
had rendered.
The Western Endeavour, the only steam a
Sydney
unified gauge from
travellers
who had
train to
run on
to Perth, carried
They would be part
ticket to paradise.
happy
of a
requiem, the tribute to those fiery monarchs of
mer
age.
The
were complex and
logistics
organisation was necessary to
Two hundred
130
paid $300 for their version of a
make
a for-
a great deal of
'loco' available.
tonnes of coal had to be sent ahead and
water gins were hauled behind the engine
for the long
men would be hundreds from workshops much of the time so
waterless hauls. The
of kilo-
metres
several
tonnes of spare parts were carried including a crate of
wool hanks
for the terror of the desert
-
'hot boxes',
friction bearings that
sometimes became over-heated
and
left
in past times
had
many
trains stranded.
This great volunteer effort, culminating in 1970, mirror-
ed the labour of those early railwaymen who, in 1912,
were fundamental
in the
Without the promise
development
of the nation.
of a railway across the Nullarbor,
Western Australia may not have joined the Federation of Australian States
which took place
in 1901.
Senator de
Largie recalled the skepticism that had initially greeted
the proposal at the
the
first
welcome
in
1917
at Kalgoorlie to
train to cross the Nullarbor Plain.
Trans-Australia line was
first
When
broached in the Senate
it
the
was
I
>21
jeered at
and
the most powerful
newspaper
and continued for years
ridiculed the idea
in Victoria
to refer to the
pro-
John Richards'
ject as the 'Desert Railway'.
stamp
While some jeered and others remained
illustration
of the Western
indifferent, a
Endeavour
small tough
army
of
men had
got
on with the job
of
building one of the world's greatest railways. Parties set
out in 1908 to survey the route. The party from
Kalgoorlie had 91 camels, a team of fourteen to
one wagon, teams and three
of eleven for
camels carried equipment
were
to study the
this
a
another two wagons
pack camels. The remaining
strings of twelve
was blazed by
draw
for the
boring parlies that
geology of the route and the
heavy chain dragged by camels.
team three months from the beginning
It
trail
took
^'
of Jiuie to
27 September 1908 to cover 730 kilometres.
Leaving from Port Augusta, the team from the east used 80 camels. They travelled for ten months from
June 1908 tres.
lO 19
March 1909 and covered 978 kilome-
The two teams met
known
3
in the area that
came
to
be
I
as 'the long straight', the longest stretch of
straight railway line in the
world
-
297 miles (478 km) The Western
in length, stretching
from the 496 mile peg (798 km)
between Ooldea and Watson,
to the
793 mile peg
(1276 km) between Loongana and Nurina. The accuracy of the surveyors in the extreme desert conditions
became
a
byword.
Endeavour steams across the country
22
[
A
II
This
is
S
I
one
of the world's
S
[
I
I
most inhospitable regions.
"The awful desolate spinifex desert", John Forrest called it
when he
pioneered the
first
the NuUarbor the vegetation
crossing in 1874. Bordering is
mulga, mallee,
distinct:
and bluebush,
myall, acacia, spinifex, saltbush, parakylia a
nutrient fodder for sheep in low-rainfall areas.
The
first
sleepers
were
laid at Port
Augusta
1912, eleven years after Federation.
work on the day on rice."
As he
sand for 10/6d
line in 1914, shovelling
recalls:
It
was a tough
men work under
September
Twilly began
Bill
"stale bread, oily butter, salt beef
ever again see
in
and
doubt
job. I
the conditions the
a
a bit of
if
we
will
men on
the
Trans-Australia did with horses, camels, shovels and picks.
We
lived in a cutting in the earth with a tent above that.
Willy-willies swept in
day
I
saw
a
man
and blew
the top off these houses.
near our tent-house
left
standing
One
among
his
furniture, with his canvas roof gone in the whirling willywilly.
Even as the
fastened on
sand
was
built
we had
to
use sand scoops
the front of a slow-moving train
to
to clear the
off the line.
Work on
I J
line
the railway was carried out by the Railway
Commonwealth Gov-
Sunsef from the
Construction Department of the
Indian Pacific
ernment. The plate-laying was done by track-layers
at
each end, and the rate of progress established a record for Australian railway construction
world record tip trucks
at
and probably
a
the time. Steam shovels, scoops, side-
and motor
Beyond the
-
tractor ploughs
railheads,
all
supplies
were used.
and materials were
conveyed by pack camels and camel wagons, donkey
Souvenir of
tfie
commencement oftfie Trans-
Australian
Railway
and horse teams. Maintaining supplies
workmen and 750 camels and tives
was
a
gargantuan
Depanment whole
It
also supplied the
and personal
conducted
locomo-
The Railway Construction
task.
of the provisions
workmen.
horses, as well as
Commonwealth
of the
for the 3,500
own
its
requisites of the
stores
and boarding
Loaded camels along the Trans-
houses, or ranches as they were called. The outbreak of
war
1914 increased the
in
of materials
After to
all
difficulties,
and
deliveries
were considerably delayed.
been
it
1912
was
decided that the standard gauge that had already
in use in
New
South Wales would serve the pur-
pose admirably. More than 140,000 tonnes of
went
track,
the wrangling about a suitable railway gauge
be adopted on the Transcontinental railway,
finally
I
Australian
into construaing the line, together with
rails
two and
a half million sleepers of the best Australian timbers.
The ruling gradient was stretch of
were so track
1
in
80 and,
light that
was
it
laid direct
1
in 100, except for a short
for long stretches, the
was on
eanh works
possible almost to claim the
to the earth. For all that, the
Across the
construction involved the removal of
some
five million
cubic metres of earth and rock. The horse-drawn scoop
Nullabor,
C.1930
24
f
H
c
S
s
ihat did
I
I
most
work on one
of this
was known
tre stretch
A
i:
s
I
particular 40 kilome-
as Tumbling
Tommy. Up
to 185
horses at a time worked in cuttings and dragged the
I
little
iron buckets along, their drivers walking behind
the horses, holding the reins loosely.
There were observation car
having to
Trans-Australian
And
Railway,
c.
1
930
difficulties peculiar to the region,
line cuttings
lack of a single
much
foil
difficulties
permanent stream
drifting sand.
caused by the
of water.
of the carrying until the rail track
when
out
with stone to
always there were the
such as
Camels did
moved
further
small old engines were used to run coal and
water to the construction
became an engine line got the
harder
sites. Bill
Twilly,
who
later
driver, explained: The further out the
it
was on our old engines and we
rarely
got them out and back without trouble. The maintenance
lows worked around the clock
on the
tives
rails. I've
to
seen them standing on a pile of bags
because the engine was too hot get
it
On at
fel-
keep our worn out locomo-
to
stand on, but they had
to
out on the track pronto.
17 October 1917 the gangs from east and west were
long
last
within hailing distance of one another. The
track-layers on each division inched forward, the plate-layers
moving with
by the hundreds of
it
almost hidden from sight
men surrounding them. Every
navvy, surveyor, engineer and clerk had ridden out on the material trains to see the gap finally closed. In the
early afternoon the engineer tapped the telegraph wires and sent off a telegram: the
rails
had been linked.
rjTA Western
Endeavour at the
end of its
epic journey at Perth station,
September 1970
25
So ended one of the greatest engineering achievements
The Western
Endeavour locoof the age. Until the railway engines crossed this almost
treeless plain the isolated
from the
western section of the nation was east except
by
sea.
The
rail
crossed
motive was re-
commissioned in
1
988
to
haul
the Bicentennial
roughly 1,600 kilometres of waterless country, most of
which was uninhabited by Europeans. There were no amenities, no local labour or shelter.
The admirable journey later
and
was witness rail
of the Western Endeavour 53 years
to the
depth of feeling railwaymen
enthusiasts held for this remarkable link from
one ocean
to another.
Train
26
f
H
A
[
K
s
H
I
J
H
[
I
H
[
!
II
N
A
I
D
ueensland's railway system was as individual as the people in the Sunshine State
from
on the
five ports
line into the hinterland
them
Tracks were sent out
itself.
an almost
east coast in
straight
with no connection between
or any other railway track.
"Progress -is rampant", quoted the Governor, the Marquis of
Normanby, when the north-south Great Western
Railway Act, intending to link the western extremities of the five existing unattached lines,
Queensland Parliament
in
was passed by the
December 1910. By 1928 the
plan had been dropped. Of such endings
the vast
is
Australian outback littered, the harsh and wide land
continually defeating
I 1
Queensland was one
human of the
endeavours.
few railway builders
in the
world that started out on almost untouched country.
The
Wales
huge area
in 1859, claiming a
plored country. bursts of
New
South
of largely
unex-
had wrested self-government from
State
railway age began with
Its
temper than
in
more
fiery
any other colony. The outbursts
eventually caused the dissolution of Parliament, and
VJTA
an election was held primarily to decide which gauge
Top hats and crinolines
were
the order of the
day
for the
should be built
the gauge problem that has dogged
-
every Australian railway system.
The colony's engineer, Abram Fitzgibbon, thought
it
opening of Queensland's first
railway
would be throwing money away
4
to build a
feet 8V2
inch gauge, even though that width had been adopted
by
New
South Wales. He said that
m) would be
all
hundred years
mph
if
3 feet
6 inches (1.07
Queensland would need it
was
satisfied
for the next
with the speed of 20
(32 kph). "To build a wider gauge", he said, "would
be like employing an elephant to do a horse's work." Fitzgibbon's
argument won the day, and Queensland
was
narrow gauge.
tied to a
Their
first
line
was
to tap the rich
country of the Darling
Downs. On 25 February 1864 the and
in
enthusiasm
first
sod was turned
at the prospect of direct railway
munication with the
interior, a
comparatively
com-
unknown
country, people arrived on horseback, in vehicles and
on
More than
foot to swell the crowd.
job was completed and on
1
a year later the
July 1865 both Houses of
Parliament adjourned for a fortnight to permit to attend the opening of the railway
to be held at
Toowoomba
in
-
honour
members
as well as the races
of the occasion.
But the harshness of the country also took
its toll.
The
early days of railway building were not without tragedy
27
VJTA John Richards'
stamp tion
illustra-
of the
Kuranda
Tourist
Train
VMA Crandchester Station
and misadveulare. In 1865,
decomposed" bodies
for
railwaymen were found near
of
Toowoomba. One, William
Justice,
beside the track by a farmer
day and found the track
fettler
no-one had come
-
on
Five days earlier,
had been found
reported to the con-
help.
He rode by the next
dead where he lay beside the to his aid.
15 February 1865, the
navvy, Philip Fogarty had been found of
Toowoomba. The
dead with
local
ill
who
man needed
tractors that the
example, "two fearfully
six
body
of a
kilometres out
coroner was told he was found
his face in a waterhole.
They had found
hat nearby. The finding was that "he had
come
his
to his
death by drowning having received sunstroke while drinking at the waterhole." According to the time-keeper's
notebook
in the
killed
gun
to
off" taking "effect
The
line
go
I
Queensland State Archives, another
man was
by "bullocks rushing the gate causing
a
Queensland's
Mr
Wilson accidentally".
to Bigge's
Camp (now Grand-
on
first
Chester)
from Ipswich
engine
named
after the
Governor's wife,
was opened on 31 July 1865, and the people
of
Lady Bowen
Brisbane again came by river and road. early railway staff
were
of the
and they named the
little
Irish cry of mobility,
"Get
Irish
engine Faugh-a-Ballagh, the
Many
out of the way! I'm coming through!", and weighed
down
with bunting and
Doyne,
warned
a
member
that
flags.
During the speeches,
it
Mr
of the Institute of Civil Engineers,
Queensland had "provided
itself
with
a
well-bred pony which would trot well as long as
its
powers were not overtaxed.
do
It
must not be asked
to
J
4
I
A
C
I
S
Ihe mil kip to
Kurondb h ocw
I
fcvnousoi
K
f
I
t
[
t
I
I
[
J
I
A
I
^
::
(buns/ oW^oc*" o"
the
work
as the
of a powerful horse.'
pony
The
line
became known
railway.
There were demands from
points of the compass for
all
railway communication but the route each wanted to take
was direa
pon.
to the nearest deep-sea
all
ning almost dead straight across the face of the the eastern sea coast.
None
with one another; the
settlers
duce to
port, the
The
oeouhM
From Townsville
Te
to
of these lines connected
wanted
to get their pro-
was with
their hinterland.
the Great Northern sent a train called
the Inlander westwards 773 kilometres (later 970 kilo-
behrB wte cxyslrudton or
map
miners their minerals. As for the
coastal towns, their trade
Barron FaMs,
run-
metres to
Ml
Isa);
from Rockhampton to Win ton the
hydra-^edric
Central Railway ran 864 kilometres; the Southern, from
dam
Brisbane to Wallangarra on the
New
South Wales bor-
der was 375 kilometres; the Westlander from Brisbane to
Cunnamulla, 972 kilometres.
eventually went
Later,
down from Caims
when
the line
to Brisbane, linking
the lines from the red dry plains of the inland with the
sugar cane plantations and the lush tropical vegetation of the coast, that 1,679 kilometres of track
second-longest
As these
lines
a
journey in Australia.
headed
spaces, railways
apan from
rail
became the
directly off into the
wide open
began to take on a unique appearance:
few miles beyond Townsxille the tracks
would not be enclosed by
fences.
Whereas railways
England had had to pay large sums through private property, these
for right of
lines for
much
in
way
of the
I
29
'^iKBiaBLVia**-".
way
ran over free land. Cloncurry, Dajarra and Kajabbi
yarded enough
make
cattle to
those
rail
centres second
only to Argentina as cattle shipping areas. Building the route from Cairns to the Atherton Table-
land in Northern Queensland called for tough men.
When work
began on 10
May
1886, miners and haulers
from the hinterland turned up
for the fun, but
by the
same time the following year there were men dead from the labour and loneliness, the dangerous terrain, thick jungle, steep escarpments and the scorching heat of
northern Australia.
The
little
Kuranda
station, out of Cairns,
is
a small stop-
ping place on the railway. The cost of building this line
had caused
one
of the
Kuranda out of
a scandal in the 19th century, but
most famous
today
tourist runs in the country.
Station looks as
a tropical forest.
though
An
began cultivating ferns and
it
it is
The
has been tunnelled
early railway
forest flowers
employee
and
trees
on
the platform, and in that lush hothouse climate they
ran
riot.
little
Barron as
it
His successors have kept the tradition
station
is
now
Falls that
passes on
as great
an attraction
and the
as the
Lady
spray out over the Kuranda Tourist Train
its
way up
the mountains.
30
S
I
t
u
[
1/
[
y
I
I
i:
M
II
[
I
here have been trains with no engines worth speaking about, according to the 'Big Wheel' men, the drivers of
steam or the huge diesel engines. To them,
I
the Silver City Comet was it
was
New
sophisticated for
no more than its
a
engined, air-conditioned, and could run at
per hour on the track from Broken It
may have been
drivers but the train served
was
a
when
stamp
the train ran
illustra-
tion
of the Silver
City
Comet
But
at
1 1
was 5
diesel-
kilometres
the west to
disdained by the old
purpose admirably.
No more
It
sitting
night or going for a walk
there was shunting to be done or freight to be
loaded. There
John Richards'
its
it
Hill in
passenger train pure and* simple.
around on cold platforms
car'.
day. Introduced in 1937 by
South Wales Government Railways,
Parkes in the east.
a train like
'power
was
on
a dining car, comfortable seats
time. For a great part of
its
and
680-kilo-
metre route there were unfenced desert wastelands or sheep properties as large as some European countries. Often no moving thing could be seen. The
Wales government had been slow
to
New
South
send trains across
would
result
after the
open-
this country, fearing that a lack of freight
in big losses.
On 26 September ing of the
first
1855 (25 years to the day
railway line in Britain, and 67 years
after settlement in Australia) the first train in
South Wales had
set off
from Sydney, bound
New
for the
Parramatta area. Railways were built north to the
Queensland border and south
to Victoria, but the
way
west to South Australia was neglected. In retrospect this
was
brought
Interior
Comet
of the c.
/
937
a
remarkable omission because
New
South Wales one
it
would have
of the richest freights
1
31
from within
its
own boundary.
Instead, by default.
South AustraUa took the output of Broken
the
Hill,
The train arrives
Silver City of the west.
Of
this area
at Parramatta
near the South Australian border the geog-
rapher, Griffith Taylor, wrote: These ancient rocks have been deeply denuded
plains of their
own
and
are
now almost
I
from Sydney,
1855
Mr
buried in the dreary
William
Sixsmith, First
waste. In such a desolate setting has
Engine Driver,
nature placed one of her richest treasures. Broken
Here the annual centimetres.
days to
rainfall of
When
some
the mines
first
areas
is
as
Hill.
low
NSW Railways,
as
1855.
20
opened, stores took 2
come from Adelaide and much
of the settlers'
needs came by camel team. To reach the nearest railhead
on the Sydney a
side of the
South Australian border entailed
480-kilometre trek over
the Darling River and
its
flat
land (with a crossing of
seasonally flooded tributaries)
before reaching a railhead and setting off at
Sydney. The
silver lead ore
and Silverton had started agitating for transport.
'a
discovered rush'
at
last for
Thackaringa
and the miners were
Could the South Australian
line
be given rights to cross the border for the 56 kilometres to Silverton?
No, replied
New
South Wales. Would
Railways send a line to the mining
New
fields?
South Wales
No. Eventually
VJTA hAr William
a private
company, the Silverton Tramway,
built a 56-
kilometrc line to the South Australian railway border.
Now
Sydney by
freight
and passengers could
sea to Adelaide,
at
travel
the
from
and from there by railway
Webster,
First
Fireman,
NSW
Railways, 1855
32
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and
to
VJTA Silver City
Comet later
/n
red
\\%
livery
!! across the South Australian desert to the border,
Broken
Hill in
New
South Wales
via the Silverton
Tram-
way. Other passengers travelled the whole way round by
rail
Pirie,
-
from Sydney
and then up
to
to
Melbourne, to Adelaide and Port
Cockbum on one
over to Burns on the other
Silver City
Comet, 7987
Broken
side,
side of the border,
before taking the final
run
to
On
12 January 1888 this 400-kilometre lifeline to Port
Hill.
Pirie
gave the riches of Broken
port.
The
New
South Wales town became,
South Australian town, even Australian time
Hill direct access to a
(a
to the
in effect, a
keeping of South
difference of 30 minutes from East-
New South Wales). Broken Hill Company was formed and, with other
ern Standard Time in
Proprietary
groups in the area, was soon producing one-third of the world's silver.
The bulk
of traffic has
always been the produce from the
mines: 39 million tonnes from their opening until the
beginning of 1967. Another 16 million tonnes of other
goods were carried in railway.
this period
The stimulus given by
over this lilliputian
this
remarkable
without doubt one of the factors that turned
line
this
is
raw
I
>33
The mining
tramways of Silverton
Broken
new
frontier
town
in
its
desolate setting into a vital
was 40 years before any other form consequence reacfied the industrial
complexes
By
area.
of Australia
lished from the resources of the
Trains
coming
in
city. It
any
of transport of this
time the giant
had been well estab-
Broken
were laden with coal
Hill area.
for the smelters,
timber for the mines, stores and foodstuffs for the com-
munity (which by 1891 numbered 26,000). On the way back across the South Australian border en route for the seaboard went the products of the mines.
On
age 35,000 passengers were carried each year early days
up
the line. The trains a of
to
62,000 passengers
volume
of traffic
day ran on the single
a
-
averin the
year travelled on
was such
that fourteen
line, necessitating
the use
every siding on the 56-kilometre route for crossing.
Traffic
over the early years included
a
range of
live-
stock such as cattle, sheep, camels, elephants, horses,
goats, pigs, turkeys calves. In
and geese, emus, donkeys and
Emus were quoted
1927 the
New
line across to
in
the rates book as ostriches.
South Wales Government sent the
Broken
Hill
on standard gauge,
stretching 1,125 kilometres
rail
a route
westward from Sydney.
near
Hill
>3A
H
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f
a
I
he mountain fastnesses of Western Tasmania could not have been opened up
mining
for
for
another 70 years
if
the prospectors had waited for a steam train for transport of the riches buried there. Second only to in
Sydney
time of settlement Tasmania. was, nevertheless, later
than
all
tainous
moun-
other colonies in building railways. The little
problems greater than any
island posed
encountered on 'the mainland'. Hellyer, the great
and courageous surveyor, recorded
on some days he
toiled for eijht
than
half mile (less
hours to advance
forest floor
a
north-west of
a kilometre) in the
Tasmania where the ancient
that
was covered
in
twelve feet (3.7 m) of debris, wet and rotted and treacherous. As well, he had the precipitous peaks
crevasses to attack,
An
early
Tasmanian
where the sun But the riches
all in
and deep
and gloom
a perpetual mist
rarely penetrated.
who
beckoned men
of this area
cut short
locomotive
tracks
and
laid
wooden
much
transport over
and
rails for
horse
of this pristine area. Iron rails
followed, but the motive
many
sleepers
power
of horses
remained
for
years before tiny steam engines were brought by
ship to Macquarie Harbour
when steam came
and trundled inland. Even
the mountains were such that one
Queenstown
to Strahan,
had part
of the track
line,
the
built
on the Swiss ABT, or rack railway system, where-
by cogs between the two
rails
mountain and stopped
from running away on the
down were
side.
A number
it
pulled the train up the
of private
built in this small area,
steam-driven railways
each separate from the
other so that even in the 1950s a traveller might use four different
company
lines to reach
Burnie on the
north coast from Queenstown.
The Tasmanian
driver. Bill
waymen, served
in
all
Devereaux,
areas of his
home
most
like State,
rail-
beginning
Mining locomotives at
in
Zeehan
western
Tasmania
35
in
Hobart as a part-time cleaner during the Depression.
In 1933 he as
was sent
on the wild west
to Strahan,
John Richards' coast,
stamp
fireman on the foot-plate. In that almost perpetually
damp
area
men working on government
Centenary Train
west coast
railways were paid sixpence per day 'climatic allow-
was
ance'. At that time there
the west coast.
(It
was not
no access by land
still
1936 that
until
a road
to
was
cut through from the east.) Bill recalls that:
There were rail lines sprouting out every-
where, mostly private the Burnie to
Company, Zeehan (where
and
It
was
Wee
said, zero horse
a small engine.
by the time
got
to
others, including the
with motive power from
we
I
to
was
Railway
Queenstown, a Mount little
Georgie
We had to
Wood
the engine,
she was always near empty. of sand,
lot
we were always
sometimes we couldn't get up the
and
day and
coal the thing every
Along the Henty River there was a
halve the train, passengers
Tullah branch line
power.
we got her back home
covered the rail track,
the west there
Emu Bay
Strahan, a government-owned line
to
would work), Strahan
I
Lyall line,
being, as
When
lines.
Zeehan owned by the
it
all.
constantly
trying to keep
hill for slipping
By
we
the time
it
clear:
and had
to
Workers and others celebrate
got back the construction
we'd find the other half walking along the track
Wee Georgie Wood took more than an hour 9.5-kilometre journey,
a
meet
us.
to travel
its
to
distance that later took just
ten minutes by car. But from
its
first
day
of operation
illustration
of Tasmania's
Emu BayMt Bischoff track of the
I
36
in 1924, until the
1962, the
road eventually reached Tullah in
steam train was the only transport
little
available to the 120 townspeople. Later,
on the Launceston
Hoban
to
run. Bill got to
the notorious Rhyndaston tunnel: There was
know
this big tun-
nel three-quarters of a mile long at the top of the hill at
Rhyndaston going towards Stonor.
Men
tunnel,
you couldn 't breathe.
up between the engine and footplate
got terrible hot in there.
The steam and smoke was compressed
collapsed.
narrow
It
the
steam and smoke was suffocating. it
was a
put
terrible feeling.
get
it
down on the air
damp
the
and
sweat rags
Once a driver had
in a truck
out of the heat.
to get
were haxing a bad run in there
in the
to pull the flap
gap because
We
back out of the tunnel because horses
mad. kicking the boxes
used
and
the tender,
and put our head down
round our faces,
We
to
were going
Ah
yes. if you
seemed a long time before
you saw daylight flicker ahead.
The nonh-wesi coast perience.
line offered a
"Few railways
prettier runs
than
in Australia
we saw
Limited." His final posting
more pleasant excan boast of having
every day on the Tasman
was Launceston, from where
he drove passenger trains 'until they were taken
Tasmania
is
perhaps the most historically-minded State
in the nation.
The time came when motor
cars ousted
when
they learnt
the passenger trains off the track and this,
the railwaymen determined to give
farewell.
off".
When
the
first 'real'
train
them
a fitting
had steamed
off
on
10 February 1871, there had been a song written and
sung to the rune of Marching Through Georgia' Steaming
for
the inaugural run on this island State.
through the
Tasmanian countryside
Oh! Hear the railway whistle its
notes are shrill
and
boys,
clear.
Hurrah'. Hurrah! For the horse that goes by steam!
Hurrah! Hurrah! For the men that worked so hard.
I The opening of Tasmania's
first
railway, the
Launceston-
Deloraine
line.
37
The farmers they will
when
And
A
them
they hear the joyful sound
the native youths
some work at
On
bless
last
God
bless
them,
have found
and Deloraine
the Launceston
railway.
century later Tasmanians celebrated the railway era
with the Centenary Train, 1871 -1 971. created to
on the
commemorate
bottle featured a
A
'special
brew' was
the auspicious day. The label
steam
train, the Night Mail,
an
1880 painting by Francis King of Launceston. Doubleheaders and triple-headers with, as was proper, a driver
and fireman on each, steamed
off
with passengers
galore. Special excursions ran to the north
and the
cele-
brations lasted for a week. Medallions were struck for
school children, there were historic exhibitions, folkdays,
model railway shows, displays
in a
converted
carriage and souvenir tickets. Children regarded the
The Night Mail
engines as outmoded, even
-Firing
if
greatly loved, objects.
Up ^BSO
(Francis King)
Tasmanians,
like
people everywhere in Australia, had
thought that railways would go on forever. But they
were wrong. The advent
of the private
motor
car
meant
VJTA Top: Tasmania's
Centenary Train crossing
that decreasing
numbers
of people travelled by train.
The great railway era had ended.
the historic
Perih bridge
t
38
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S
ot surprisingly, given the great size of this
the importance of road and
rail
I
transport in
a transport
regularly over the years.
A stamp
nial Australia.
on
a print
by
in colo-
issued in 1955 paid tribute to the
Cobb and Co. The design was based
field,
Sir Lionel
coach of the 1850s.
econ-
its
Coaches were an important mode of transport
pioneers in the
P
country and
omic development, postage stamps with
theme have appeared
M
H
1
Lindsay showing a typical mail
A Cobb and
Co. coach was also part
of the 1972 Pioneer Life set of stamps.
A AUSTRALIA
single
stamp was issued
in
1954
commemorate
to
the
centenary of railways in Australia. The design contrasted
r^A
a
modern
diesel train with
an early steam railway loco-
motive. Another stamp in 1970 marked the completion of the standard
r^A
gauge railway. The coloured
lines
on
the design represent the standard gauge track linking
Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane with Perth.
Steam may have gone out
of fashion, but
it
always
will
be associated with the 'Golden Age' of railways.
A
set of
four stamps featuring steam locomotives was released in 1979, a
r^A
Fairlie
locomotives were delivered to Geraldton in Western Australia.
VMA
century after the hard-working Double
The
Puffing Billy in Victoria, the Pichi Richi
South Australia and the Zig Zag Railway
line in
Blue Mountains
The
still thrill
latest set of six
and three
in the
passengers as tourist railways.
stamps, featuring three steam trains
diesels, highlights the diversity of Australia's
railway history. The great long-distance trains linking east
and west,
city
and
city,
smaller trains that serviced
centre and port stand beside
more
local
communities. The
stamps have been printed in standard sheet format and as 'peel
and
stick'
self-adhesive stamps.
The National Development
issue of
1973 featured one of
the great road-trains introduced to transport stock from
r^A
remote pastoral areas to distant markets. The Transport
stamp
in the
1988 Living Together definitive
series also
featured a road transport vehicle.
Urban transport has signs. all
The 1989
also
set of
been the subjea
tram stamps
major Australian
recall the
cities relied
stamp de-
of
days
on tram
when
services.
Melbourne's trams featured in one of the 1956 Olympic stamps, as part of a view of Collins Street. This rather sedate image contrasts with the busy rush of today's
commuter
r^A
trains in the Sterner
portraying Urban
Life.
vending machine stamp
S
39
VJTA
Australia Naiionoi
30c
Oevekwnem Beef Roads
r^A
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VjTA
HVING TOGETHER
AUSTRAUA //¥/
r^A V^A r^^S*^ <iXbmm
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f'je^x.,~'AM ja,»
41c
r^A
r^A
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41c
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URBAN ENVIRONMENT
41c •
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MO
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ustralia Post
the staff of
below
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wishes to thank Patsy Adam-Smith and
all
the institutions and individuals listed
for their co-operation
and
assistance. Photographs,
paintings and objects have been reproduced with the kind
permission of the following: Australian Picture Library (APL) J. S. Battye
Library of
WA History (Battye)
Coo-ee Historical Picture Library (Coo-ee) '
Coo-ee Picture Library (CPL)
International Photographic Library (IPL)
La Trobe Library, State Library of Victoria (LT)
National Library of Australia (NLA)
r^A
John Oxley
Library, State Library of Qld (Oxley)
Page 12-13 Flinders Street Station, 'Reso' train, fruit juice stall (PTC);
Photographic Resources Group, Public Transport Corporation, Vic. (PTC)
EcKvard Henty locomotive
Slate Rail Authority of
(Roy McDuff)
NSW
(
SRA)
r^A Page 4-5
Page 14-15
Horse tram (State Records,
The
SA); Hobson's Bay Railway
graph (Coo-ee); Adelaide-Alice
Company
locomotive (PTC);
Ghan
Overland
(CPL);
Railway (API); steam
r^A
r^A
Page 24-25
Page 32-33
Tele-
Ghan
Observation car, brochure
Red
Silver City
Comet (Coo-ee);
Comet
map
Australasian Sketcher,
(Australian Archives, SA,
(Coo-ee); Western Endeavour
Silver City
4 January 1890(LT)
8311 5
(SRA); Western Endeavour
(Outback Archives, Broken
Item
309)
1
TJFA level crossing
rjTA
Page 34-35
Page 16-17 (APL/M
Lees);
railway gangers (PTC)
Camel
train,
Afghans (National
Library of Australia);
Ghan
(IPL)
Page 26-27
All (Patsy
first
VMA Construction worker (API);
The
horses (Patsy Adam-Smith);
Adam-Smith)
r^A
(CPL);
Steam
Government Archives); Francis
Kuranda
King, The Night Mail
Station (both CPL);
r^A
r^A
Page 20-21
Stoney Creek bridge (Oxley)
Page JO- J/
Western Endeavour
Honne
Beautiful,
/
December
(R
I
(Battye
railway construction
1
r^A
loco (Roy McDuff); Spirit of
Page 22-23
fireman;
Progress (Coo-ee)
Sunset (APL/Kelly);
Sir
Harold Clapp (PTC); S-class
souvenir card, camels (Patsy
Adam-Smith); tracks (Horizon/Milton Wordley); train
on Nuilabor (Coo-ee)
Interior
of Comet; first
first
driver
-
Firing
and watercolour (Queen Victoria Museum and
Up 1880
ink
Art Gallery, Launceston)
Merchant)
Page 30-3
937 (LT); Newport workshop,
camp and
9338/A);
r^A
1
and Centenary
opening (Tasmanian
Page 28-29 postcard (Patsy Adam-Smith);
Camel
train
train (IPL);
gangers (Patsy
Australasian Sketcher, 17 June
1882(LT)
rjTA
engine (Qld Railways)
Page 36-37
Page 18-19
Ghan
Adam-Smith)
Opening of railway, Crandchester Station (Oxley);
Page 8-9
Hill)
Lees)
r^A
Vj^A
Page 6-7
988 (APL/M
(SRA);
and
NSW train (SRA)
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