Re: Queensland Railways [Was: etc. etc.]

[nevilled@netspace.net.au (Neville Duguid)]

Ian Staples <ianst@refer.to.sig.au> wrote:

> In article <1e4s43a.1kpk8lm1dcxosxN@dialup-m1-40.brisbane.netspace.net.au>,
> nevilled@netspace.net.au (Neville Duguid) wrote:
> >
> >(Another reason I am sceptical of the importance given to the railways
> >in that regard is that when I was a boy in the 1950s, I had to travel by
> >train a lot. Even though the coastal railway had for a long time
> >connected Brisbane to Cairns without interruption, there was only one
> >long-distance passenger train per day on the main northern line out of
> >Brisbane, and it only went as far as Bundaberg. Every second day it was
> >replaced by the "Rocky Mail" that went all the way to Rockhampton.  If
> >you wanted to go further than that, you were back in Bourke and Wills
> >Land - you had to ring all sorts of officious railway mandarins to get
> >the information needed to plan your expedition so as not to end up stuck
> >in the middle of nowhere with no-one able to tell you what to do next.
> >Coinciding with the introduction of diesel-electric locomotives, the
> >"Sunlander" service was introduced. It went all the way to Cairns.  It
> >took 2 and a half days to get there, and went only once (maybe later
> >twice) a week.  I seriously doubt Queensland Railways hasever 'tied the
> >state together' as many historians claim).
> 
> One of us has a poor memory of this time, Nev.  :-)
> 
> I can't be sure how *easy* it was to go back and forth by train between
> Cairns and Brisbane in the 40s, but I *think* we managed it in '47 
> without too much trouble (though I wasn't personally involved in the
> bookings at that time :-).  Certainly some relations seemed to manage
> it without problems (apart from road access to Cairns from Mossman such
> as in '51(?) when the Cook Highway was cut for weeks :) in the late 40s/
> early 50s when they came north every Christmas for a few weeks.

I doubt it would have been a daily service - although the railways were
very busy during the war years transporting troops between Brisbane and
Townsville, I believe.

> As I recall, the service was known as the Sunshine Express (some "Express"!)
> before it became the Sunlander.  I certainly travelled straight through
> on it in '54 when I went down to the Ekka in Bne as a guest of the RNA
> along with a bunch of other country kids.  I had at least one other
> return trip on it too between '47 and '54, but I can't recall the year.

How long did it take to do the trip, can you remember? The dining car
would have made a big difference.  Passenger trains without dining cars
stopped for a meal every 150-200 Km, and for "refreshments" twice as
often.  Also the steam engines tended to unshackle and disappear looking
for water for themselves just as often again :-)

> The really boring thing was watching the mileage markers go by, sllowwwwly.
> The damn things marked every half mile from Brisbane, so you'd look out
> and see "857 1/2" then what seemed like hours later (and probably was :)
> you'd see "893" or whatever.

The country north of Rockhampton was wild, wooly and *unbearably* boring
IIRC. I'm not sure if it was heading north or west out of Rocky, but I
remember one trip the train lurching and the carriages crashing together
in a violent manner most of the way. My grandma was with me on that
trip. She was a nervous wreck by the time we got wherever we were going.
We suspected the engine driver and fireman of resorting to alcohol to
relieve their own and everyone else's boredom :-)  I didn't blame them.
They had to do it all their working lives. One trip was enough for me
:-) 

> The only real adventure on the trip was the dining car which they put on
> for the section around about Mackay/Rockhampton.
> 
> Of course, later on, in the late 50s, there was the serious problem of
> surviving that stretch from Gladstone to Marlborough where you could
> only get that awful Rockhampton beer (Mac's, IIRC).  From Marlborough
> north you were back in familiar Cairns draught territory.  (Not that
> it was a worry to we sub-21 students of course. ;-)
> 
> Cheers,  Ian S.
> 
> Addendum:
> The northern kids from the Charters Towers boarding schools also connected
> with the service when going home for holidays.  The "Midnight horror"
> departed from the Towers at 00:01 a.m. on the first day of the holidays so
> as to give us as much time as possible at home without contravening the
> Qld school term regulations. 

We had an incredible institution known as the "Railway Picnic" once a
year in SEQ.  Free trains from all over would converge on Scarness (a
beach at Hervey Bay) for a free picnic including free ice cream (a big
deal for kids in those days).  Unfortunately the rise of the "juvenile
delinquent" - riotous behaviour and vandalism on the trains etc - put an
end to it. The railway volunteers could no longer guarantee the safety
of the trains and passengers, so they had no option but to give it away.

> It got to Tsv about 05:30 or so -- though
> that's subject to confirmation. 8-)  We sometimes had to wait 12 hours
> or more for the connection in Tsv -- I don't think the Sunshine Express/
> Sunlander was *ever* on time.
> 
> ianstDELETE@THISdpi.qld.gov.au

Cheers


-- 
Neville Duguid         * PC Political Science: "The insane should have *
nevilled@netspace.net.au * the same rights as everyone else. Anyone  *
Spare me, spam me not.     *  who disagrees with them should not." *