RAILS ACROSS QUEENSLAND: THE OAKEY REGION

Darren Tulk finds much to complain about in the closure of the Haden, Cooyar and Cecil Plains branches near Oakey. This is mostly because, in his view, railways held some special place in local life, because rail was always more than the sum of its parts, an essential ingredient in the self determination of various towns, something roads and trucking cannot replace. The numbers used to justify closure were manipulated in his view and locals were distrustful of them. Closure amounted to reneging on commitments which induced the early settlers to come to the areas. The condition of the lines and the service on them were run down as a precursor to closure. I think all these claims are to be doubted. At least, there are alternative points of view which should be given in an historical account of the lines.

None of the supposedly errant figures is presented or analysed. The progress of the areas concerned since closure is not examined, in itself, nor in comparison with other places still served by branch line railways. Curiously, despite his points summarised in the previous paragraph, Mr Tulk allows that the lines could be regarded as disposable assets because the imperatives they were built to satisfy had expired. Further, in the fifth paragraph of the article, he says "until superseded by better roads and the …availability of motor cars and trucks….". He fails to see that the supposedly wonderful aspects of the railways were not considered so by the people who lived along them, that keeping the lines open required the taxpayer to make up losses, a subsidy to particular places when alternative transport was able to provide a better even cheaper service to the user without subsidy. Further, the areas concerned have continued to prosper, and maintain substantial community spirit.

I suspect that will not be enough for Mr Tulk. There is something special about railways for him, something greater than the sum of the parts, which entered the social fabric etc, which road transport never does.

I lived through the days when the railway was the only means of public transport into the areas concerned and other similar areas, when road competition with rail was substantially restricted by law. The railway provided transport for everything and everyone. People chafed at low aspects of the quality of service it provided. But from the point of view of community life there was absolutely nothing special about it. It was a service, a means of transport. And, most important from the point of view of historical analysis, it was superseded and overtaken, and the towns did not suffer from its passing. Mr Tulk claims far too much for these railways. He could be said to be giving the railways a status which never existed.

Preferences of the Residents

However valuable he thinks the rail links were, the history is that from the 1930s the residents of the areas concerned had a higher preference for road transport than for rail. Once the road motor vehicle was invented, it was much preferred for many aspects of transport. The passenger numbers on the Dalby to Bell branch fell off considerably in the mid 1920s. The reason is that the farmers bought cars or light trucks and had their day in Dalby (usually pig and calf sales day) by road. If the earth road was impassable following rain, they left the trip for another day - after all the nearest siding on the railway was inaccessible too.

The minutes of the Shire Councils across the whole Darling Downs will show that for decades the main pressure on them was for the building of all weather roads - first surfaced with gravel, with bridges instead of fords, then with the surface sealed, a pressure which tailed off only as the job was done by the 1980s, but continues in a small way even now, with pressure for widening of the sealed surface and higher bridges.

In other words, while railways were the only form of moderately fast and reasonably priced transport, people wanted a railway, as a gift from the State government (but see guarantee below). Road transport was then the horse coach and the horse or bullock wagon. When the road transport was much improved, they wanted that too, and even more so, mostly at the expense of the local Shire.

Restrictions on Road Competition

Until February 1961, road transport was severely restricted in Queensland. Road services for passengers and goods were licensed, along certain routes or in certain areas, and a certain percentage of gross revenue was paid as fees to the government. Freight rates were stipulated in the licence, and were not to be less than comparable rail freight rates. They were often more, in the sense that the rail freight rates allowed in the licences as the minimum were the general merchandise rates. Casual movements were permitted on proving special need on payment of fees. In general, licences were not freely granted in competition with rail, although many were to provide a tolerable transport service where the rail service was poor, and casual permits were not granted in competition with rail or a licensed road service. There were various exemptions to these provisions, for certain distances, own goods and primary produce.

Under the State Transport Act of 1960, many restrictions on goods transport by road were removed, apart from some transitional provisions to ease the impact on the railway. All this was at high cost to the user, however, still designed to protect the railway, of three pence per ton per mile on the capacity of the vehicle while it was loaded. Exemptions to primary producers were continued or extended. In 1962, many of the restrictions on types of goods were eased and/or distance restrictions extended.

Under both these systems, road transport freight charges on general goods were much the same as rail (these were the goods on which rail freights were high), but the road service was superior, in being door-to-door, almost always faster, and more frequent, often very much so. On almost everything else, road was more expensive. Pre 1961 this was because the rates to be charged for road movement, set down in the licence, were high, based on general merchandise. The users often preferred to use road transport, however, despite the high rates, even for such items as building materials. Post 1961, rail was preferred mostly on a quantity basis. It hauled grain, livestock, heavy materials, machinery and petroleum in tankers (for many years after 1960, petroleum remained restricted). Both before and after 1960, the exemptions which allowed unrestricted road movement of the inputs and outputs of primary producers were much used.

Policing the laws restricting road transport was difficult. So high was the preference for road goods transport that many measures were adopted to defeat the laws, with the general connivance of the public. The gradual removal of restrictions on road transport was the result of pressure from the public.

After timber had been cut out, the belt of country south west of the Great Divide and the Bunya Mountains, ie the hillier parts of the northern Darling Downs, depended until circa 1960 on dairying. The railway was of declining importance to dairying by the 1930s. Dalby, 50 km north-west of Oakey, had railways in five directions. Cream was carried on all five, rail motors on the Glenmorgan branch shunted into the adjacent butter factory siding to unload cream, while special "shunts" worked from Dalby with cream from the other four. But by the late 1940s, before petrol rationing had ended, and while many of the roads were still earth, most of the cream came by road. The carriers came to the farm or a nearby road junction, and came reliably. Most of the adjunct production, of calves and pigs, was moved out of the farms by road, sometimes to the nearest railway siding, often all the way to the nearest sales, and sometimes to the nearest abattoir. The butter went to Brisbane in iced railway wagons.

While many if not most farmers preferred a professional carrier to come direct to the farm, some preferred to take pigs or calves to the rail siding to load in a wagon placed beside the race and left there for a few hours, than to have to take them all the way to saleyards or to the bacon factory on the outskirts of Toowoomba. In both cases, an agent dealt with the consignment and the sale of the animals. To provide a service for the pig farmer, the railway had to run a whole train on the day(s) necessary to the traffic, the train spent lots of time en route detaching and attaching wagons, at least one wagon for each place, if not one per consignor. The productivity of wagons conveying pigs and calves was very low.

What the Railway Represented

There were many small and modest sized towns in Queensland not on a railway, such as St George, Surat, Taroom, Muttaburra, Augathella and Georgetown in the inland, and places along the coast between Brisbane and Noosa. The twin townships of Quinalow and Maclagan, between Peranga on the Cooyar branch and Kaimkillenbun on the Bell branch thrived during the period those branch railways were open and still do, and more than Peranga. They used Peranga as a railhead, but the mail service came from Jondaryan on the main Western Line, no doubt to provide an additional north-south mail route. When the branch lines closed, the towns along them, Peranga and Kaimkillenbun, Goombungee and Haden, became no different from the non rail served places.

All places, on or off-rail, had a history of settlement, and of various industries and institutions. All had animal powered road transport in their beginnings. All had a history of sporting teams, churches, schools, charities and pubs. Some had a history of a railway, some not. All have had a history of road motor transport. If they had a railway, then of course the railway features in the history of the lives of the people, and there are stories about it, but there is nothing really special about a railway in this social history. It was a means of transport which existed for a few decades. Railway service is consumed during its performance. It does not leave something which reflects being integral to the community. The railway was a common carrier, ie it was obliged to carry everything, at advertised rates. As transport, it was much better than the animal powered road transport which preceded it, but the quality of most aspects of the common carrier service was well below what road transport could provide from the 1930s.

On p 260 Darren Tulk writes that the loss of the railway must have hurt community spirit (in Cooyar). On p 262 he says inter alia that residents of the smaller towns on the branch lines (lost) valuable links when the branch lines closed, that railway links often represent far more than a merely functional operation, that they represented people, stories and portrayals of local history, stories that defined, interpreted and preserved what it meant to be integral to the community.

On the same page, he has it that the railway represented people , stories, element in the social fabric, and that the railway was always more than the sum of its parts, also that the railway was integral to the community. Nowhere does Mr Tulk explain what he means by these statements, or their importance. It seems to mean the all-embracing common carrier transport service was better than any other.

To the extent these things mean something, they follow from the railway having existed. The railway represented no more than the other institutions mentioned. From the 1930s it was integral only because the law required that - the people would have much preferred improved service where other modes could provide it. And since the 1950s at any rate, there was technically nothing the railway did which road transport could not do.

It is very clear forty to fifty years after they closed that when they closed, the Haden and Cooyar lines had outlived the usefulness inherent in their technology. They are indeed part of tradition, story, lives, social fabric, community spirit, of the period when they did indeed contribute to such things, but that does not mean they have or had to exist for ever. The same is true more recently of Cecil Plains.

The railway was prisoner of its own technology. Even when these branch lines were the only permitted mean of transport along the three routes, so large was the unit of operation, the train, that it did not run frequently. It did not take goods to the shop or farm, but left them at a siding, goods shed or goods yard, where the consignee had to unload them, and use some form of road transport for the final leg. And vice versa for outwards traffic. The rail motor services provided from Cooyar and Haden were useful for (relatively slow) travel to Toowoomba in the morning and return in the afternoon. For travel to Brisbane, they required a long wait in Toowoomba, and for travel to resorts beyond Brisbane, they required an overnight stay. The Haden and Cooyar lines had a daily rail motor, as had the Crows Nest branch to the east. Each required two men. Had a bus served the towns on the Crows Nest, Haden and Cooyar lines, it would have served the towns on all three and some other townships as well, in one run.

Reneging on the Commitment to the Early Setttler

On p p 263 Darrren Tulk claims that by closing the lines, the government reneged on its commitment to the early settler. No evidence is given on commitments. I know of no case where a Queeensland government undertook to keep a railway open in perpetuity. The boot is on the other foot. The setttlers along these lines undertoook to make up losses through taxes on their properties (the guarantee scheme). In fact, they, and landowners along a lot of guarantee lines, were let off the obligation well before it was completed. All the advocates of the lines concerned claimed the lines would pay their way and pressed for construction, by the State, which had to borrow with the Queensland taxpayer the implicit guarantor of the annual financial outcome, and the loan.

Come the motor vehicle and the settlers came to use the railway only when it suited them, if they were allowed to. The initial settlers passed on as their successors took to the road vehicle. The lines failed to pay. They were kept running only at a cost to the taxpayer. No mention is made why it is so very desirable to keep running a railway not much wanted by the people living along it at the forced expense of someone else, especially when its task can be more cheaply provided by road.

The Tactic of Poor Service

Reducing the quality of service is said on p 263 to deter business, making closure easier to justify . The rail motor service remained daily on both the Haden and Cooyar lines until they closed. The goods service to Haden remained twice weekly. It is true that the goods service to Cooyar was reduced from thrice to twice weekly in the years leading up to closure.

The rail motor service to Cecil Plains was never comparable to those to Haden or Cooyar. It was intended to provide an occasional shopping day in Toowoomba for the low population along the line. It first appeared in the 1945 timetable, on two days per month, the rail motor providing the service to Toowoomba, an altered mixed train providing the return. Later a rail motor was provided both ways. From 1954 it ran weekly. It was withdrawn from 2^nd July 1961.

The thrice weekly mixed trains to Cecil Plains continued. They became regular goods trains with passenger accommodation (GWPA) in 1965 or 1966. From July 1971, this was reduced to twice weekly, and the return from Cecil Plains was made at night. This reflected the withdrawal of train crews from Oakey, these trains then being worked by Toowoomba crews, and the heavier loads taken by diesel locomotives. Between 1982 and 1984, the GWPA was reduced to once weekly, and between the timetables for 1984 and 1986, it was withdrawn entirely. Thereafter there were no regular goods trains on the branch, less than wagon load freight being taken by road. From 1992, Cecil Plains was served by the QR Q Link road service from Dalby. So far as passengers are concerned, the service was withdrawn well after anyone used it. And that can be generalised. Passenger services were withdrawn only after patronage had fallen to very low levels.

The reduction in the regular goods service on the Cecil Plains branch between say 1970 and the mid 1980s was much the same as on much of the QR, both branch and main lines. Regular goods traffic apart from grain or cotton had fallen away before the service was reduced - see figures below.

The condition of the track on the Cooyar and Haden branches at closure was much the same as it had been for many years. The QR relaid those parts of the Cecil Plains line built with 42 lbs rails with part worn heavy rail to allow heavier grain wagons, and selectively ballasted it, to stand up to the heavier volume of grain traffic, the higher axle lods of modern grain wagons, and to facilitate mechanised track maintenance. It even carrried out a regrading.

The QR argued that on the black soil, maintaining a satisfactory top was difficult, and wanted the remaining grain from the Cecil Plains line to be hauled by road to Brookstead or Malu instead (parliamentary question November 1993). Mechanised maintenance amounted to periodic visits by mechanised gangs to replace sleepers as necessary, then to ballast to some extent, and to mechanically repack the ballast to give the line an acceptable running surface. The QR could no longer attract staff to out-of-the-way places to maintain track by manual methods. Nor was the resulting track condition worse for the mechanised approach.

Had grain traffic been available in sufficient quantity on the Cecil Plains line to make it worthwhile, there was no reason why the track could not have been reconditioned or rebuilt. The country is the same as that traversed by the main Western Line.

Passenger Traffic

On p 258 . it is said that passenger numbers gradually declined and this led to closure. No details are given. It is true that passenger traffic fell. But the passenger revenue was such a minor part of the total on QR country branch lines, these three especially, that the conclusion is wrong. The goods traffic provided the revenue, and it is the decline in goods traffic which led to closure.

The Numbers, the Role of Accountants

On p 263, in his conclusions, Darren Tulk has it that the numbers on which closures were based, and/or their presentation were wrong, even that those who compiled them, even took the decisions, had doubtful motives. All of this is asserted. Not one piece of evidence is given. The claims are uncalled for. Even those who opposed the closures did not necessarily doubt the figures. It would have been inept of the QR management had there been no figures.

I took a considerable interest in the 1961 and 1964 QR branch line closures, and found that the people in the affected areas were not especially disturbed by them. Of course there were some users who lost from closure, mostly from loss of a low rate on the railway for some particular commodity, and were unhappy, but there were surprisingly few.

All decisions on reductions and withdrawals of services, closures, and mothballings over the years were made by the Minister, the political head of the QR, and more generally by the government of the day.

Traffic

The following is drawn from returns in Annual Reports of the Queensland Railways Commissioner, and similar returns compiled thereafter, but no longer published in the Annual Report.

The highest number of passengers booked from Haden, 2853, and from Goombungee, 5474, both occurred in 1911-12. By 1950, as petrol rationing was removed, these numbers were 1500 and 2650. By 1960, they were 450 and 950.

In 1962-63, the last year the Haden branch was open, 1612 passengers were booked from stations on the branch, or five per day. As it happened, from 1958, the rail motor timetable was rearranged to allow secondary school students along the branch to travel to Toowoomba each day. they travelled on a concessionary season ticket. The number of students was not recorded at the stations at which they joined the rail motor each day, but at Head Office. They later travelled by bus, until local secondary school facilities were provided.

Goods outward totalled 1431, including livestock converted to tons at the rate used by the QR. Goods inward totalled 697 tons.

On the Cooyar line, north of the coal villages, the largest number of passsengers were booked in the latter years of the second world war, circa 14,000 per annum from Kulpi, Peranga, Nutgrove, Wutul and Cooyar, giving a full rail motor every day. By 1950, that had fallen to 8700, and in 1960 to 4200.

In 1962-63, at stations beyond Acland, there were 2801 passenger bookings, 1410 tons of outwards goods traffic including livestock, and 392 tons inwards.

The Cecil Plains line never had a passenger traffic to speak of. The maximum number ever booked from the terminus was 1309 in 1921. In 1940, there were 263 bookings from Cecil Plains and 290 from the four busiest sidings together. In 1950, with the fortnightly rail motor, these figures were 791 and 448 respectively, and in 1961 100 and 54.

The Cecil Plains branch carried grain, and as a result for many years had traffic of a different order from that on the Haden and Cooyar lines. The following excludes the livestock unloading siding of Boolee on the edge of Oakey. The traffic for the 23 years 1963-64 to 1985-86 is summarised in the following paragraphs.

The vast majority outwards was grain. The annual average was 79,000 tonnes, with a maximum of 141,200 in 1976-77. The tonnage exceeded 100,000 in six of the years, but reached a low of 27,900 tonnes in 1982-83. The total included a little cotton related output in the total in the 1980s.

The average number of passengers was four per year, the last booked in 1977-78. Non agricultural goods outward averaged 71 tons per year. Livestock traffic was insignificant. The average of all goods traffic inwards was 767 per year, including circa 800 tons of cotton input to Cecil Plains in some years in the 1980s.

Traffic tailed off thereafter, on account of the transfer of agricultural activity from grain to cotton. The QR wanted the remaining grain hauled by road to Brookstead or Malu instead (the same November 1993 parliamentary question mentioned above). It was after that that the service was suspended (from 1^st January 1994) and the line mothballed. On the same black soil, the main Western Line has been maintained with a satisfactory top since the 1860s, as has the Jandowae branch. It is a question of whether there was sufficient grain traffic to justify the wide embankment and deep ballast necessary. With the conversion of the area to cotton, there was certainly no incentive to the QR to do that.

Oakey Region?

I doubt that there was an Oakey region for these lines to belong to, or that they had much to do with Oakey. The Haden branch was economically connected with Toowoomba. Although the Cooyar and Cecil Plains branches junctioned from the Western Line at Oakey, places along them did business with Toowoomba rather than Oakey, which was too small to provide many of their wants. Cream from both lines went to Oakey butter factory, being closer, however, and many miners who worked in the Acland area mines lived in Oakey, having transferred their employment from the mine at the eastern end of Oakey when it closed. They travelled each way on the coal trains until they bought cars. Cecil Plains has always had considerable connection with Dalby to its north.

Other points

It is not entirely clear whether Mr Tulk thinks the lines concerned should have been built! But where he believes that railways were necessary, it was really the railway rates which were needed for certain industries and degrees of settlement. It might have been cheaper for the Queensland government to have subsidised the cost of animal transport to the main lines down to railway rates rather than to build branch lines in some of the places it did. The motor vehicle as a means of cheap transport could not have been foreseen in 1910, but after 1920 it was difficult to see the justification for building branch lines.

The black soil of the Darling Downs certainly moves with the wet and the dry. I have cut or planed the tops and bottoms of windows and doors of timber framed buildings there to ensure they opened and closed as the buildings moved. But engineers can deal with the problems. The Western Line, with its current wide embankment and deep ballast, is as good as most on the QR. The roads probably do require more maintenance than those is more stable country, but all give good service. The photographs on pages 251 and 252 show that the soil can be made to support large silos - had that not been possible, long low sheds would have been built. Engineers have dealt with the foundations of the older brick buildings on the Downs, mostly churches, business houses and hotels, so that they are stable. Further, little of the Haden branch was on black soil, only the Oakey to Rosalie Plains section of the Cooyar line was, while some hillier parts of the Cecil Plains line east of Evanslea were not on black soil.

The map on p 253 does not include many closed branch lines, such as Crows Nest, Gowrie to Wyreema loop (original Southern Line), Maryvale, Killarney, Amiens Mulgowie , Dugandan, Mt Edwards, Kilcoy. Proston and Windera, nor to note that Beaudesert, shown as currently in use, is not.

It is not clear what the material on pages 252 to 255 explains. It certainly does not explain the building of the three lines, and the development of the areas along them.

There were many cheese factories on the northern Downs (p 256) separate from the butter factories. Most of these were off-rail, eg at Moola and Yamsion.

On p 251 it is said that coal was hauled from Acland until the closure of the Cooyar branch. The coal was hauled from several places shown in the 1960 Working Time Table on p 263, Wright's, Sugarloaf, Acland and Balgowan, as well as Beith, by then long closed. The closure to Cooyar in 1964 was beyond Acland only. Coal was rail hauled from Acland until the line there closed in 1970, by when the QR did not need coal for steam locomotives in the area. It was then hauled by road until the underground mine at Acland closed in 1984.

The more recent coal mining near Acland comes from a large open cut at Acland. It is on a completely different scale from that of the old underground coal mines. It commenced in 2003, and is shortly to engulf Acland township. This coal moves by road to a siding near Jondaryan on the main Western Line for transfer to rail.

16 June 2009