Overhauls pp 67 - 68

It is said that the T class engines achieved 250,000 miles (or ten years whichever came first) between General Overhauls. Such a mileage was not hard to achieve in ten years, as it amounts to only 2600 miles per month at 80% availability. It was also said that in that time, wheels were turned and axle boxes repaired at 50,000 miles intervals (one mile equals 1.62 km). As curves were not too numerous or sharp on the lines most of the class operated, the wheel turning mileage is what might be expected, but it would be expected that axle boxes would need repairs rather more frequently, along with piston and valve rings, big ends and coupling rod bushes. The braking system would also have required attention.

On the boiler side, however, it is doubtful if any other locomotives in Australia achieved the claimed mileage or time interval between General Overhauls, ie in ten years all that was done to boilers was renewal of tubes, flues and stays. What about firebox problems - were no new tube sheets, no new fireboxes, deflector plates or firehole rings, fitted in ten years? It could be expected that during such an interval, elements would have been renewed, seams re-rivetted or caulked, foundation rings re-rivetted, grooves and wasted areas patched or welded, and, along with fitting replacement stays, the shape of the firebox restored.

Nothing is said about where General Overhauls were done. Judging from Peter Knife's book about the Eyre Peninsula system, the Ts which went to Port Lincoln did not return to Islington for GOs. Were necessary parts up to replacement boilers sent from Islington to Port Lincoln for such overhauls? Did the engines from the South East and Peterborough Divisions go to Islington only for ten year GOs (as illustrated on p 48). Or did they go to Islington more frequently? What material and/or parts were sent from Islington to those Divisions for repair work?

On p 66, reference is made to the emergency blowdown, but, apart from saying it was on the boiler top, it is not said where it was located. Did both blowdowns blow out through the same silencer on the boiler top? Nor is it said why on the T and some other SAR engines the blowdown was arranged to blow out above the boiler.

What is the tiny valve on the top of the front ring of the boiler in front of the dome, with no obvious operating lever?

p 66, wedging the regulator handle. If the regulator valve itself was of the vertical slides type, friction between the slides usually keeps the regulator in place most of the time, but it can gradually close (usually the arrangement is such that the mass of the slides and rodding prevents it opening further). Regulator valves of the double beat type tend to close, and require fixing in some way.

p 45 Wall stays cannot all have been horizontal on account of the reduction in width of box at the bottom to fit between the frames.

p 49 Walkers were located at Maryborough, not Rocklea.

pp 49 and 51 T loads were based roughly on a tractive effort of one quarter of the adhesive weight without adhesion blocks. It is therefore surprising that the boiler pressure was not reduced to achieve this one quarter. It is difficult to understand why loads were reduced for engines which were carrying only 160 lbs pressure, for which nominal tractive effort was still higher than one quarter of the adhesive weight.

p 58 photo - were tools kept on a bulkhead behind the coal space on the tender, stolen?

On 15^th October 1969, on the last stage of the Farewell Narrow Gauge tour, T 44 hauled the 303 tons train from Eurelia through Peterborough to Terowie. On the banks 165 to 159 miles north of Peterborough, and 153 to 148 miles south of there, it developed some 700 indicated horsepower in the low to mid 20s mph.

p 38, top photo. The Lend Lease arrangements were between the US and Australian governments. The QR eventually bought the engines from the Federal government.

The buffers, guard irons and handrail around the smokebox were painted silver, and the flags and star fitted because the engine was hauling an enthusiast special train.

p 38 bottom photo. C19 798 was written off in April 1956, replaced on the books in 1959, written off again in July 1962, but appears here in Ipswich running shed in 1967, five years later. It was not in running order, but used to provide steam for cleaning, and perhaps hot water for boiler washouts. The term "retired" was not used for QR steam locomotives, and in any case does not mean anything for machinery. QR steam locomotives were "stopped", put aside and not to run when some defect occurred or when a laid town maintenance task was not carried out because the engine was no longer needed. They were "condemned" when following inspection, it was decided they were not to be repaired, "written off" the books when their value was removed from the capital account, and "scrapped" when dismantled. There were often considerable intervals between these stages, and none but scrapping was necessarily final, as the restoration of 798 to the books shows.

p 39 bottom photo. Shunting at Ipswich passenger station was limited to moving empty carriage sets to and from sidings to the west, a task carried out by the train engines. Pure shunting, moving away slip carriages from Toowoomba passenger trains and wagons bringing Brisbane newspapers, and occasionally attaching a carriage from the workshops to a suburban passenger train, was done by PB15 engines allocated to shunting. Engine 895, which was then an Ipswich engine, has almost certainly come from the running shed, and is running past set 30 in the platform to be attached to the other end of it, to haul it to Brisbane or beyond. It was not written off until June 1969.

p 77, top photo. Presumably the ARHS Railway Resource Centre includes publications on Australian Railways, including past copies of ARHS Bulletins. Had the Editors referred to the Bulletin for August 1967, they would have seen that the rail motor in this photo is not a 45 hp AEC car, but one of RMs 65 to 80, built as 100 hp AEC petrol, but by the 1960s, fitted with 102 hp Gardner diesel engines.

Reference to the September 1957 Bulletin, pp 130 and 131 would show that the street is Spence not Spencer, and that the only way of turning a complete rail motor train or a locomotive at Cairns was by use of the triangular junction formed by the wharf line and its connections south-east and north-west with the North Coast Line. The rail motor has arrived at Cairns and is being turned on this layout. Judging from the way the shunter on the footboard is facing and the indication of the signal, the train has arrived from the west. The shunter will deal with the points and protect the level crossing as the car reverses from Spence St towards the wharf.

The signal is the down home from the North Coast Line (all trains arriving Cairns are down, whether from the south or west). The upper arm is for No. 2 platform, the lower for No. 1.

The vehicle with a white end in a siding to the left is on the end of a set of air conditioned Sunlander carriages. These trains were turned in Cairns in the same way as this rail motor.

The line along Spence Street was diverted to a parallel route via Portsmith yard in 1992.

p 77 bottom. As RM1900 is not standing at the exit from the platform (about halfway along its length), and, according to the headboard, had terminated at Roma Street, it is probably empty. If stationary, it is waiting for the signal to clear. Until 1966-67, platforms 1 to 4 had been covered by a high arched roof. After only some five years in the form shown in the photograph, the platforms were partially covered again by the Railway Centre buildings, and during the 1980s and 1990s completely covered by "air rights" developments.

p 78 top. The train is an enthusiast special on 26^th January 1969, and is facing towards Rockhampton. Glenmore Junction is on the opposite side of the river from Rockhampton station. At the signal cabin there, the fireman of each Rockampton bound or up train took up a hand bell to ring as the train ran along Denison Street, and the fireman of each down train gave up a bell given to him in Rockhampton. The correct name of the bridge is Alexandra.

p 78 bottom. As the sign on the station says, the place was then called Isis. The farthest terminus of the branch line was spelt Dallarnil.

p 79 top. The train is an enthusiast special bound for Brisbane, the engine to go as far as Gympie, on 13^th June 1966. Maryborough was headquarters of a District, not a Division, which extended to Gympie (exclusive) south, and Monto (inclusive) and Yandaran (north of Bundaberg, exclusive) north, and all branches between. Even in 1966, through trains on the North Coast Line bypassed Maryborough, the junction for Maryborough then being Baddow.

p 79 bottom. The class of the engine was Beyer Garratt.

(Some of these corrections were made in a letter from Brian Webber in ARH May 2007 p 195, and some others in ARH July 2007 p 283 under "Corrections". The latter includes no heading to allow indexing with the original material. Not all the errors to which attention is drawn above have been corrected in ARH.)

On p 331, it is said that part of the wharf branch was in use from about the time the line to Gympie opened, as locomotives, rolling stock, materials and equipment were transferred from ships at the town wharf.

As a date, that is about right, but the point about transfer of equipment etc is a guess, and not a good one. A reasonable or conventional guess would have been that the wharf line was built before the commencement of construction of the main line, to allow the transfer of locomotives, materials and equipment for the construction. Two years elapsed between the start of construction of the main line and its opening.

As it happens, however, the line to the QR wharf and the QR wharf itself were completed only in 1881, about the same time as the line to Gympie was opened (see 1881 QR Annual Report). Construction of the main line to Gympie had commenced before the first locomotive came on the scene, with road haulage of materials from some other wharf to the site of the railway station, and animal power used for the carriage of rails and sleepers along the first parts built. Wagons and carriages for this line were built in Maryborough by Messrs Negus and Messrs Tooth respectively, and moved to the site of Maryborough station by road. The necessary ironwork and wheelsets were imported, and moved to the works of the firms concerned by road.

The first locomotive was landed at a private wharf in April 1879, on a trolley on which it had been shipped from Ipswich, probably by barge to the estuary of the Brisbane River, and then by coastal vessel. There were then no wharves in Brisbane with a railway connection.

On being put on road in Maryborough the trolley carrying the locomotive collapsed. Eventually a 90 ft section of temporary track was laid, and the locomotive hauled on to it by animal power. The locomotive was moved along this track, the track behind the locomotive dismantled and relaid in front of it, and so on, all along streets, until the station site was reached. The half mile from wharf to station took two days. This is based on the researches of David Bailey, published in Sunshine Express, May 1969, p 38.

The third locomotive, which arrived in 1880 was delivered much the same way (Queenslander 29^th May 1880). The second, which arrived later in 1879, might have been delivered similarly, but it could well have been transferred to a barge in Maryborough, and taken by water to Antigua to be used in construction south of there while the bridge there over the Mary River was constructed. Certainly, one of the first three locomotives was taken to Antigua, and moved up a tramway from a wharf on the river to track level (see David Bailey, Sunshine Express, October 1969, p 123). These three locomotives were all A class 2-4-0s, used in the construction of the line to Gympie, three of the first four locomotives imported for the first railway in Queensland..

The wharf and wharf line were probably used for the arrival on the line of the three C class 2-6-0s which were transferred (again probably from Ipswich) to Maryborough to operate the line to Gympie opened on 6^th August 1881. These were transferred in July (two) and October (one). Given their size, and shipping and loading difficulties involved in such a movement, however, they were probably sent in parts and erected in Maryborough.

The branch has a rich history. It served most of the industry in Maryborough. Until the 1950s, Maryborough was a modest port, although of limited depth. Coal was exported over the QR wharves to Rockhampton and Townsville for railway use in Central and North Queensland before coal was exploited in those parts of the State. Considerable timber was exported from Maryborough. Locomotives, produce of Walkers Ltd, were also exported.

p 330 - the line shown is along Kent Street.

p 331 - the text refers to the wharves in the present tense. They have not existed for many years. The further spur to Walkers Ltd, along Bowen St, requires another change of direction, seen on p 366 (upper) and p 367. This is a private siding, and formerly had a further private siding, to the Gas Works, from it.

p 332 - the small kerosene light on the front of engines Nos 554 and 529 just above the headstock was not required by any QR rule or operating instruction. It is not present in the picture of No 477 on p 365. Engines running outside shunting yards had side lamps of the same type on each side of the front of the tender, on the brackets obvious in several of the photographs, and as shown carrying the lamps in the bottom photo on p 332. Engines engaged in shunting yards did not carry any lamps on this location. It would seem that the drivers of the engines with the lamp above the headstock in front placed it there when removing it from the bracket on the tender. In the photo on the cover, the second side lamp from the tender can be seen on the running board on the driver's side. The engines were probably rostered as shunt or wharf shunt or similar and the side lamps removed for the shift. As the wharf line was a running line and not a station yard, perhaps the side lamps should have been displayed. The waistcoat mentioned was part of the standard uniform for a QR engineman.

p 365, lower photograph - the engine is shunting the sidings at the site of the wharf, rather than the wharf per se.

p 366 - the shipyard of Walkers Ltd is behind the train.

p 367, upper photograph - the scene is in Bowen Street, and the buildings immediately behind the locomotive are the gas works.

Two PB15s at a time at Maryborough were normally fitted with the bell seen on the fireman's side of the engine in the photographs for operation on this branch. There was no instruction in the General Appendix concerning the bell. Presumably the District Superintendent required its use.

A PB15 could haul 350 tons from the station to the wharf and 210 tons from. Those loads suited the movement of sugar cane to the Sugar Factory.

This correction was sent to RD, but not published

Landsborough did indeed have a refreshment room. But it was not a steam locomotive watering station. For down or northbound trains, that was Palmwoods, 15 kms north, for up or southbound it was Palmwoods or Yandina, another 15 kms north again. Thus, North Coast Line trains stopped at Landsborough for seven minutes for refs, then not long after stopped at Palmwoods for five minutes for water.

Only one of the special trains which ran on the Dayboro' line on the day of the Camp Mountain accident was for the employees of the Customs Department. Indeed, only one train was needed for 215 passengers. The train in the disaster was the second picnic train of the day, and the one behind it was the third.

The 238 feet 5 inches mentioned was not for the locomotive alone, but for the locomotive, its tender and three carriages.

The cross seat and side door suburban carriages used on the train had no communication cords, so the passengers were unable to take action to halt the train. But nor did the guard take action, on his own admission to the subsequent Enquiry.

Peter Burden and Graham Bailey published a booklet on the disaster in 1997. The report of the Enquiry can be found in Queensland Parliamentary Papers for 1947-48, Volume 1.

Dean Punkay clearly wants to find a way of getting standard gauge into Queensland beyond Brisbane, preferably avoiding that place. He has examined every route which avoids mountains, and every port location, and reminded readers of RD of the savings in distance, urban congestion and mountain crossing of cutting across the bulge of south-eastern Australia. (Series of six articles in RD 2005 - 2007, the last in October 2007, p 16. This was submitted as a Letter to the Editor of RD, but not published.)

He has found routes from inland NSW to ports in central Queensland which fulfil his desiderata. He proposes that Brisbane be served by road connection from his north-south spine.

Brisbane and the retirement resorts to its north and south are large markets, so much so that others who want to build railways across the bulge want to connect Melbourne to, of all places, Brisbane! And they are happy to have that railway cross the mountains to the west of Brisbane, which are not especially high, not much of a barrier for high powered freight trains meant to connect those places at high speeds over the inland.

Brisbane and places right along the Queensland coast could well want to continue to trade with places on the bulge, such as Sydney and places 200 kms from it. In traffic terms, a railway across the inland serving Brisbane, by far the largest place in Queensland, will be more easily justified than one serving Central or North Queensland and avoiding Brisbane. If anything other than bulk minerals wants to move across inland NSW to Central and North Queensland, that is the traffic to leave to road, rather than traffic to Brisbane.

If bulk minerals from inland NSW want to go to ports in CQ by rail, and will pay for the line, it should of course be built. But what would that do to the rest of the Queensland rail network? Despite Dean Punkay's hopes, such a line does not have to be standard gauge. Even if it were to be that gauge, there would not be a great deal of traffic other the minerals. If there is a gauge difference, and if that other traffic is in containers, it can easily be transhipped at any point where that line meets the present medium gauge network. The minerals line could even be as self contained as most of the existing coal lines within Queensland. For the traffic wanting to move to NQ, there would be no economic incentive to convert the gauges. Where there is low population, and no heavy mineral or perhaps grain traffic, railways of any gauge will find it hard to survive (eg the lines in Queensland west of Goondiwindi, Roma and Emerald).

It is going to be difficult to find a scheme for bringing standard gauge to Queensland in a way which renders economic the conversion of what remains of the present system. Brisbane is certainly an obstacle to that, not in Punkay terms that it taxes all traffic through it, but because it is not easy to bypass along the coast, and having a busy network of medium gauge lines within it. Think away!

Even though most of the history of the existing medium gauge system in Queensland is irrelevant to what Dean Punkay would like to happen, he presented a lot of history. Most of that was about how everything Queensland governments did favoured Brisbane or its "capital proxies", or was an obstacle to standard gauge. That history is very strained.

Historically Brisbane was the centre of the separation movement, and became capital. Brisbane and Ipswich were the only settlements of consequence at separation. The area within Queensland for some 300 kms north of the border for a long way inland was and is highly productive, and had coal and timber. The river on which Brisbane stands was capable of development as a port, still the only one for 300 kms north and south. History had its own momentum. south-east Queensland developed rapidly, and miraculous in Punkay terms, the railway from Ipswich and Brisbane to the productive inland crossed a mountain range.

Every productive area in Queensland wanted a railway, access to a port, and every port, once established, coveted a hinterland. Given the huge distances, the modest resources, the false hopes of some mineral developments, and the inevitable political influence over the use of the resources available, the configuration of the Queensland railway network and ports was mostly sensible, certainly not irrational. Given the scarcity of resources, sea transport along the coast was favoured wherever it could be used, and railways were built to reduce transport costs and improve its quality in the inland. There were many other ports north of Brisbane, several fed by independent railways, and several of those were not connected to Brisbane until 1924. As late as the 1950s, coastal shipping served those ports with general cargo from southern ports as well as Brisbane, and at the time the ships were in some cases small enough to enter shallow draft ports. Even now, most Queensland sea borne trade uses the nearest practicable port.

Some things were certainly done which were wasteful at the time or in hindsight to favour some politically important provincial places (and Queensland has several large provincial cities). Punkay mentions Rockhampton. It was the only place in "the north" which could be offered a railway in the horse trading of 1863 which brought about the railway from Ipswich inland. In development terms, Rockhampton received a considerable boost from Mt Morgan. Not only that city, but its considerable hinterland, favoured policies helping CQ, even if those were not necessarily sensible. Mackay needed an Outer Harbour to be built to become a satisfactory port.

The Dawson and Callide Valley lines, not only running from Rockhampton, but also running up hill and down via Mt Morgan, represent the most irrational aspect of the configuration. Brisbane of all places should have been the port for the South Burnett (the Kingaroy line and branches) rather than the much less satisfactory port of Maryborough, but the serial progression of the line through the South Burnett, having a railway to somewhere via a tolerably easy route, was very influential in that routing (and a line to Brisbane was authorised but never built).

Where routes were not direct, and the economic interests wanted access to another port, or smelter, or source of coal or were aggrieved by indirect routing, the rates charged were varied through political influence to take the rough edges off the less than ideal aspects of the network configuration (eg the Southern line, copper ore from the Cloncurry area to Chillagoe).

The political mechanism over many decades has provided plenty of allegations by the centre, north and far inland that Brisbane was favoured in Queensland development polices. Broadly speaking, however, there has always been such a strong development imperative in Queensland politics that places away from Brisbane have not been deliberately disfavoured. If anything, the provincial cities have been unduly favoured. Brisbane became what it did through its location, as the port in the productive south-east, and through the momentum of history, becoming the biggest place there and in the State.

No Queensland government would or could have built a line from the south-west or the northern Darling Downs to Gladstone or a port on an unsettled part of Broadsound when those places could have access to a closer port by extensions of the railway inland from Brisbane. Queensland made many attempts to have shipping from Europe enter Australia via Torres Strait, ie to arrive at Queensland ports first, and had some success pre Federation, but most ships came to Queensland from the south Brisbane last (and of course vice versa), although some ships made circuits of Australia.

On gauge, the biggest mistake was at the beginning, but not in Mr Punkay's terms. On the first, Ipswich to Toowoomba, line, costs were saved through light standards and use of sharp curves in crossing two mountain ranges. The government was advised that the savings from sharp curves were possible only with the medium gauge. But the formation and tunnel dimensions were built to standard gauge dimensions (those of NSW so far as I can tell, although NSW had no tunnels until after the Toowoomba line was built), these in case the medium gauge was a failure. That assumes that standard gauge vehicles could have traversed the five chains radius curves after all! The line could have been standard gauge, on the formation and through the tunnels as built, using the same 40 lbs rails and five chains curves, and small locomotives and light rolling stock similar to that used. The cost would have been little greater than the medium gauge line built. And the rest of the system could have been light standard gauge.

Once having started with the medium gauge, and found that it worked satisfactorily, however, given the lack of resources and the separation of Queensland from the rest of the country, and the continuing view that the medium gauge saved money, it was sensible to continue with it (there were attempts to build even more cheaply than the original line, in one case using even narrower gauge). Even if the first lines had been built as standard gauge, it might have been difficult to resist the oft presented arguments in favour of the medium gauge (Queensland being earlier than most, was often given as an example of its success!). If the lines in the south of Queensland had started as standard gauge, they might well have been converted to medium (cf New Zealand and Tasmania). In more recent times, the coal lines, being completely self contained, could have been any gauge - six feet if that was optimal. If the quantity of coal moving over the Goonyella system now had been forecast at its inception, of course it would have been of higher technology, rather than constantly improving, and being always less than optimal for the volume.

On the rebuilding of the Mt Isa line in the early 1960s - a standard gauge line Collinsville - Townsville - Mt Isa, with dual gauge from Merinda to Townsville, would have worked as a railway, but it is not easy to see almost half a century later what gains there would have been from the wider gauge. The technology used by the QR since the upgrade has been respectable. Not much traffic wanted or wants to move between that line and the NSW system and beyond. The line was upgraded from a special loan from the Commonwealth, now repaid, and normal State loan funds. Contrast that with the grants to gauge conversion in three other States. A few years later, the Queensland government, less fearful of losing the ouputs of Mt Isa mines and the rail revenue, would have insisted that the mining company come forward with the funds ("special deposits") to rebuild the line, as the coal companies were required to do to obtain new and upgrade existing lines. Now of course, QR Limited borrows in its own right to finance upgradings and new lines, without the constraint of the old Loan Council.

12^th June 2007

amended 25^th September 2007

amended 2^nd April 2008 to include Punkay

amended 13^th May 2008 to include Maryborough and 12 August 2008 with small corrections to Maryborough.