On my main subject of crossing passenger carrying trains, Rod Milne mentions a method for crossing passenger trains at Clifton, Nobby and Harristown. This was to bring the first arriving train to the platform, then to move it to a subsidiary crossing loop or siding near the station building, to allow the opposing train to come to the platform.

That method was described, in more detail than above, in my 2003 article, in the last two paragraphs of the middle column on p 249 and on p 251, and illustrated on p 251 (top photograph) of my article, where I remarked on the convenience it afforded. In his letter Rod Milne is extending what I said, but he does not say so; rather he presents this point as though it is something I had failed to include.

In the cases Rod Milne mentions both trains were locomotive hauled, whereas in the cases I mentioned one was a rail motor or a short passenger train replacing a rail motor, and the loop used was usually a goods shed siding.

Amplifications and corrections to his remarks are nevertheless necessary.

Most crossing stations did not have subsidiary loops. Indeed, some did not even have goods shed sidings. Only trains up to the length of such subsidiary loop or siding could be crossed by this method, and then only to the extent that there was space available in the loop or siding.

When 26 and 37 crossed at Harristown, the Working Timetable (WTT) showed 26 arriving at 1238 and leaving at 1241, and 37 stopping and leaving at 1240. By the rules, 26 should have been admitted to the platform, and 37 brought through the main crossing loop to stop with its carriages clear of 26, then for 37 to have left from the loop. That would have required considerable walking by the fireman and guard of 26 to open and hold the points at each end, and difficult to perform in the times given (the Station Master would have dealt with the staff working). Hence the convenience of using some other loop or siding, 26 running into it, and reversing out after 37 had arrived on the main line and left.

At Harristown there was a subsidiary loop on the western side south of the station building. It was only seven chains (141 metres) in the clear, long enough for a train of only 19 F wagon units (after two locomotives, as was usual in declaring the length of crossing loops). Putting either of passenger trains 26 or 37 into the subsidiary loop at Harristown in the last years before their withdrawal was not a problem, however, because they were then normally only five coaching vehicles (about 16 F units) long. Rod Milne claims in an article in ARH for November 2008 that the dead end Barley Board siding was also used to cross these trains. That siding was only 7½ chains long, again long enough for the short trains that 26 and 37 had become by the 1960s. Use of these sidings for crossings required them to be free of wagons. The subsidiary loop was used for wagon storage at times in the fifties, and the Barley Board siding was of course occupied at times by wagons loading barley. Perhaps the main crossing loop had to be used at times for the crossing.

There was a further reason for 26 reversing out of the subsidiary loop at Harristown, the hand held catch points at the Warwick end of that loop. Had 26 left directly from that loop to Warwick, it would have been necessary to hold those catch points and unlock the points of the loop itself for 26 to trail through.

Rod Milne says that there were subsidiary crossing loops at both Nobby and Clifton so that the method used for crossing 26 and 37 at Harristown could be used at those places if 37 was running late. There was no supplementary crossing loop at Nobby. The loop on the western side was for goods unloading, the goods shed and grain sheds. No doubt when wagons did not occupy its full length it could be used to cross short trains. The additional loop at Clifton was not provided just in case 37 was late. There was no general provision of supplementary crossing loops on the QR because passenger trains might run late. There were places with more than one crossing loop, or places to put crossing trains, but not many.

A more plausible reason for the second loop at Clifton is that so many passenger and mixed trains were scheduled to cross at places between Warwick and Toowoomba before the opening of the Kyogle line in 1930, and there was nowhere en route to refuge a goods train. Such resulted from the need to run a second passenger train on the Toowoomba to Warwick section to cater for the local traffic, to allow the Sydney Mail proper, 26 and 37, to cater for places south of Warwick and Interstate only. The second trains were 26A and 37A, known generally as "The Sweeper". The WTT also showed in addition to The Sweeper a second division of 26 and 37 as required on the line in the late 1920s. In the years when the four trains ran, four crossings of passenger trains occurred during weekday afternoons between Toowoomba and Warwick, and when six ran, there were nine crossings. Detail on these trains and the places used for crossings is given below.

At Nobby, the crossing loop was entirely north of the station building, on the east side of the line. I have been unable to trace any record that Nobby was ever interlocked, as claimed by Rod Milne, and he gives no reference. At Clifton, the loop on the eastern side was entirely north of the station building, and was almost as long as the crossing loop proper on the western side. Interlocking was installed at Clifton, it seems in 1918 (WN 531), and existed until 1971 when trailable facing points were installed at each end of the loop.

No date is given for the "1920s era" photograph said by Rod Milne to have appeared in "The Queenslander" showing a crossover between the main line and loop at Greenmount (Rod Milne seldom gives any specific references for points he makes, and this non-specific one applies to 520 copies of that weekly newspaper!). Weekly Notice 492 in 1917 said that the then present arrangements (not specified) for crossing 26 and 37 at Greenmount did not allow rule 223c to be observed. The Weekly Notice instructed that 26 was to arrive at the platform at 1204 and draw forward into the loop; 37 was to arrive on the main line at 1206 and depart from there; 26 was then to depart from the loop. This 1917 instruction was issued prior to interlocking being installed at Greenmount in 1918 (WN 539), so the points to the crossover would have been hand held.

The instruction makes sense only if Greenmount then had an intermediate crossover between the main line and the loop, on the Warwick side of the station building, facing Warwick.

The times in that instruction are incorrect for the running of 26 and 37 at the time (see the note about The Sweeper below). In 1917, Rule 223c concerned the crossing of two stopping passenger or mixed trains, requiring the first to arrive to be given the platform, the second to arrive in the loop and stop when its brakevan was opposite or had passed that of the first, as given in my article. The relevance of the rule to the above instruction is not clear, nor is it obvious why the Station Master could not have interpreted the rules himself.

The description of the crossing of 26 and 37 at Greenmount I gave in the article in the middle column of p 248 applied for most of the 1950s. If there was then such a crossover (and none is shown in the 1959 station yard plan), it was not then used in the crossing of 26 and 37. Rod Milne says that there was interlocking at Greenmount until 1951. The interlocking was there until much later, and was removed in 1958 (WN 11/58). Greenmount remained the scheduled crossing station for 26 and 37, as said on p 248 of my article, until 1961. The interlocking was removed so that Greenmount could be used as a crossing station when there was no officer on duty. It was one of several crossing loops from which interlocking was removed for that reason.

There were crossovers between crossing loops and main lines at various places to facilitate movements, not only crossings. There were two at Dalby, both used mostly in shunting and engine movements, but both were used at times in crossings. That between trains 123 and 2, mentioned on p 250 of my article, used the eastern intermediate crossover. Dalby was a non-interlocked yard, except for the junctions at the western end, so these intermediate crossovers were not protected by signals. Operations over them were controlled by the Station Master, and the points operated by a porter or shunter. There were also intermediate crossovers at Landsborough (interlocked) and Bundaberg (non-interlocked). There were probably more at other places.

Such intermediate crossovers allowed a variation on means of crossing passenger trains (cf my article). From November 1970, 237 the northbound Sunlander leaving Brisbane at 7.35 am on various days crossed 312 up passenger from Gympie at Landsborough. 312 arrived at the platform first. When its work was finished, it reversed clear of the intermediate crossover but within the level crossing to the north. After 237 had been brought to the platform to allow Sunshine Coast passengers for the north to join, 312 traversed the intermediate facing crossover to the crossing loop, and left for Brisbane (information from D Warn).

Blaxland on the Western Line also had a subsidiary loop.

It is indeed disappointing that I said that trains 26 and 37 to and from Wallan-garra were withdrawn in 1971 when they were withdrawn from 1^st February 1972 (last runs Saturday 29^th January 1972)(WN1/72, see also Sunshine Express February 1972). The trains were shown in the November 1970 Public Timetables but not in the November 1971 edition, from which it would almost always have been a reasonable deduction that they were withdrawn during 1971. Presumably they were to have been withdrawn from 1^st November 1971, but after the public timetable was prepared, it was decided to retain them for the Christmas/New Year passenger and mail traffic. My copy of the 1971 public timetable contained no supplementary note about their retention. By 1971 the QR had long ceased their helpful practice of summarising the principal alterations each new timetable contained.

The withdrawal of 26 and 37 to and from Warwick on Mondays and Fridays occurred from 8^th November 1970.

Rod Milne claims that my references to platform heights on the QR represent an oversimplification. I agree that what I said is a simplification. In an article about crossing trains, it was an adequate description for the points I made about the crossing of passenger carrying trains, such as passengers having to descend from platforms and walk along the tracks to parts of trains not at the platform, and across tracks to trains in the crossing loop, and not being able to see where there were vacant seats. Indeed nothing Rod Milne says shows it to have been other than adequate. He gives some information on rail level platforms, and says "in contrast to what is said in the article". What he says, however, does not contrast or clash with anything I said about platform heights and their relationship with crossing trains. .

I do not dispute the facts he gives, including about the timber decking of the platform at Warra (not unique on the system) and the log platform face at Goombungee, but those facts are completely irrelevant to the crossing arrangements which were my subject.

Further, having said to no point at all that what I said was an oversimplification, Rod Milne does not redress the balance by giving even a general or clear description of the heights and types of platforms on the QR, ie his points are a simplification in themselves, without stating to what extent. What he did say includes several oddities, which require clarification. See below.

In my article I gave various station arrangements relevant to crossing trains, island platforms, stations in the vees of junctions, and dock platforms. I listed some and said that there were possibly others. Rod Milne has provided others in his letter, considerably adding to my lists. Rockhampton, which he includes, was not on single track however. He did not include the island platform at Keperra, in suburban Brisbane, which I failed to mention.

Some places, Emerald and Hughenden at least, had dock platforms at each end.

Regarding Bajool, locomotive hauled trains conveyed workers to Port Alma as well as rail motors. I think Rod Milne intended to say that there were no regular trains to Port Alma, but that the "no" was omitted in the editing. Whatever his intention, there were regular public passenger carrying trains to Port Alma in the 1923 timetable. These ran on Wednesdays and Saturdays, at times which varied with the coastal steamers.

The locomotive water supply at Dulbydilla mentioned by Rod Milne was poor quality, and was discontinued in the 1940s, well before the steam age finished, when water was provided for locomotives at other places.

Rod Milne castigates my use of "gwpa", but does not say what is wrong with it. I made clear what I meant by it. It is an abbreviation of a QR term. Contrast it with Rod Milne's use of "car goods" for such QR trains, a term not used by the QR (ARHS Bulletin May 1989, and my letter October 1989 p 238).

I did not mention that crossing loops were kept apart from commercial stations on some railways, so that passenger carrying trains in both directions used the one platform within the single track section. It suited lines carrying passengers only, making brief stops only at the platforms. That would not have suited the QR in the period I was considering, where Station Masters performed both safeworking and commercial work, and where unloading from trains and shunting their consists often took considerable time, especially in the case of mixed trains. Had crossing loops been kept apart from commercial stations on the QR, track capacity would have been considerably reduced.

This section amplifies on the need to provide for crossings of more passenger trains than the mail trains, 26 and 37, on this line before 1930. I don't know exactly when The Sweeper was introduced, but in existed in 1901, 26A a mixed following 26, and 37A a mixed which started from Warwick several hours before 37 came through that place, and which ran through to Brisbane. There was also a down mixed from Warwick at midday, overtaken en route to Toowoomba by 37. 26 left Toowoomba at 1210 except Sundays, followed at 1217 on Mondays and Thursdays by the (fast) mixed to Roma on the Western Line, then at 1225 except Sundays by 26A.

Southern Line trains then reversed at the then dead end station at Toowoomba and ran to Gowrie Junction on the Western Line before turning south on the original Southern Line. 37A mixed left Warwick at 9 am and reached Toowooomba at 1208, the midday mixed left Warwick at 1240 and reached Toowoomba at 1845, while 37 left Warwick at 1407 and arrived Toowoomba at 1637, overtaking the midday down mixed at Clifton. 26 crossed 37A at Toowoomba, the midday down mixed at Hendon and 37 at Toolburra. 26A crossed both 37 and the midday down mixed at Clifton. Clifton therefore had to deal with three passenger carrying trains at once. The subsidiary loop would have been very useful if it existed there then. Intervals between following trains in this 1901 timetable are discussed in the next section.

From 3^rd August 1914, 26A and 37A were both passenger trains between Brisbane and Warwick. 26A left Brisbane before 26, and waited for an hour at Toowoomba, where it was overtaken by 26. 26 left Toowoomba at 1215 and 26A at 1236. 37A left Warwick at 1230, and spent over an hour (1555 to 1705) at Toowoomba, where it was overtaken by 37, to arrive Brisbane Central at 2153. 37 left Warwick at 1354, and arrived Toowoomba at 1620. 26 crossed 37A at Clifton and 37 at Hendon, 26A crossed 37A at Greenmount and 37 at Clifton. This timetable minimised the stops for 26 and 37, but for those forced to travel on all stations trains 26A and 37A and wait a long time in Toowoomba, it was a very poor arrangement.

The Drayton deviation opened in 1915, providing a direct line from Toowoomba to Wyreema on the original Southern Line. It made Toowoomba a through station for trains from Brisbane to the Southern Line, and allowed modest acceleration. I do not have the timetable for the period immediately following. In 1920, 26A and 37A ran between Brisbane and Toowoomba only, so that 26 and 37 were the only passenger trains to cross between Toowoomba and Warwick in the afternoons, at Greenmount. They both served most stations on that section. 26 was only five minutes slower than when it was express, and 37 ran to the same overall time, Warwick to Toowoomba, 2 hours and 17 minutes.

By 1923, however, 26A and 37A had been restored between Toowoomba and Warwick. 26A ran in advance of 26 the whole way from Brisbane to Warwick, leaving Toowoomba at 1202, arriving Warwick at 1430, while 26 left at 1230, arriving Warwick at 1454. 37 left Warwick at 1203 and arrived Toowoomba at 1420, while 37A left Warwick at 1225, arrived Toowoomba 1450, and followed 37 to Brisbane. 26A crossed 37 at Nobby and 37A at Clifton. 26 crossed 37 at Greenmount and 37A at Nobby.

In 1925, the same trains still ran to almost the same times, but the WTT provided for a 2^nd 26 as required from Brisbane to Wallan-garra. This left Brisbane Central only five minutes behind 26, but had a slack timetable so that it arrived in the through platform at Toowoomba just after 26 left, then left Toowoomba at 1255, to arrive Warwick at 1519. 37 crossed 26A at Nobby, 26 at Greenmount and 2^nd 26 at Cambooya, while 37A crossed all those trains one crossing station closer to Warwick. There was no 2^nd 37 in this WTT. If a 2^nd 26 ran at times, a relief to 37 must have run at times too, but arrangements were presumably made by Train Notice.

By the May 1930 WTT, there was an as required relief to 37 from Wallan-garra. This was numbered 37C. It left Wallan-garra at 0810 and Warwick at 1045, and arrived Toowoomba at 1300 and Brisbane Central at 1800. There were nine crossings in all if all six trains ran. In addition to those crossings shown above, 37C crossed 26A at Wyreema, 26 at Drayton, and 2^nd 26 at Toowoomba. As 2^nd 26 is shown leaving Toowoomba at 1255 and 37C arriving there at 1300, presumably 37C went through the loop at Toowoomba and reversed into platform 1, or into one of the dock platforms, after 2^nd 26 had left.

This timetable also allowed for 37A to start at Wallan-garra and for 26A to be extended there, both as required. Whether both 26A and 2^nd 26 ran to Wallan-garra on the one day, and both 37A and 37C started there on the one day is not known. If they did, there would have been three passenger trains into Wallan-garra in an evening and three leaving there in a morning.

The opening of the Kyogle line on 27^th September 1930 gave a direct standard gauge line from Brisbane to Sydney along the coast, and considerably reduced the interstate passenger traffic via Wallan-garra. From the next day, 26A and 37A were cut back to run to and from Murphys Creek, soon after to and from Gatton, and 26 and 37 served almost all places on the Southern Line, crossing at Greenmount, until the crossing place was moved progressively closer to Toowoomba as detailed in my original article.

Greenmount and Clifton were interlocked in 1918 (WNs 531 and 539), in which year electric staff was made operational on all sections between Toowoomba and Warwick (this can be traced from WNs 78, 109, 369 and 510).

I don't know how such close intervals as seven and eight minutes (1210 to 1217 to 1225) applied between Toowoomba and Gowrie Junction on Mondays and Thursdays, as shown above, because the required interval between following trains on staff and ticket sections (such as these) in daylight was ten minutes (Rule 142 of 1898). If the running time for the section was less than ten minutes, and the arrival of one train at the end of the section could be notified to the beginning of the section, then the interval could be less than ten minutes. In this case, however, eleven minutes were allowed to run from Toowomba to the then only intermediate crossing station, Pengarry Junction. In fact, rules 224 and 408 required gatekeepers and lengthsmen to warn drivers of trains which were following another at a closer interval than ten minutes. (The Rules could of course have been amended or supplemented between 1898 and 1901, but ten minutes remained the interval for decades afterwards, so that is not likely.) (The later additional intermediate crossing loop at Willowburn was not opened until 1911.)

I raise this matter only because Rod Milne did, and because not all of what he had to say is correct or complete (that apart from relevant). I agree with Rod Milne that there was a range of platform heights on the QR. After saying that, however, Rod Milne gives both 12 ins (305 mm) and 30 ins (762 mm) as standard heights, without giving any reference for claiming those heights as standard. There were certainly many platforms of both those heights, but other heights as well.

Platform height was designed as a certain measurement above rail level, and all references here are to that measurement. Heights and distances given are for straight track; the distances differed on curves on account of cant and centre and end throws of the vehicles.

QR Structure and Rolling Stock Diagrams for August 1914 (no number) and of October 1954 (Chief Engineer's 1236) for non-electrified lines shows the maximum allowable height for platforms as 33 ins (838 mm) above rail.

Platforms did not have to be built as high as 33 inches, but if they were between 24 (610 mm) and 33 inches, they could have a coping which came to 4 ft 3 ins (1295 mm) from the centre line of the track. Below 24 ins above rail, to 12 ins above rail, they had to be 4 ft 5 ins (1346 mm) from the centre line of the rails, a distance which allowed for footboards and steps on rolling stock up to 4 ft 2 ins (1270 mm) from the centre line to run under the copings.

At heights greater than 36 ins above rail, carriage bodies could be up to 9 ft 4 ins (2845 mm) wide (ie to 4 ft 8 ins (1422 mm) from the centre line of rails). As it happens, owing to clearances in curved tunnels, the widest bodies employed in the period I was discussing were 9 feet (2743 mm) at floor level (up to 9 ft 6 ins - 2896 mm - over guards' lookouts, centrally located along the body and wall). (The later stainless steel suburban cars and L series of air conditioned cars took full advantage of the 9 ft 4 ins width allowance, and were close to 2850 mm wide.)

These widths of carriage, and even narrower, were greater than the 8 ft 4 ins (2540 mm) over the outer edges of footboards on the carriages (double the 4 ft 2 ins from centre line of rails mentioned above). These footboards were used for access to the side doors of carriages where there were low level platforms or no platforms. To allow a near vertical climb to and from side doors on carriages, such doors opened above a lip in the floor. For example, the 1935 Sunshine Express stock was 9 feet over body, with lips in the floors of seven inches (178 mm) inward from the side walls at the doors, thus 7 ft 10 ins (2388 mm) over these lips, while the width across the lower footboard was 8 ft 4 ins (2540 mm), with the board 12 inches wide. The climb was therefore steep, but its difficulty depended on the point from which it commenced. That step was 14 ins (356 mm) above rail, a considerable first step from a rail level platform, and just above the level of platforms 12 ins above rail. It was a lot higher than 14 ins above above the shoulders of the ballast, even more so above the formation, and even more so again above a side ditch. (The above distances measured from carriage diagrams). The steepness of the climb to and from carriages can be judged from photos on pp 243 and 246 in my article. End platforms on carriages had inclined steps, and provided much more convenient access, although the height of the lower step was the same as that of the lower footboards.

Users of platforms 20 to 30 ins above rail moved from the platform directly to the second footboard above rail or directly into the carriage, or to the second step of an end platform.

I have the heights to which some QR platforms were built from official information. Those at Dalby (opened 1913-4)(seen in photos pp 250 and 251 in my article) and Wyreema were 27 ins above rail, Hughenden was 30 ins (station yard plans), and those built in the 1960s at Chinchilla, Ingham and Tully were 30 ins above rail ("Transport in Queensland" 1963, station yard plans and 1965-66 QR Report). I suspect that all those raised or built postwar outside the Brisbane suburban system [St Lawrence, Proserpine, Ingham, Barcaldine, Longreach, Mt Isa, Tully, Chinchilla, Charleville, Nambour, Beenleigh (original station, perhaps more properly a suburban station) and possibly others] were also 30 ins. (At Chinchilla, and probably other places in this list, the station buildings had to be raised to conform to the higher platforms.) At Harristown, the brick faced platform was 20 ins above rail, but in a yard plan applying after 1982, the same platform was given as 17 ins above rail, probably the result of deeper ballasting.

It is possible to judge the approximate height of some other platforms from photographs. That is possible because the standard buffer height was a 2 ft 7½ ins (800 mm) above rail, and the heights above rail of other features such as floors and footboards of many vehicles are shown on vehicle plans. The intended height can differ from the actual, however, on account of wheel tyres of maximum and minimum thicknesses, the load in the vehicle, and the settling of the springs. The height of the rail above formation level can rise (and the height of a given platform above rail level thereby fall) on account of deeper ballasting or heavier and higher rail being installed. I should say that what were regarded as "high" platforms outside the suburban area were from 24 (610 mm) to 30 ins (762 mm) above rail. In large station yards with a full system of drainage, the track in front of platforms was usually not ballasted, but in many other places it was.

Rod Milne says that "surburban area type high level platforms" were used in the suburbs of Brisbane as well as many regional centres. He does not say what this type of platform was, give any dimensions, or say what effect this type of platform had on crossing or joining passenger trains. If he categorises a certain type and height of platform as "suburban area type", it would be natural that it was found in the suburbs of Brisbane.

From his references to high platforms at country places, I think his reference to "surburban area type high level platforms" is to concrete faced platforms, because all platforms built after 1950 in both the Brisbane suburbs and country centres that I have seen have such faces. On account of the greater floor height of the stainless steel suburban cars of 1961 and the suburban electric trains of 1979, those in the suburbs have been higher than those in the country.

The caption to the photograph on p 245 of my article was garbled in publication. The first three lines should have read "The crossing of passenger carrying trains was eased by the island platform at Alma-den, the junction of the Chillagoe and Etheridge lines west of Cairns. On the left is the Chillagoe to Cairns mixed, steam hauled." The second last sentence should have commenced with the word "As". It will be noted that the island platform could be reached by customers only by crossing the rails.

27 February 2007

amended 25 September 2007 to allow for more detail on the crossing stations on the Southern Line and the additional passenger trains between Toowoomba and Warwick. Further amended 23 October 2007 and 16 December 2008 to correct the situation at Nobby and Harristown.