(ARHS Bulletin, October 2001, p 363)

John Knowles

In "Rails at the Tweed: A Queensland Railways Station in NSW", ARHS Bulletin October 2001 p 363 Rod Milne says (p365) that his article is "the history of Tweed Heads station, extending to its twin station of Coolangatta, making reference to other contiguous places along the way."

But it is not the history of Tweed Heads station because it says nothing about how Queensland came to build a railway a short distance into NSW, a sub-title of the article. Queensland law about the construction of railways and taking of land to build them ended at the State border. How it came about that Queensland built its line over the border is an interesting story, easily available in QR files at the Queensland State Archives, QR Hard Batch 92:06/367, at QSA location A8937. Oddly, Rod Milne quotes archival files on the construction of the section as a source, but completely misses this essential point in the history.

There are several other items in the article deserving of comment, especially the alleged construction to standard gauge standard, another topic dealt with on the same file and capable of proper historical treatment, and the dividing of trains at the junction station.

Queensland built into NSW mostly on account of lack of space at Coolangatta, especially for a transfer station, which would be needed when NSW extended its standard gauge railway from Murwillumbah to the border, as it was expected to do but never did. (At the time, NSW was more interested in connecting its then isolated railway on the Northern Rivers to Sydney than to the Queensland border.) Lesser reasons were the need to connect conveniently with the steamers which then plied the Tweed River between Tweed Heads (then called Cooloon) and Murwillumbah, and the NSW requirement that horses entering Queensland with traffic for the new railhead and returning to NSW be sprayed or dipped on recrossing the border as a tick control measure.

The land for the station was resumed (compulsorily purchased) by the NSW Public Works Department at the cost of Queensland, and vested in the NSW Railways Commissioners, but all the facilities on the land were the property of the Queensland Railway Commissioner. So far as I can see, the Queensland parliament did not authorise the construction beyond the border, nor was the operation of trains and commercial activity by the Queensland Commissioner outside the State of Queensland ever authorised by Queensland law. NSW passed a law, however, which authorised the NSW Governor in Council to proclaim that the by-laws of the Queensland Commissioner of Railways were in force on those portions of the Queensland Railways which ran into NSW. Such had been proclaimed. (See "Sunshine Express" April 2007, p 122.) I have not checked, but it is highly likely that the NSW law also allowed Queensland law on construction of railways to be in force on portions of the QR which extended into NSW. The tick control area was altered to allow horses from Queensland to be used in the construction work and for those hauling goods from Queensland to enter Tweed Heads station yard and return without being sprayed or dipped.

In advising parliament on the desirability of building the line, the QR Commissioner of the day recommended that if the revenue from the Nerang to Coolangatta extension were to depend solely on traffic from within Queensland, the extension should not be undertaken. Even if traffic came from NSW on extension of the NSW line from Murwillumbah to Tweed Heads, he thought it questionable that the returns would justify the extension. (See Queensland, Votes and Proceedings, 1900, Vol 3, p 375.)

On pages 368 and 369 Rod Milne gives his idea of how services from Brisbane for the Tweed Heads branch were operated, saying (inter alia) "Later, schedules saw through connection". There was always "through connection" as explained in the next paragraph, but for the last 27 years of the line, through carriages to and from Brisbane ran on the branch, a service much better than simple connection.

Until the early 1930s, almost every passenger train from South Brisbane to Tweed Heads ran into Southport and out again, traversing the Ernest Junction to Southport section twice, and adding at least half an hour to the through journey. That arrangement at least allowed passengers to take refreshments at the rooms at Southport. Presumably the train was reduced in length southbound and increased northbound. The engine might have been watered and turned at Southport and continued to Tweed Heads, or a fresh engine attached to the continuing train. There were a few cases of a train from South Brisbane to Southport connecting with a train from Southport to Tweed Heads at Ernest Junction, and from the 1920s, a few trains from South Brisbane ran specifically for the Tweed Heads line. This might indicate that extra trains at holiday times also ran directly to and from the branch.

From the 1934 timetable, trains ran from South Brisbane, with separate Tweed Heads and Southport sections, and the train was divided at Ernest Junction. In the same timetable, on-board refreshments were provided on the midday Saturday combined train to both destinations and the Sunday evening return, to save the intermediate stop for refreshments at Bethania. This required gangway fitted stock, at least for the passengers provided with the facility.

From the May 1937 timetable, the frequency of service on the SCL was increased, the intermediate stops on many trains eliminated (including at the refreshment stop at Bethania), the running times for trains of reduced load (110 tons tare for a PB15) reduced, and certain trains referred to as express (many ran non-stop from South Brisbane to Southport, Ernest Junction or Nerang or vice versa). In addition, several of the centre corridor suburban carriages were altered to provide improved comfort on these trains, five such cars making up the 110 tons tare (see "The Centre Corridor or "American" Suburban Carriages of the QR", ARHS Bulletin 514, August 1980, p 165). These carriages were later replaced on these trains by the 40 ft "Relief" carriages which had been built (in part) for the SCL and used on many trains on the line prior to 1937, six of which weighed about 110 tons tare. (For the history of these carriages, see "The Bundy Compos", Sunshine Express, October 1986 p 174 and September 1987 p 138.)

After 1934 therefore, through carriages for Tweed Heads were detached from most up Southport passenger trains at Ernest Junction. There was a triangular junction there, with the station at the eastern end on the South Brisbane to Southport and Southport to Tweed Heads legs of the junction, and short platforms on each of those legs. An engine and a single carriage with a guard’s compartment ran from Southport to Ernest Junction to arrive there just before the train from South Brisbane, and stopped at the platform on the Southport to Tweed Heads leg of the layout. The through carriages for Tweed Heads were attached to this engine and carriage from Southport in two different ways.

For trains from South Brisbane arriving Ernest Junction in daylight, the Southport cars were usually leading and the Tweed Heads cars trailing, each section having a carriage with guard’s compartment trailing. The combined train stopped on the main line before the junction, the guard applied the handbrake in the rear carriage in which he was travelling, uncoupled the Tweed Heads carriages, and moved up to the guard's compartment in the last carriage of the Southport portion. The train engine and Southport cars then left for Southport via the South Brisbane to Southport leg of the junction, leaving the Tweed Heads portion standing on the main line before the junction.

The connecting train from Southport after stopping at the platform, continued round the leg towards Tweed Heads, then reversed along the South Brisbane to Tweed Heads leg to the carriages left by the train from South Brisbane, coupled to them, then left by the last mentioned leg for Tweed Heads.

In darkness always, and at times in daylight, the train was made up from South Brisbane with the Tweed Heads carriages in the lead with the carriage with guard’s compartment leading, and the Southport carriages trailing, with the carriage with the guard's compartment trailing. The engine and carriage from Southport waited at the platform on the Southport to Tweed Heads leg of the junction at Ernest Junction, and the train from South Brisbane stopped at the platform on the South Brisbane to Southport leg. The train engine drew the uncoupled Tweed Heads cars forward, and reversed them on to the engine and car from Southport, to which they were coupled. On the train engine recoupling to the Southport cars, both trains left for their destinations.

In the reverse direction, the train from Tweed Heads arrived at the platform on the Tweed Heads to Southport leg of the junction, and the train from Southport to South Brisbane at the platform on the Southport to South Brisbane leg. The engine from Tweed Heads moved the through carriages from the lead of the train from Tweed Heads to the rear of the train from Southport. This arrangement resulted in the reversal of the through carriages from South Brisbane if they arrived Ernest Junction in daylight, while at Southport it was necessary to shunt the carriage with guard’s compartment to the other end of the train which arrived there for the return to South Brisbane. The latter movement usually resulted in the guard’s compartment not being at the very end of the train, ie in a passenger compartment trailing.

On most trains of six Relief cars, three ran to each line, and vice versa, but on longer trains the Southport section was usually the longer.

If trains to be divided were double headed from South Brisbane, the two engines mostly continued to Southport, and vice versa and the engine from Southport took the connecting portion for Tweed Heads as detailed above. On most trains which divided, half of a double headed train from South Brisbane and one carriage from Southport represented only a single engine load on the Tweed Heads branch. There could have been occasions where the train split, and one of the two engines continued to Tweed Heads, but that would have meant no connection from Southport to Tweed Heads. This does not rule out the possibility that when most of the traffic on a double headed train was for the Tweed branch, the second engine continued to Tweed Heads as assisting engine, and vice versa. It is possible to work out suitable shunting moves at Ernest Junction which would have allowed it to do so.

There was another variant. Some but not all of the relatively few through trains between South Brisbane and Tweed Heads which did not convey Southport portions were met at Ernest Junction by an engine and carriage with guard’s compartment, sometimes to change crew, sometimes to change engine, sometimes to transfer passengers to and from Southport. There were also a few cases of Tweed Heads branch passengers changing trains at Ernest Junction, especially to and from all stations trains from and to Brisbane.

After 1934, a few trains from South Brisbane continued to run into Southport en route to Tweed Heads. This applied to the Friday night up service in the October 1940 timetable, and to a Thursday evening service in the 1954 timetable shown on p 369 of the article.

In the late 1930s, the morning up stopping service on Mondays to Thursdays was a rail motor from South Brisbane to Ernest Junction and Tweed Heads, overtaken at Ernest Junction by an express passenger which stopped there to connect, as well as an engine and van from Southport to provide a connection from there to the Tweed. The reverse happened on the down on those afternoons. In 1940, the morning service on Sundays from Southport to Tweed Heads and return on Monday mornings was a rail motor connecting with South Brisbane trains at Ernest Junction.

One regular passenger train which did not combine with a train from Southport until the last few years of the line was that on Sunday evenings from Tweed Heads to South Brisbane, which ran direct from Nerang (see timetable p 374). An engine and van ran down from Southport on Sunday afternoons to provide the power and crew, presumably Brisbane men, for this service. The train was formed of carriages already at Tweed Heads.

Before the mineral concentrates traffic developed, the Tweed Heads goods train generally connected at Ernest Junction with the Brisbane to Southport goods. After that, there were separate goods trains from Brisbane for each of Southport and Tweed Heads. There was a crew at Tweed Heads who operated the down goods each afternoon to the point where it crossed its up counterpart, changed there with a Wooloongabba crew, and returned to Tweed Heads at a very early hour.

There were quarters at Tweed Heads for crews working additional trains, both goods and passenger, and for the crews of assisting engines which were provided on the goods trains when they were above a single engine load. (The reference to 191 goods on page 370 should presumably read 194, as it is an up train.)

The suffix to the train numbers for the Tweed branch trains was usually B. There were cases where no suffix applied, so that in 1940, 140 from South Brisbane crossed 140 from Southport to Tweed Heads at Ernest Junction and transferred carriages to it. The A suffix to which Rod Milne draws attention applied to a similar case, of both branch and Southport trains on Saturday afternoons being numbered 165A (to distinguish them from the Monday to Friday 165). Occasionally the connecting train on the branch had a completely different number from that carried by the train on the main line.

With Tweed Heads trains starting from Southport, trains between there and Ernest Junction were both up and down in each direction.

In the upper photograph on p 375 of a train at Tweed Heads ready to return to South Brisbane on 6^th May 1951 (a Sunday), the leading three cars are those which arrived from South Brisbane, trailing from Ernest Junction, and the rear one the car from Southport. They will return to the same places. The same presumably applies to the lower photo on the same page. Most passenger trains on the branch were four cars of this arrangement, but at holiday times and Sunday nights were longer (see below). When the co-ordinated freight service was introduced, the weekday trains became two carriages each with guard’s compartment flanking one or two CJFP wagons (as in the photo on p 376, the first two vehicles for South Brisbane, the third for Southport).

On page 368 Rod Milne says that an outer suburban type level of service operated to Southport. I don’t understand what that means, but until 1962, it was not possible to travel to work from Southport to Brisbane each day by rail, nor from places near to Southport to Southport. In 1962, a limited stop railcar service was provided from Southport to allow travel to work in Brisbane, but that is not part of the history of the Tweed Heads branch..

The co-ordinated road buses connecting with trains at Southport continued through Coolangatta and Tweed Heads to Murwillumbah until sometime between 1954 and 1957 when they were cut back to Coolangatta. They principally served those resorts between Narrow Neck and Currumbin, which were completely off the railway, allowing travel to and from them both north and south. Among the places so served by connecting buses was the National Fitness camp at Tallebudgera (near the mouth of the creek) The camp was used by the Bush Children’s Holiday scheme. Some of the participants made long and complex rail journeys to Southport to take part in those holidays.

Rod Milne complains that to places between Tugun and Tweed Heads, the co-ordinated buses competed with the railway. He fails to note that where the buses and trains to and from Coolangatta connected from and to the same train at Southport, the through train was the faster by some fifteen minutes. The through train also saved the change to and from a bus at Southport, and was cheaper than the combined rail and road journey. As well as the co-ordinated service, there were direct road coaches from Brisbane as the absolute protection afforded the railway from competition was relaxed (that apart from the loss of control over road services which crossed the border and set down passengers en route before reaching the border).

From March 1957, a co-ordinated freight service was provided from South Brisbane to Southport and Tweed Heads, conveyed in CJFP wagons on the weekday express passenger trains. The morning up express was then altered to leave South Brisbane later, at 10.40. The goods were picked up and delivered at each end by road by a contractor. The service was designed for perishables, but most kinds of light freight were carried. The main, 3 ft 6 ins gauge, station at South Brisbane, otherwise a coaching traffic (passengers and parcels) station only thereby became a goods station as well, but only for the contractor.

This alteration was presumably intended to obtain some more revenue from these weekday expresses, which were by then carrying very few passengers.

Rod Milne mentions excursions arranged by radio stations. I don’t know how many of these there were overall, or how many ran on the Tweed Heads branch, but one ran to Southport for radio station 4BH for the opening of the surfing season on 5 October 1952 and another there for 4BH on 1st March 1953. The train working was described by Stan Moore in the then Queensland Division Supplement to the Bulletin, later "Sunshine Express", for October 1964, page 7. In terms of number of trains, locomotives and seats, it was an even bigger undertaking than the event discussed below, although the distance was shorter.

On Sunday 20th February 1955, 4BH organised the Golden Girl of the Beach Competition at Coolangatta, to which six special trains ran from Brisbane and suburbs. I introduce it here because so far as I know it has never been written up. Even then, all I can offer is what was planned, from Train Notice 438 of the General Manager Brisbane of 11^th. All my references in the past tense should be interpreted as applying in the planned sense - it could be that things turned out differently. It would be of considerable value if anyone, railway staff or passenger, who participated, could add to the following.

Seven passenger trains were to arrive at Coolangatta between 9.55 and 11.39 am, of which six were for 4BH, and one a regular train. Two regular trains to Southport were reduced to one south of Bethania, this stopping at all stations between Bethania and Southport, dividing at Ernest Junction to provide a Tweed Heads portion. Of the six trains for 4BH, one each commenced at the suburban termini of Lota (accommodation for 500 passengers), Ferny Grove (D17 and six cars), Ipswich (to be six cars), Shorncliffe (B18¼ and six cars), Zillmere (D17 and six cars), and one from South Brisbane (accommodation for 500 passengers). On the trains from Ferny Grove, Shorncliffe and Zillmere, locomotives were changed from B18¼ or D17 to PB15 at Central, while those from Ipswich, Lota and South Brisbane were hauled by a single PB15 throughout.

The trains via Central and from Ipswich reached the SCL via Corinda and Yeerongpilly, that from Lota via the connection between Buranda (Cleveland Junction) and Dutton Park. The six car trains were all to be of large (the Train Notice says "heavy") cross seat suburban carriages, ie 50 ft cars, with a total capacity of 500 if all were second class cars. Such carriages had no toilets, hardly suitable for journeys of up to four hours. Carriages for three of the trains were to be kept at Coolangatta during the day, the rest at Tweed Heads, where there was in addition a carriage set from a Friday night arrival. Goods vehicles from Tweed Heads and Coolangatta (and probably the two temporary staff stations on the branch) were taken to Ernest Junction for the day for stowing, and returned on Sunday night.

Between Beenleigh and Ernest Junction on the main SCL, all three single line sections were divided by the opening of temporary ordinary staff stations at Stapylton, Pimpama and 43 miles 45 chains, and on the Tweed Heads branch, Mudgereeba, Tugun and Coolangatta were opened as temporary staff stations (all ordinary staff). North of Beenleigh, Woodridge, normally cut in as an electric staff station only on weekdays to divide the Kuraby to Kingston section, was cut in twice during the day. On the double track between Yeerongpilly and Kuraby, Sunnybank, normally cut out on Sundays, was cut in as a block station for two intervals. The loops at Stapylton and Pimpama were cleared of goods vehicles for the day to allow the loops at those places to be used for crossings. 43 miles 45 chains had no loop, was merely a hut, with a telephone and temporary signals.

The main function of all of these temporary staff stations was to allow closer intervals between trains travelling in the same direction. Only two crossings were scheduled to occur at them, one at Pimpama, of one of the specials with the regular morning down train from Southport, which was restricted in length to one PB15 engine and four carriages on account of the shortness of the loop, and one at Stapylton between the evening up regular but altered railcar and one of the returning specials.

Wooloongabba locomotive depot sent three PB15s with large tenders to Mayne on Saturday night to provide the engines to take over the three trains at Central; these were returned to Wooloongabba on Sunday night. Ipswich supplied a PB15 to operate the special from there to Tweed Heads and return. The engines of all the specials were watered at Kingston and Nerang up, and Nerang and Beenleigh down, even the special to and from South Brisbane (no doubt these places served as hurried emergency toilet stops for passengers as well). All engines were to be supplied with Blair Athol coal and to be in good mechanical condition. Emergency engines were provided at South Brisbane, Kingston and Nerang in the morning and at Nerang and Beenleigh in the evening. These instructions and provisions were sensible, because the schedules were fast for the loads, a heavy 160 tons or so gross on each train. The regular 4.10 pm from Southport, non-stop to South Brisbane, running before the return specials, was to maintain its usual 100 minutes schedule despite the four additional slowings for staff or ticket exchange.

Tickets were available from the promoter only, available only for the train marked thereon.

No engines with vans attached were to run from Southport to Ernest Junction to connect with any of the specials. The Train notice is silent on crew workings. The specials from Ipswich and Central were probably worked by Ipswich and Mayne drivers who knew the road to Tweed Heads (transfers of enginemen among the metropolitan depots were fairly common). Otherwise Wooloongabba drivers went to suitable points to take those trains on to the South Coast Line (SCL) and Tweed Heads.

On the return, regular passenger trains from Tweed Heads were to pass Ernest Junction at 4.41 and 6.57 pm. The specials were due to pass at 5.31, 5.45, 5.59, 6.35, 7.11 and 7.34 while there was a regular passenger from Southport at 6.21. Things were even more hectic closer to Beenleigh where all these down trains met the regular up trains and an up empty coach train. The last arrival of a special at its destination was to be at Ferny Grove at 10.30 pm.

Special timetables applied at Christmas, New Year, Easter and all the long weekends, providing considerable extra services and capacity. Rod Milne says nothing in particular about the services provided at these times.

The arrangements for the country end of the SCL for Christmas and New Year 1949-50 occupied 24 pages in the special timetable booklet. Again, past tense is to be interpreted as planned. Vans with ample luggage space were provided on all trains. Coolangatta was opened as an attended ordinary staff station from 16 December to 9 January, while West Burleigh was an attended staff station from 16 December to 3 January. The usual provision that the fastest trains were limited to 110 tons tare is not mentioned, allowing certain trains to run with full passenger loads for non-stopping trains of 140 tons tare. With heavier loads and more crossings, trains were slower than normal. Special seat booking arrangements were provided (seat booking did not normally apply on the SCL).

On several days, the morning express dividing for both lines was to be two trains, one for Tweed Heads and the co-ordinated service beyond Coolangatta (which presumably started there), and another for Southport and the co-ordinated service for places between there and Coolangatta. Other extra trains ran direct to the Tweed Heads branch, some serving stations Tugun to Tweed Heads only. On the last day of the Christmas Holidays, Tuesday 27^th, a special empty coach train ran from South Brisbane to Tweed Heads with two engines to provide sufficient power and accommodation for returning travellers.

Several trains ran between Ipswich and the SCL or vice versa, serving stations Corinda to Ipswich. Only one of these (on 24^th) ran in the up direction on the SCL with passengers; the others were empty coach trains, one with two engines from Ipswich, the train dividing at Ernest Junction into parts for Southport and Tweed Heads. Five ran from the SCL to Ipswich, all with passengers, one direct from the Tweed Heads branch.

Apart from that train direct to Ipswich, all trains to and from the Tweed Heads branch during the holiday period exchanged engines at Ernest Junction, the engine from South Brisbane proceeding with a van to Southport, and another engine and van providing a connection from Southport and continuing with the South Brisbane train to Tweed Heads. Apart from the Ipswich service, this meant that all trains on the Tweed Heads branch over this period were operated by crews based at Southport.

Various organisations organised excursions to places on the SCL for annual picnics etc. My article on the QR McKeen cars (see ARHS Bulletin October 2002 p 363) mentions some early examples. At least once, the QR organised an excursion for residents along the SCL to Brisbane.

The 1950 General Appendix provided that Coolangatta was worked under the control and supervision of the Station Master at Tweed Heads, to whom inquiries about goods and parcels were to be addressed; also that the engines of up trains were to be turned there. The engine was to be cut off by its fireman, and the points were to be unlocked by the porter from Tweed Heads. If up trains were travelling on ticket (ie they could be followed at time interval by another up train), the guard was to ensure that the up signal at Coolangatta was placed at stop while the engine was being turned. The engine in the top photo on page 377 has presumably just been turned and reattached to its train.

On page 367 Rod Milne says that for stock traffic, Coolangatta "retained an identity". I do not follow why he says "retained". The trucking yards were always there, and not at Tweed Heads. That suited the NSW restrictions on the movement of livestock over the border (see reference to spraying on page 368). Not that much livestock traffic was handled. When the line opened, cattle and horses were not conveyed south of Tallebudgera, and in November 1904, nothing in contact with livestock (eg saddles) was to go beyond Coolangatta (mentioned on the Hard Batch file). In the reference in the article to shunting charges being levied from Tweed Heads, Station Mistress should read Station Master.

The layouts at both Coolangatta and Tweed Heads included points on curves, both inside and outside (see diagrams on page 366). The first turnout in Tweed Heads yard, ie that to the goods shed side, was a very sharp 1 in 5½. The curve between the two stations, under Dixon Street overbridge, took the line through about 110 degrees. The border is on the south-east side of Dixon St Coolangatta and the north-west side of the contiguous Thomson Street Tweed Heads.

Both Southport and Tweed Heads were out-depots of Wooloongabba locomotive depot in Brisbane. It is true that most engines which worked to Tweed Heads started their day at Southport (most passenger trains originated at Southport, but not all - see above). When Tweed Heads had a direct goods train from Wooloongabba, its engine put away or stabled at Tweed Heads had commenced the shift at Wooloongabba. One engine arriving from Southport on Friday nights on a passenger train returned next morning, while another arriving that evening stayed at Tweed Heads until Sunday afternoon.

Both were "garage" depots, at which the engines were kept in fire or put away and lit up as needed. Little else was done to them. The idea so far as possible was to avoid having to coal engines at Southport or Tweed Heads, or at least to minimise such coaling at those places, because such coaling had to be done manually from an open wagon beside the tender. Apart from engines working a return trip from Brisbane to Southport, engines worked from Wooloongabba to Tweed Heads and return (usually via Southport) to Wooloongabba. PB15s with large tenders could if necessary manage an additional return trip from Southport to Tweed Heads without such coaling being needed.

The through goods train load for a PB15 on the South Coast line was 190 tons in both directions. On the Tweed Heads branch per se, ie south of Ernest Junction, it was 200 tons up and 210 down. B15 Converteds could haul 200, 205 and 220 tons respectively, and were once employed on goods trains on the SCL (the May 1938 Working Timetable provided that 36 up South Coast goods be worked by one). They disappeared from the SCL by circa 1955.

Rod Milne says on page 371 that the Tweed Heads line was constructed to a fairly high standard, with provision for longer-term (gauge) standardisation, as well illustrated by the loading gauge clearances for the tunnel at West Burleigh. It would be useful if he could give his sources for the statements about provision for future conversion to standard gauge and for the dimensions, actual and comparative, for the tunnel. "Fairly high" does not convey anything about the standard actually used.

When the Commissioner reported to parliament on the intended line from Nerang to Coolangatta (reference above), he made no mention of provision for conversion to standard gauge, and it was on this report and plans referred to in it that parliament approved the line. He did say, however, that it was planned to build the line on a 15 feet wide formation, and that was done, as shown on the Working Plan and Section of the line, which shows the line as actually built. This width of formation was unusual, as most sections of the QR were built on a formation 13 feet wide.

Not a few lines, however, were built on a 14 feet wide formation , such as Kabra to Mt Morgan and the Dawson Valley line, the Maryvale and Cooyar branches, the Brisbane Valley line north of Esk, the Great Northern Railway west of Hughenden and, so far as I can see, all of the North Coast Line built after 1910. A 15 ft formation was intended for the South Western Line from Warwick to Thane, designed and approved at the same time as Nerang to Coolangatta, but that section was actually built on a 14 ft formation. More interesting is that the first section of the QR, from Ipswich to Toowoomba, was built on a 15 ft wide formation, to allow conversion to standard gauge if the planned 3 ft 6 ins gauge railway was not successful. That width was possibly continued on the further sections of the original railway, beyond Toowoomba to Dalby and Warwick. A 15 ft formation could have been used elsewhere on the QR, but I do not know of it. If a 13 ft formation could carry a 3 ft 6 ins gauge railway, a standard gauge railway should indeed have been possible on a 15 ft formation.

Unfortuantely records of the West Burleigh tunnel seem not to have survived, and the structure has disappeared under a modern road, which is why it would be especially valuable to have Rod Milne’s source on its clearances. All QR tunnels on 3 ft 6ins gauge lines built from the inception of the system in the 1860s until construction of the old system ceased in the early 1930s were 15 ft wide at the widest point, and 15 ft 7½ ins above rail level and 17 feet above formation level at the highest point. I am indebted to Arthur Robinson for this information.

A photograph by Eric Marggraf looking out of the northern or Brisbane end of the West Burleigh tunnel taken in July 1963, two years after the closure, contains the measuring scales of the 3 ft 6 ins gauge of the rails and the 7 ft length of the sleepers. Using these, even allowing for the difficulty of locating exactly where the rails coincide with the end of the tunnel, it is clear that the tunnel was of the above dimensions, about 15 ft wide at the widest and about 15 ft 6 ins high above rails at the highest.

A photograph of the mouth of the Ardglen tunnel on the NSW Northern Line which appeared in "Railway Digest" in 2006 allows scaling from the gauge of the rails, which shows its height and width to be the same as those used in Queensland in 1903. It can therefore be judged that the usual Queensland tunnel dimensions of 1903 were the same as those then used in NSW, ie there was no need to specially build the tunnel to "standard gauge dimensions" because those dimensions were the same as those used on the QR. (When the QR came to plan its standard gauge line from South Brisbane to the NSW border in the 1920s, it made the tunnels higher and wider, presumably to standards adopted by NSW in the intervening 25 or so years.)

The 1903 QR Commissioner’s Report says that completion of the line had been delayed deciding whether the bridges were to be built to carry standard gauge. The file mentioned above shows that the Acting Chief (Civil) Engineer was asked early in 1902 how much more it would cost to make the steel and iron portions (ie the larger bridges) sufficiently strong to carry standard gauge. He gave a figure of £6405 above the parliamentary estimate for building the line (ie the original estimate was for building a 3 ft 6 ins gauge line with no provision for standard gauge). The files do not say what standard gauge locomotives were considered in determining the requirement for bridge strength and cross section dimensions.

On 14^th February 1902 the Commissioner agreed to a request from the Acting Chief Engineer to widen the formation to 17 feet at bridge abutments. On 22^nd March 1902, the Acting Chief Engineer said that, as agreed, he was making the bridges to accommodate standard gauge stock. The note in the 1903 Annual Report, applying 15 months later, was presumably to hide the delay caused by deciding whether and by what means the line might enter NSW.

QR officials were in contact with Henry Deane, Engineer in Chief of the NSW Railways, who said in a note to his superiors (copy on the QR file) that he understood that the bridges on the railway to Tweed Heads were sufficiently strong to carry the heaviest NSW rolling stock (which was not right, as the timber bridges were never built to anything but usual QR standards). In October 1903, the QR Chief Engineer advised the QR Secretary that the extra expenditure which had been incurred to permit the following to be used for standard gauge without alterations was: Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creek bridges £6400, culverts £1200.

If the standard gauge was to be continued to Brisbane along the route of the South Coast Line north of Nerang, it would have been necessary to widen the formation and strengthen the bridges along that 50 miles.

In January 1906, well after the opening, the QR Secretary asked the Chief Engineer for the extra cost of tunnels, bridges etc with a view to making them applicable to a broad gauge (sic) railway. The CE replied that the extra cost of making bridges suited to standard (sic) gauge was only £3656 plus £80 for longer culverts, and that the banks were not widened. The tunnel was not mentioned. This reply confirms the above interpretation that the tunnel was of the then usual QR dimensions. It also makes clear that only two steel bridges were built suitable for some undisclosed standard gauge loading or width, that some culverts were lengthened, but that cuttings, embankments and timber bridges were not made any wider or stronger for some unknown standard gauge requirement.

In October 1910, however, a telegram (again on the file) was sent to the Queensland Minister for Home Affairs (who had no responsibility for railways) who was at a conference in Melbourne, saying that steel bridges, concrete culverts and the tunnel were made wide enough for standard gauge (no mention of strength or extra width or height in the tunnel). Wooden bridges and sleepers were of Queensland dimensions. Nothing was said about formation. A memo on the file after closure, however, says that Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creek bridges and concrete culverts were the only major structures to allow for standard gauge.

(This rendition of the standards to which this line was built differs in several respects from, amplifies and corrects, my letter in "Sunshine Express" for April 2000, pp 390-1, and is the result of my subsequent reading of the above file and examination of the plans.)

The timber bridges between Nerang and Tweed Heads were able to carry all classes of steam locomotives the QR ever owned, ie they were of 12 tons axle load standard. As nothing heavier than 8 tons axle load could reach Nerang from Brisbane (see below), however, none of the bridges on the section, steel or timber, was ever especially stressed.

Going back to Rod Milne’s "technically speaking". It was the steel bridges south of Kingston (not Kuraby) as far as Nerang which limited the South Coast Line and Tweed Heads branch to light locomotives, PB15s and B15 Converteds (all QR steam locomotives could run to Kingston).

The underpass at Oxenford which Rod Milne remembers passing under on road journeys on the Pacific Highway (page 372) was on the Southport to South Brisbane section, not the Tweed Heads branch. It was steel span on concrete piers almost at the end of a long timber trestle over an ana-branch of the Coomera River (see Eric Marggraf's photo and description on pages 205 and 206 of "Sunshine Express" for November 1998).

It was QR policy postwar, at least to the early 1950s, to strengthen the South Coast Line. Not a great deal was done however: resources were scarce, there were more urgent tasks on busier lines, strengthening would not have done anything to speed the trains, and saved only a little in locomotive miles (mostly in removing the second engine from the heaviest trains, which were double headed while PB15s were the heaviest engines allowed, but which were not all that numerous, and perhaps allowing amalgamation of some of the goods trains.) Many of the lines available for only B15 size engines on account of the limited strength of steel bridges were made available for 60 tons diesel electric locomotives (DELs) with little or no strengthening, and that might have applied to the SCL, but until after the line was closed there were better uses for the modest number of 60 tons DELs.

The top photo on p 364 is said to be a passenger train from Tweed Heads on 11 July 1958, a Friday. The angle of the sun indicates that the photo was taken in the afternoon. On Friday afternoons, the train from Tweed Heads was scheduled to be combined with one from Southport at Ernest Junction, and due to make a brief stop at Beenleigh at 3.46 pm. Had this combination taken place, a carriage with guard’s compartment would be present within the train, but none is visible (see above about how these trains were combined). The train is probably the following 3.05 pm all stations train from Southport, due at Beenleigh at 4.12 pm, on this occasion conveying empty CJFP wagons which were over the load for the preceding express train.

The photo dates from the days of the co-ordinated general freight service introduced in March 1957. The CJFP wagons were louvered, not refrigerated as said in the upper photo on p 376.

The caption to the bottom photo on page 364 says that 1810 and 1811 were a coupled set of railcars. RM1811 was the power unit, TP1810 a trailer, Similarly on page 369 reference is made to units 1808 and 1809. RM1808 was a power car and TP1809 a trailer. As it happens, 1808-09-10-11 was built as a four car unit, the power cars operable in multiple with the trailers between.

Several names of stations on the map on page 366 are spelt wrongly. Dremford should be Oxenford, Melandiner should be Molendinar, there is only one l in Bilinga, while Yeresdale on the Beaudesert branch starts with a V not a Y (Veresdale is a place where the wild Beaudesert train supposedly took curves fast - see Bulletins for November 1998 and September 2000).

Rod Milne and most railway enthusiasts deplore the closure of the old SCL and find underhand actions of road transport interests as a major explanation of the closures. He uses these words for or about the closure - shortsighted, brutality, supposedly justified by some dubious reasoning and economics, and visionless. He also says the traffic was not sparse, and that compared with other railways closed in Queensland at that time, the SCL differed markedly with steady goods traffic levels and the potential for improved passenger loadings in time. He offers no support or evidence for these claims.

It is difficult to see how Rod Milne can make the claims he does for the level of traffic on the Tweed Heads branch at the time of closure. However he defines sparse, the traffic was low. The maximum number of passengers travelling from Coolangatta in a year was 29,212 in 1943-44. In 1951-52, after petrol rationing had been removed, only 7415 were made. Numbers from Tweed Heads were 18,576 in 1944-45 and 4789 in 1951-52 (excluding those with through bookings from NSW stations). Passengers from the other stations on the branch were always well below those of Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.

In 1959-60, only 9222 passengers (25 per day) travelled from all stations on the Tweed Heads branch, 7654 (21) from the beach resorts Currumbin and south. Numbers travelling inwards can be expected to have been much the same. The railway did not serve the developing resorts, those between Narrow Neck and Burleigh, and the private motor car quickly became the favoured mode of transport for the holidaymaker to all Gold Coast resorts. Road coaches served those resorts as well as those on the railway more directly and more frequently.

Further, the old SCL was so sinuous that the 1800 class railcars ran to the same schedules as steam hauled expresses. The 2000 class railcars saved only 5% on express schedules and up to 10 % on trains which stopped more, and they achieved that to some extent by their short length (a factor on the curves) as well as their high power to weight ratio. Their short length reflected the reduced business. Light diesel electric locomotives (DELs) would have been little faster than steam expresses if they had been hauling passenger trains of a length which corresponded with their higher haulage ability, on account of the time taken on curves, certainly no faster than the 2000 class railcars.

The freight traffic both in and out of Tweed Heads was by Rod Milne’s Table 4, only 24,000 tons per year. On page 365 the mineral sands traffic is said to be heavy, on page 370 to have been truly substantial, and on page 371 to have been undergoing a boom. (The traffic was actually mineral concentrate; the sands were treated to extract the concentrate.) Was this traffic so great? In 1951-52, 24,281 tons of fertiliser and other minerals were forwarded from Tweed Heads, and in 1959-60, 14,872 tons. When was the boom? When was the traffic truly substantial? The 1959-60 level was only 60 tons per day of a year of 250 working days.

What was the potential of this traffic? The QR management or Queensland government could have had sound knowledge of the life of the mineral concentrates traffic, either as traffic or its willingness to use rail. The concentrate from Tweed Heads came mostly from sites in NSW, and its movement by road could not be controlled or taxed off road by Queensland. Not all traffic is worth having at any cost. The concentrate traffic certainly did not return much revenue.

The historian has to report the facts and examine the case on both sides, whatever his or her feelings. Rod Milne did not do that. He uses words which judge closure as unreasonable, with no analysis of the situation whatsoever. He does not even present the case made by the government, or the attitude of the area served. On the latter, I remember that the people of Coolangatta wanted the railway land made available for expansion of the town centre.

The improvements which Rod Milne regards as the obvious answer to the low traffic on the line were far from costless, and it is doubtful if they would have made much difference to the traffic. On the QR as a whole, where country passenger services were accelerated, and the traction changed from steam to diesel or railcar, and the carriages improved, including air conditioned, country passenger traffic continued to decline from the 1950s.

It is not obvious that the area suffered from being without a railway in the 1970s and 1980s, nor that Queenslanders of the 1960s would have gained anything from paying for extensive capital improvements and higher frequency which Rod Milne regards as the answer to low traffic on the old SCL. Even if "in time" additional traffic had come, from growth in population if nothing else, it was not necessarily valuable or useful for the 1961-64 generation (how long is "in time"?) to pay large losses and high capital costs to perhaps benefit (there can be no certainty about it) a future, richer generation.

A railway has since been restored to the Gold Coast. That does not prove that it was wrong to have closed the old line in the 1960s. The new 1990s line is on a new route with improved alignment south of Bethania, and an improved alignment from Kingston to Bethania. The value of the old line when it was closed for what it might have contributed to the line built in the late 1990s at any reasonable rate of discount, perhaps even a zero rate, must have been very little if anything. In other words it was probably not worth retaining the old line in the 1960s for what it could or would have contributed to the transport to and from the Gold Coast in 2000 or so.

On page 377, Rod Milne imagines the up night goods passing along the Tugun to Kirra section, through Bilinga, and hearing staccato emissions from the PB15’s stack. "Staccato" means separated with respect to sounds. On this level section even with a full through load, the exhaust sounds from the PB15 would not have been audible above the noise of the train, nor separated in sound. The short upgrade beyond Kirra would have made little difference, because the driver would have wanted to pass the summit slowly, to keep the train under control for the short descent to Coolangatta, where he had to stop to turn the engine. Of course, Rod Milne can imagine what he likes. I make this remark to prevent it becoming regarded as received history that goods trains ran over this section with the PB15s working so hard that there were distinct exhaust sounds. The down goods with a full load would have given rather more of the sound he imagines as it passed through or left Coolangatta on the short climb to that summit.

With reference to the letters in the June 2002 Bulletin from Messrs Collins and Burke, page 223: J P Davidson was the QR Commissioner from 1918 to 1938, instrumental in the accelerations and improved service on the SCL from 1937. It is not uncommon for railwaymen to apply the names of Commissioners to measures they introduced, or which were introduced during their term of office. Mr Davidson also gave his name to carriages which were fitted with improved seating. The names of Ministers (for Railways, Transport, etc) were sometimes similarly ascribed to items introduced during their terms. David Burke did not give the year of his trip with Ken Rogers, but Mr Davidson died in 1939.

The Working Plans and Sections of the old line are held in QR archives. They are related to latitude and longitude, and could be traced on to modern maps. If the route alone is of interest, old and current topographical and cadastral maps would suffice. With computer aids, the comparison Mr Collins has in mind might not be especially difficult.

The bridge in Ken Winney’s photograph is not that over the Coomera River (not Creek) but that over the Albert River at Yatala. This is indeed close to Beenleigh, whereas the Coomera is some 14 miles south.