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

[ianst@refer.to.sig.au (Ian Staples)]

In article <1e4xs5f.3mmpdarm5veiN@dialup-m1-46.brisbane.netspace.net.au>, 
nevilled@netspace.net.au (Neville Duguid) wrote:
>Ian Staples <ianst@refer.to.sig.au> wrote:

>> 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.

No, I don't think it was *daily* but I'm pretty sure the service ran
most days of the week -- may have missed one or two.  (But perhaps I'm
remembering that from the mid to late 50s.) It was daily except Saturday
from Cairns by the 60s anyway (but it was the Sunlander by then too).

>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 :-)

As far as I can recall it was only about 2 days even then.  You spent two
nights on the train, the second of which more or less "dawned" as you
pulled in to Roma Street.  (Though in summer that far south and east it 
was rather more than dawn by then. :)  By the mid 60s the Sunlander took
a nominal 42 hours (depart Cairns noon, two nights on the train, arrive
Roma Street 6 a.m.) for the 1043 miles.

Speaking of refreshments, it was standard practice for *everyone* to have
a cuppa or a beer, and a sanger or a pie, at *every* two-bit station along
the way that sported a bar/cafeteria.  The logic of this surfeit of food
and drink intake was "You never know when you'll get another meal" -- which
was pretty true on the "schedules" the things ran on, especially in the wet
season.  Until the present Burdekin bridge was built the rail could be cut
by days at a time at Ayr/Home Hill -- but at least there was civilisation
on each side of the river in that case (even if it looked more like Holland
than Australia, what with a windmill in every yard).

Given the subjective impression, I was quite surprised to calculate on one
trip that the train actually averaged around 30 m.p.h. between major centres.
(In fact the nominal average speed for the Sunlander was almost 25 m.p.h.
for the whole trip -- you couldn't do much better in a car on the roads as
they were then, by the time you stopped for fuel and a feed and a snooze.)

>> 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

Actually, I thought the bit across the flats around St Lawrence was among
the best sections of the trip -- it was a type of country I wasn't familiar
with and the highway didn't go that way then, so you couldn't see it from
the road.  Also, IIRC, you got to see it from the windows of the dining car
(at lunch time?) which added to the interest.

As for the rest, yes, there was a lot of nothing more than eucalyptus
woodland where there weren't cane paddocks and back yards to see. :)

However, it's funny what people notice and find interesting.  Years ago
a colleague came up from the Darling Downs country.  He hired a car and
drove up to Cooktown for the weekend.  On Monday he was enthusing over
the trip, especially "all those mountains".  I said "What mountains?"

Being brought up looking at the things, I never really saw them!  He was
right of course, you can see mountains and hills pretty well all the way
from Mareeba to Cooktown, and the road actually goes over the Desailly
and Byerstown ranges!  (Not that they're all that impressive as features,
but they were certainly bloody rough going before the bitumen arrived.)

Cheers,  Ian S.

ianstDELETE@THISdpi.qld.gov.au