Far North Queensland - Balley Hooley Update etc [long]

[billboltonREMOVE-TO-EMAIL@computer.org (Bill Bolton)]

I've just spent several days in the Cairns/Mossman/Port Douglas area.


Balley Hooley train service
===========================

The current service runs from St Crispins (Clearlake) station to Port
Douglas (Mirage Marina).  There are trains every hour from about 9am
to 5pm.  The first service originates at St Crispins and the last
service terminates there, with the train stabling overnight at St
Crispins.  There is one intermediate platform at the Radison Reef
hotel.  There are no passing facilities between St Crispins and Port
Douglas

The service is operated by three semi-open cars pulled by diesel cane
loco "Mowbray".  The loco and cars are fitted with a small knuckle
autocoupler.  There are run around loops at St Crispins and Port
Douglas.

The end of track at Port Douglas is onto a turntable which is now
basically just used as a sector plate to turn the loco onto the other
track of the loop.  There is a turntable in the passing loop track at
St Crispins, but it is now through-railed and is not operational.  The
St Crispins turntable is ex-QGR from Kuranda, while the Port Douglas
turntable was built new at Mossman Mill.

A track panel beyond St Crispins, just before the lake bridge, has
been lifted recently for track maintenance so there is currently no
track link to Mossman Mill.

There is little promotion of the Balley Hooley train outside of the
immediate Port Douglas area (and not much within Port Douglas).  No
one we asked in Cairns, on our way to Port Douglas, seemed to be sure
if it was operating. 

The original Port Douglas tramway Fowler loco and an original
passenger coach were restored in 1997 thanks to the efforts of the
Port Douglas Historical Society are on display in a caged enclosure
near the ANFL field behind the shopping centre. 

Two Bundy Fowler steam locos and two more semi-open passenger cars in
an obviously disused state were seen at the station building at the
rear of Mossman Mill.  A further semi-open passenger car was in the
yard at the front of the mill and the incomplete frame for a seventh
passenger car was also in the mill yard.

I spoke with one of former steam loco drivers, now running four wheel
drive tours to the Daintree rainforest, and he said the problem with
the original Balley Hooley steam service was that the Mossman Mill was
very good at cane rail operations but had no understanding of the
needs of tourist rail operations.  The steam service needed to link
into scheduled coach based tours run by package tour operators and for
that is need to be able to keep to a timetable.  During the cutting
season the Mill would often put loaded cane trains out in front of the
Balley Hooley passenger trains, which would make them late arriving
and upset the tour operators schedules, and during the off season they
would sometimes schedule track maintenance without notifying the
tourist side of the rail operations.

Anyway, despite a good start to the original steam service within
Mossman, later to Clearlake and eventually to Port Douglas, the
operational problems created distrust by package tour operators and
traffic fell away as tours started avoiding the otherwise popular
train ride.

One of the Bundy Fowlers was converted to LPG gas firing, but this was
not very successful in service and it was eventually converted back to
coal firing.  The LPG gas burners were set up to provided what was
basically a fixed heat and this created problems when trying to start
a train on a grade or curve, as there was no way for the draft blast
to draw more temporarily draw more heat out of the fuel as there is
with a bed of coal.

Apparently two narrow gauge coaches where purchased from South Africa
for the Balley Hooley tourist service but were never put into
operation.  There was no sign of them at the Mill and my informant had
no idea what had happened to them.

The term Balley Hooley comes from the original far southern terminus
of the mill tramway system, near "The Bump".  The Bump was the start
of the "Bump Road" up to the Atherton tableland, which for many years
was the only road access into Port Douglas and Mossman and was a
fiendish descent.  Now a days the Bump Road alignment is only used by
hikers and trail bike riders.  The mill tramway was cut back to the
North side of the Mowbray River during the 1950s as part of a plan at
that time to close down the cane rail operation and replace it by road
haulage..... the far ends were lopped of the rail system before the
folly of this approach was realised.  Evidence of these truncations
can sometimes be seen in pairs of rails which dangle over creeks,
after the supporting bridge timbers have rotted out, or in one case
simply disappeared below the roadside parking for a memorial (where
Japanese bomb had landed during WWII) which had been graded over the
top of the rail line.  In a few cases, the remains of road crossings
which had long been abandoned could be picked out from bits of rail
peeping through the tarmac.

Anyway, the far southern terminus was known as the Balley Hooley and
the "Balley Hooley" mixed train operated to it every Wednesday
carrying mostly supplies and groceries to householders along the line,
plus carrying occasional passenger.


Mossman Mill
============

On the cane tramway side of things, the advent of irrigated cane
growing on the Atherton tablelands has seen a much larger road rail
transfer facility built on the south side of Mossman, adjacent to the
Rex Highway.  There had been a small road/rail interchange at that
site for quite a while but sometime over the past few year this has
been increased to about 8 parallel roads and is now a major mode
change point.  The Mossman Mill uses large bogie cane bins which can
fit onto a rail underframe or semi-trailer underframe.  Collection of
these bins on concrete holding stands can been seen well beyond the
ends of the rail lines.  Many of the longer rail lines have raised
transfer ramps at their outer ends for road to rail interchange of
bins.

The older Mossman cane bins have solid sides but the newer bins,
including the one seen under construction at the Mill, have a tubular
frame with mesh fixed to it.... basically like a double length version
of the single truck bins commonly used on the more southerly mills.
The older bins, both solid and mesh sided, are painted yellow, but the
newer mesh sided bins are now left unpainted.


Cairns
======

A number of cane tramway crossing "flashers" in the Cairns area have
been implemented by mounting rotating beacons where the fixed lights
would normally go.  The "flash" is achieved by beacon rotation rather
than using on/off flasher with a fixed lamp.  This also means the pair
of lights attached to a crossing sign do not flash alteratively, but
move in and out of sequence with each other.

For those who haven't been to Cairns recently, suburban development of
the city (population ow around 120,000) has overtaken the cane
tramways and there is now a haul of about 15 kms between the northern
and southern cane fields, which is basically through built up areas
and largely between the back yards of houses, around bowling greens,
beside schools etc.   The Northern fields must be 50km or more from
the mill at Gordonvale.


Australian Sugar Museum, Mourilyn
=================================

Rail exhibits at the museum include a Hudswell-Clark loco in the
process of restoration (mostly complete but still in grey undercoat)
and a beautifully restored Fowler 0-4-0 cane loco, supposedly the last
remaining intact instance of the original Fowler cane loco design in
the world.  There is also a reconstruction of one of the early cut
cane wagons.  Many of the photos which dot the walls also depict
aspects of cane railway operation from the past.


Kuranda
=======

There are plans well advanced for steam operation of the Kuranda
tourist trains. Locos mentioned as possibilities include a Garrat
(possibly ex-Zig Zag), a PB15 (?) and possibly an ex-South African
Railways C-24 (?)

A rake of ex-Brisbane stainless steel suburban carriages was stabled
in an wired off enclosure (but still covered in graphetti) a few kms
north of Cairns Central.  One has been already converted to the new
tourist configuration as a sample (said to be very well done) and the
other 7 cars will be converted later this year.  Presumably further
ex-Brisbane SS suburban cars would be converted over time.

Apparently QR has become concerned the level of maintenance required
by the existing 60 to 80 year old wood bodied cars used on the current
tourist trains.

Cheers,

Bill