Trains of australia

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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

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co-ordinated by

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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

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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

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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

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ighty-three years after that

U

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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

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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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'"'

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SlSbSSi^'

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1891.

meant

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fi

and came

Port Augusta in 1881 in

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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

S

[

I

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[

1/

[

r

I

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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

I

I

H

S

H

I

H

A

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

K

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[

P

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VJTA

E

I

H

A

K

[

M

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1/1/

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

Vj^A VJTA

VjTA

HVING TOGETHER

AUSTRAUA //¥/

r^A V^A r^^S*^ <iXbmm

'^m M/

f'je^x.,~'AM ja,»

41c

r^A

r^A

r^A AUSTRALIATHE

41c

r^A

URBAN ENVIRONMENT

41c •

1

MO

k

N

t

ustralia Post

the staff of

below

I

W

H

I

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M

S

II

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I

1^

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)

S

m mยง

liiiiB?

rrj,

,'W

r