(Original article, ARHS Bulletin 716, June 1997, p179; Letters Bulletin 734, December 1998 p 483 and Bulletin 759, January 2001, p 26)

John Knowles writes:

In his original article, Rod Milne said that it was normal for Wallaville to function as a temporary out-depot (p185) with transfer of crews there for the duration of the season (p 184), the business warranting at least two cane trains daily on the Wallaville corridor (p 185), to convey annual tonnages of cane of the order of 20,000 (p 187). He did not qualify the "normal", and thus implied that this was the way the cane traffic was worked throughout the history of the line.

I asked for the source of the statement that Wallaville was worked as an out-depot, and how long it was so worked, and explained that there was evidence that from 1943 on, cane trains were being worked from Bundaberg, the cane train staying overnight at Wallaville. The sources should have been given in the original article.

Rod Milne said in his letter in Bulletin 759 that he knew of Wallaville being an out-depot in the cane season from memories of old drivers and from the content of one or two Interpretations (defined below) in Weekly Notices. Full marks to him for obtaining the information about the outdepot, but he did not look for the full story. The outdepot working occurred for only some years. No references to those WNs were given, nor the dates the drivers served there. He does not say whether the Interpretations reveal anything about how the traffic was worked, and how the men were employed there, whether for example they changed each week, etc.

He also endeavours to discredit the idea that in the 1940s and 1950s the cane traffic was worked from Bundaberg, by saying that the evidence came from only one driver, and that the timetable of the cane specials was suited to being worked from Wallaville by a crew based there. He also says, in his letter in Bulletin 759, that he never doubted that both Bundaberg and Wallaville crews would have participated in the sugar workings on the line, but he did not say that in his original article. Even this concession is based on the idea that there was always a crew at Wallaville for the cane season.

The special timetables published for the sugar season in the Maryborough and Bundaberg areas survive for the years 1921 to 1929, 1931, and 1933 to 1936 in the bound copies of Working Timetables at the Workshops Museum at Ipswich. They all provide that the special trains on the Wallaville line were to be cancelled by the Station Master, Bundaberg when not required, and that the special timetables were to be cancelled by the Assistant General Manager (later District Superintendent) Maryborough when the sugar season ended.

During the 1921 season, the first for which the alteration exists, the normal mixed ran from Bundaberg to Wallaville and return as usual on Mondays and Thursdays, and a special train for cane ran from Bundaberg to Wallaville on the other weekdays, out and back in the day. If necessary, the Station Master at Wallaville could arrange for the cane train to return to Weithew if necessary for loading left behind.

In 1922 and 1923, the normal mixed was cancelled for the duration of the season. The cane special ran from Bundaberg to Wallaville and return on Mondays to Saturdays, but was not to be cancelled on Mondays and Thursdays, the days of the normal mixed trains. In 1924, a cane train ran from Bundaberg to Wallaville and return on weekdays. While it was at Wallaville, it ran an additional trip to Goondoon and return on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. On Mondays and Thursdays the normal mixed ran as well, so timed that it provided the second cane train between Goondoon and Wallaville which operated on the other days.

In 1925 and 1926, the normal mixed was cancelled, there were two return trips for cane from Bundaberg to Wallaville and return on Mondays to Fridays and one on Saturdays. On Mondays and Thursdays the equivalent of the normal mixed was not to be cancelled. The same prevailed in 1927, 1928 and 1929, except that two trains were scheduled on Saturdays as well as Mondays to Fridays.

No sugar season timetable survives for 1930. But up to 1929, it is clear that the extra services for cane were all worked from Bundaberg.

In 1931 the cane service was operated from Wallaville, a single return service each day Mondays to Saturdays from Wallaville to Goondoon. The line was by then operated by B15 size engines. Their heavier load (compared with that of the B13s previously used) presumably explains why only one cane train was needed each day. The Tuesday rail motor was altered to fit the running of the cane train, the Thursday rail motor cancelled and the Saturday mixed ran to timetable (rail motors had been introduced on 5^th January 1931 - see WN 1/31). According to WN 32/31, passenger accommodation was attached to cane trains when running on other days. The opening of the extension to Morganville on 5^th October 1931 affected these arrangements only to the extent of the Tuesday rail motor and Saturday mixed being extended to Morganville (WN 38/31, as reproduced on p 181 of Bulletin 716).

No sugar season alterations have been found for 1932. WN 30/32 advised that from 27^th July until the end of the crushing, the Wednesday rail motor to Morganville would not run, but that accommodation would be attached to cane trains when running between Wallaville and Goondoon, connecting at Goondoon with trains for Bundaberg. The cane trains were subject to cancellation at short notice. This did not last long, for WN 33/32 advised that from 17^th August, the Wednesday rail motor was reinstated. It is very likely that Gin Gin Mill did not crush in 1932 (see below). It would surely not have been started for a season of under three weeks. Apparently, a timetable to convey cane was drawn up, again to be operated from Wallaville, but in the meantime, the mill decided not to crush (mills usually planned their crushing season well ahead, but there might have been some uncertainty about at what other mill the modest quantity of cane available would be crushed).

It is possible that the timetable alteration, including the cancellation of the Wednesday rail motors for three weeks, did not actually occur - WNs sometimes announced timetable changes after they had been brought into force.

The 1933 sugar season timetable showed a train from Bundaberg to Wallaville on Mondays, one from Wallaville to Goondoon and return on Tuesdays to Saturdays, and a return to Bundaberg on Saturdays. A return trip was also made from Wallaville to Morganville on Wednesdays. These trains fitted around the normal timetable. Presumably in that year at least, the crew working to Wallaville on Monday stayed there for the week.

In all years 1934, 1935 and 1936, there was a return train from Wallaville to Goondoon on Mondays to Saturdays, and a return run from Wallaville to Morganville on Wednesdays and Fridays. This differed from the 1933 arrangement in that no train was shown from Bundaberg to start the working week on Mondays or one to Bundaberg to finish it, as in 1933. This might indicate that the crew sent to Wallaville at the beginning of the season stayed there for the season. As for the engine, see below.

The sugar season timetables do not say anything about wagon utilisation, but it is to be presumed that when the service was operated from Wallaville, two sets of wagons were required, one delivered empty in the Wallaville to Goondoon direction, and another picked up on the return (no doubt a few left on the outbound were loaded in time for the return trip). This wagon productivity was very poor even by the standards of sugar cane traffic.

No timetable for sugar trains exist for any later years. WNs show that in most years 1934 to 1944, the Wednesday rail motor was replaced by a mixed during the sugar season (after that the rail motor made two trips on Wednesdays for shoppers to travel to Bundaberg for the day and was less easily altered).

It is noteworthy that two cane trains were scheduled per day only while the line was operated by B13s, and that there were never more than two. "At least two" as claimed by Rod Milne were never scheduled. And there was no need for more than one in the years after 1930, on which see the analysis below.

Sugar mills have a fixed hourly capacity. The cutting of the cane and its transport were organised to have the mill fully utilised and the cane as fresh as possible when crushed. The length of the season varied mostly with the size of the crop. The mill would have planned to have a certain tonnage cut along the QR branch each day and took that tonnage into account in its crushing plans. The QR would have wanted a reasonable load for its daily special. Once the season had started, cutting continued at the planned rate at places in the district until the crop was all cut. This plan was usually interrupted only by wet weather and industrial disputes. When these interruptions occurred, the cane trains would have been cancelled.

Rod Milne was severely critical of my basing conclusions on the working of the cane trains on the work record of Driver Macdonald of Bundaberg ("only one driver"). (He was content to draw conclusions from that one driver in his original article - eg on p 186 about B13s 232 and 88 "featuring strongly"). Mr Macdonald’s work record reveals a lot about the working of the cane traffic, much more than Rod Milne allows.

Prior to the working of the cane traffic from Wallaville in 1930 or 1931, ie during the 1920s, Mr Macdonald drove several of the cane specials, to the schedules given in the timetable alterations for the season. Second, when in 1931 Wallaville was a temporary out-depot for the season, he worked a regular mixed with one PB15 outbound and another on the return. The engine outstationed at Wallaville was presumably exchanged with that on the mixed from time to time to allow it to return to Bundaberg for boiler washout, and to reduce the need to coal it manually at Wallaville. (As the mixed ran to time both ways on this occasion, the exchange of locomotives cannot have been due to engine failure).

The same thing happened in September 1939. It did not happen in August 1941. There could have been any reason for that, such as that the engine had been exchanged on the previous trip of the mixed, or that Wallaville was not an outdepot that year. When he worked mixed trains on the branch in the sugar season, Mr Macdonald worked them both ways. It can be concluded from this that the mixed was not used to exchange the crew out-stationed at Wallaville, at least with that crew working one way. They could of course have travelled on the mixed as passengers.

Third, although Mr Macdonald became a special class driver working mail trains between Bundaberg and Rockhampton from September 1936, he continued to drive many of the numerous special workings near Bundaberg during the sugar season, some of them more than once each season. From 1931 until 1942 inclusive, he did not work any trains on the Morganville branch during the sugar season other than mixeds. This might indicate that the cane traffic on the branch continued to be worked by an engine and crew temporarily based at Wallaville until and including the 1942 season (although, see below, there was probably no crushing at Wallaville in 1942).

From 1943 until 1956 (when he retired), Mr Macdonald worked special trains on the branch during the cane season, mostly out one day and back the next to the timetable I gave in Bulletin 734 (which disproved Rod Milne’s assertion that workings on the branch by Bundaberg crews were "invariably out and back in the day with no out-camping"). Rod Milne tries to show that these overnight workings by Bundaberg men were additional to the working from Wallaville. This is very doubtful, for several reasons.

First, the evidence above shows that from when PB15s became the normal power on the line at the end of 1930 until 1936, one cane train per day was scheduled to clear the cane cut along the line. The tonnages of cane per season after 1943 were not different from those moved in the 1930s. There is therefore no reason why more than one train per day would have been needed for the cane traffic after 1943 until at least 1948-49.

Second, if the cane traffic was handled one day by a train working from Bundaberg to Wallaville staying at Wallaville overnight, returning the next, the same arrangement is likely to have prevailed the previous day and the next. In other words, if there was only one cane train per day, and some occasional pieces of evidence reveal a certain pattern of working, it is highly likely that the same pattern applied on other days.

Third, Rod Milne claimed that the timetable for W15 and W14 would be an ideal working for a Wallaville based crew on a day return basis. This is unrealistic, for two reasons. One is that the driver and guard would have been on duty over 16 hours each day, the fireman even more, such that the time available for crew based at Wallaville to be off-duty there overnight between shifts would have been below that laid down in the award. If a day return job to Bundaberg was to be scheduled for a crew at Wallaville, the train would have been scheduled to return from Bundaberg about an hour after arrival, not about five hours later. The second is that knowledge of the service comes from Mr Macdonald’s record, and he worked from Bundaberg to Wallaville one afternoon, camped at Wallaville for the night, and returned to Bundaberg next morning.

Rod Milne says that I fail to give the full number of these journeys in the 1950s, and that it seems to him that the number of trips each year on this basis is crucial. I take it the number of journeys and trips is the number of additional trains for cane traffic (it is passengers who make journeys). He does not say what he means by "the basis", and to what the number is crucial. It seems to be related to his insistence that there was still a crew based at Wallaville for the sugar season in the 1950s. Given his insistence on the importance of the figure, it is surprising that he did not work out for himself how many extra trips were run for cane traffic on the basis I now explain. The answer to that calculation is that one train per day sufficed for the cane traffic.

Fourth, the statistics of train mileage, and of agricultural produce traffic originating at the stations between Goondoon and Wallaville (both from Commissioners’ Annual Reports) do not support the running of any more than one cane train per day during the season from the 1930s until 1955. The miles run by special trains can be obtained by subtracting from the total train miles on the section those train miles necessary to run the normal timetable, as shown in the Working Timetables. The calculations to show this are simple but are not given here because they take up considerable space. I will happily make them available if required. (All specials are taken to be for cane up to 1955, something with which Rod Milne must agree, because in his original article, he informed readers that specials for traffic other than cane were rare. As it happens, after 1955, I think he is wrong about that, because after that specials were also needed for the increasing output of the mill - see below on that matter.)

In the calculations I used the average tonnages moved on W15 and W14 when worked by Mr Macdonald (see below), which were generally below full load. I assumed that a little over half the loaded weight of the wagons was cane. Up to 1955, for the outbound direction, the correlation between the tonnages of cane (which I took to be 90% of the agricultural produce arising at Snake Creek to Lallewoon inclusive) and the extra train miles is very high. In other words, the QR ran these trains to convey a certain tonnage per train; the cutting in the area was organised to allow that load to come about, and when the cane from the area along the line was cut out, the specials ceased to run.

This conclusion is valid with any reasonable assumptions about the items entering the calculations. Up to 1955, it will take more than an occasional special solely for raw sugar and molasses out of Wallaville to upset it.

W15, when driven by Mr Macdonald, left Goondoon with an average 32 tons load (minimum 16, a brake van, maximum 53) and arrived Wallaville with an average of 180, minimum 55, maximum 232. This fitted well with the maximum load for a PB15 in that direction, which increased en route from 170 tons as far as Weithew to 250 arriving Wallaville. The average gross tonnage attached en route (of cane and the wagons containing it) was therefore 148. The tonnage leaving Goondoon in addition to the brake van was presumably empties for raw sugar and molasses, and perhaps coal for the mill, plus other traffic for stations on the line if conveying it would not delay the train and there was room. (Loading was sometimes attached at Goondoon outbound and empties detached there on the return; presumably some cane came from there, but not much).

W14, when driven by Mr Macdonald, left Wallaville with an average of 144 tons (minimum 98, maximum 175) and arrived Goondoon with an average of 87 tons (minimum 40, maximum 137), having detached an average of 57 tons of empty wagons at the intermediate sidings. The maximum through load to Goondoon was 175 tons. The tonnage arriving Goondoon, net of the tare of a brake van, presumably represented the gross weights of wagons moving raw sugar and molasses, plus some empties for cane from there and empties being returned from the branch.

The extra trains with the above loads were insufficient to move all the agricultural produce moving from Wallaville (raw sugar and molasses), however. They could have moved about half. But there was ample capacity on the mixed trains to move the rest. In any case, raw sugar and molasses did not all leave Wallaville during the crushing season when the special cane trains ran, and the agricultural produce could have included produce other than the output of the mill. That probably explains why the additional trains from Wallaville did not leave there with full loads - the output of the mill was simply not despatched immediately it was produced.

There is another very good reason why working the sugar traffic from a temporary outdepot at Wallaville probably ceased after 1942, and that is the war, during which locomotives, rolling stock and manpower all became very scarce. Working the cane traffic from a temporary depot at Wallaville led to very poor productivity of locomotive, crew and, especially, wagons, and required trains on the Mt Perry line to take forward from Goondoon any sugar and molasses the specials had brought that far. The arrangement of having the trains worked from Bundaberg allowed W15 and W14 to deal with some cane for Bingera Mill en route (as the timings and train weights shown in Mr Macdonald’s record show), but the number of wagons needed to deal with the cane traffic on the Wallaville line would have been roughly halved.

From 1948-49, this situation changed, because the output of the mill increased considerably, while the tonnage of cane it took from along the QR branch remained much the same. First of all, the increased profitability of sugar growing with an increasing world market led to land which had gone over to dairying going back to sugar. There were also some very good seasons. Then, in one of the periodical expansions of the sugar industry, new land was opened up. (On these matters, see "Southern Sugar Saga", pp 117 and 122, and QR statistics in Annual Reports.) Then, on account of the higher output of raw sugar from the mill, tonnage of agricultural produce railed from Wallaville then came to almost equal that of the cane railed in. From 1954-55, it came to exceed the cane railed in. The extra train mileage above that needed to run the normal timetable then became more closely related to the outwards tonnage than the inward. August 1956 was an occasion when Mr Macdonald worked W15-W16 Bundaberg to Wallaville and return in the day, leaving Wallaville on the return with 174 tons, a full through load, with no empties detached en route, ie W16 that day conveyed solely wagons from Wallaville, output of the mill and empties on hand if any.

It is also possible that it was necessary on occasions after 1958 to move raw sugar from Wallaville to Urangan to fill ships after other mills in the area went over to road haulage of their raw sugar output to Bundaberg Port (the first ship loaded at Bundaberg in September that year). In his original article, Rod Milne mentioned the specials which ran to Wallaville on Train Notice solely to clear raw sugar and molasses. These can presumably be dated to the period after 1949, mostly to 1955, 1956, 1959 and 1960, these being the years of high raw sugar output (see W15 - W16 in the previous paragraph).

Rod Milne says that I neglect to mention that there was also until the 1950s, a substantial traffic in raw sugar and molasses eastbound. This is another of his diversions, beside the point, and not right. I clearly said that the return sugar trains driven by Mr Macdonald arrived Goondoon with loading attached, presumably sugar and molasses from the mill. In any case, I did not have to mention those items - they were mentioned in his original article, and that was something in that article with which I do not disagree.

He says in his original article, pages 185 and 186, that from 1958 the rail haulage of raw sugar from Wallaville ceased, that it went to Bundaberg by road thereafter. This is not right. Although Bundaberg Port opened in September 1958, the change by the mills in the district to bulk handling and road haulage to that port in place of haulage in bags by rail to Bundaberg wharves or Urangan was spread over several years. Until 1957 or so, raw sugar from Wallaville went by rail to Bundaberg wharves, and from then until 1961 by rail to Urangan, only after that by road to the new Bundaberg Port (see "Southern Sugar Saga" by John Kerr and QR Annual Reports).

Given all this, I think it is clear that from 1943 the cane traffic was not handled by an engine and crew based at Wallaville for the season. Does Rod Milne have any evidence about the years covered by his drivers’ memories or Interpretations to say that the cane traffic was worked by an engine and crew based at Wallaville for the season for the years after 1942?

Gin Gin Mill at Wallaville did not crush in those years when the tonnage of cane available was very low on account of drought (see "Southern Sugar Saga" p 109). I do not know exactly which years these were, nor what happened, but I know from that book that prior to the building of the Wallaville line, when Gin Gin Mill did not crush, cane from the area went to Bingera Mill, via the mill tramway to Tookie, where it was transhipped to the QR for Bingera.

From QR traffic returns, 1932 would appear to have been one year the mill did not crush, with only 1288 tons of agricultural produce arising at stations Snake Creek to Lallewoon inclusive and 587 at Wallaville. It is possible that no cane was cut at all, in which case these tonnages would apply to other agricultural produce. Some of the Wallaville figure might apply to raw sugar from the previous season. 1942 was possibly another year when the mill did not crush. From Snake Creek to Lallewoon, there were 2200 tons of agricultural produce, and 3100 from Wallaville. The latter figure might apply to cane hauled to Wallaville on mill tramlines, and transferred there to the QR for haulage to another mill. Much the same might have applied in 1957, when the figures were 900 and 3900 respectively.

Rod Milne says that I seriously misrepresented the level of cane traffic on the line. He knows for a fact, he says, that Weithew and Bungadoo alone, between them generated at least 5000 tons of cane (the lower figure I gave for a range of cane tonnage per annum) in 1962-63, and that there was a similar quantity of cane from the other sidings on the line all up. He does not say how he knows the fact, but I imagine it is the tonnage of agricultural produce traffic from the sidings shown in the QR Annual Report for that year, which was 11,400 for all together. It is not certain that all the agricultural produce shown in the Annual Reports was cane. Nevertheless, it is fairly clear that most of it was, a conclusion based on knowing that the district was predominately devoted to cane cultivation, and on the small revenue (also shown in the Annual Reports) the QR obtained from moving it (ie the short distance to Wallaville).

In his original article in the January 1997 Bulletin, Rod Milne said on p 187, referring to cane traffic, "although annual tonnages of the order of 20,000 tons were carried….". According to the QR Annual Reports throughout the life of the line, the highest annual tonnage of sugar cane forward from the sidings Snake Creek to Lallewoon inclusive was 14,171 in 1924-25, this the last year that sugar cane was differentiated from other agricultural produce. Counting all agricultural produce from these stations as sugar cane (which will, as above, slightly overstate the tonnage of cane) from 1925-26 up to 1962-63 (the last year for which the information was published), the tonnage exceeded even 10,000 in only eleven years. The average from the opening up to 1962-63 was 7696 tons (this includes the years the mill did not crush, and cane was perhaps hauled to other mills). To use the term he applied to me in the January 2001 letter, it is clear that "of the order of 20,000 tons" seriously misrepresents the level of cane traffic on the line by overstating it, in broad terms by a factor of two.

In his January 2001 letter, Rod Milne chides me for suggesting (erroneously he says) that the sugar season traffic on the line (cane, sugar and molasses) was light. But I have not suggested, I have stated, and I give the correct figures. The tonnages of cane are given above. Up to 1947-48, the highest tonnage of argicultural produce railed from Wallaville (mostly raw sugar and molasses) was 8823 in 1939-40. For three years after 1948, that tonnage was 9821, 10,947 and 11,194. It then fell away again, but was much higher again from 1953-54, to reach a maximum of 18,074 in 1960-61. Until 1948, the sum of the cane, sugar and molasses was below 21,000 tons per year. After 1948-49 (23,000), there were some higher figures - 22,000 the following year, 23,000 the next and in 1953-54, 22,000 in 1954-55, 23,500 in 1955-56, 27,000 in 1956-57 and 1960-61. The combined tonnage in the years not mentioned was less, often much less.

I call these traffic volumes light, even by the standards of the QR in the 1920 - 1960 period, even taking into consideration that there were many sections with lighter, even much lighter, traffic. I do not think the impression I gave was erroneous. At least it based on the correct figures.

On the number of trains, the two cane trains per day during the season up to 1930 was busy by the standards of QR branch lines. After 1930, one cane train per day during the season, loading up to 250 tons gross, with four other regular trains per week, can hardly be called busy.

In his original article, Rod Milne drew attention in several places to hoop pine logs moving from Morganville (pages 184, 185 and 187). The maximum tonnage of timber railed from Innes and Morganville in a year was 4374 in 1934-5, and after 1948 the annual tonnage was never as high as 2000. The average was 2500 tons from the opening to Morganville until 1947-48, and 1227 tons thereafter. These quantities exclude any timber railed for the QR itself.

The original article did not mention passenger traffic. This was always modest. After the opening to Wallaville, the number booked outward from places on the branch rose to 3727 in 1924-25, of which 2016 were from Wallaville. The number (including those from Innes and Morganville after the line was extended) fluctuated between 1382 and 2861 up to 1934-35, when 2138 were booked. Presumably seasonal labour, including mill workers and cane cutters, travelled by train in the early days of the line, as the low number of 1382 in 1932-33 coincided with a year the mill appears not to have crushed. Passenger numbers then fell away to only 717 in 1940-41.

The final year of the war (1944-45) up to 1950-51 were the busiest years for passengers, with 4469 in 1948-49, the largest number to travel outwards on the line in a year. The number fell from 3753 in 1950-51, to about a thousand per annum in the late fifties and only 716 in 1962-63.

The Annual Reports of the State Transport Commission reveal that by 1950-51, a road passenger and goods service was licensed to operate from Bundaberg to Gin Gin, Wallaville, Booyal and Childers, in competition with three branch railways. I do not know what service was provided, but it is notable that he service connected Wallaville to the nearby towns of Gin Gin and Childers which the railways did not.

Rod Milne is correct, saying that trains did normally cross at Goondoon, the junction station for the branch, as the extract from the Working Timetable on page 27 shows (I said that crossing trains was not normally allowed there except with the authorisation of the District Superintendent at Maryborough).

Everything else I said about crossing trains at Goondoon is correct, however. Rod Milne said that the Mt Perry to Bundaberg rail motor and the Bundaberg to Morganville mixed on Fridays crossed and connected at Goondoon. I said that the crossing occurred at Bingera. The pages from the 1958 Working Timetable on page 27 of Bulletin 759 show just that - 19 mixed crossing 36 Mt Perry rail motor at Bingera. In his letter Rod Milne does not acknowledge that.

Although Rod Milne says that there were instructions about crossings at Goondoon, he does not acknowledge the point that "trains must not cross there unless specially authorised by the District Superintendent, Maryborough" (the wording in the 1950 General Appendix). This provision was first laid down in WN 17/30 in 1930, when the Station Master was withdrawn from Goondoon (as Rod Milne says). It was repeated in Working Timetables up to 1935, and appeared thereafter in the General Appendix (as Clause 198 in 1935 and Clause 219 in 1950 and 1962).

I do not know whether a specific authorisation was given to the driver and guard of every train which was to cross there or how, say by a form given them at the controlling stations (North Bundaberg or Bingera to the east, Gin Gin to the west on the Mt Perry line, and Wallaville). And Rod Milne does not say how this was done either.

There were several junctions on the QR which were or became unattended, and some others which were unattended at times (unattended meaning not attended by a safe working officer - see my letter in Bulletin 778, August 2002, p 310). Some were comparable to Goondoon, being on branch lines (Barlil on the Proston branch, Logan Village on the Beaudesert branch, Munbilla on the Fassifern branch, and Newbury Junction and Benholme on the Mackay Railway). At these others no special authorisation was required for crossings (although there were rules about the entry and departure of branch trains, similar to those at Goondoon, which I gave in Bulletin 734).

I cannot see why authority was specifically required for crossings at Goondoon alone. For trains on the Mt Perry line, it was similar to any other unattended crossing station. From Wallaville, the approach was uphill. Even if there had been some source of danger specific to the place which I cannot identify, that should have led to special facilities or rules to deal with that danger. After all, once the authorisation was given, train crews had only the usual rules plus those about the branch trains (as above) to guide them.

I used the words "(as it was)" when referring to the Mt Perry branch in my comment about reallocation of cane lands along and near it to Gin Gin Mill 1964 to 1966. In his letter Rod Milne claims that the words in brackets were ambiguous, but does not explain why. I was trying to avoid detailed comment about the history of that branch - there was no need in the circumstances to repeat all that Rod Milne had said about that closure. Perhaps a tense farther removed - "(as it had been )" would have been better. I doubt if anyone was misled, and will welcome hearing from anyone who can detect ambiguity.

The unexplained mention of Interpretations on page 26 of Bulletin 759 will not have made sense to readers. The conditions and pay of QR employees were set down in the State Railway Award, made by the Queensland Industrial Court. That was a complex document. The award itself provided that the Commissioner for Railways employ an Interpreter, to pass a view on matters which arose between management (in practice Staff Clerks or Pay Clerks) on the one hand and the employees and their Unions on the other, where the award was not crystal clear. His Interpretations were published in the WN. If the Union concerned did not agree with the Interpretation, it could take the matter to the Court. The Court’s further interpretations were also published in the WN. As Rod Milne intimates, the submissions to the Interpreter often revealed points of historical interest, such as how traffic was being worked, what employees were asked to do when the service was disrupted, and so on. The topics which arose were usually the untoward, however, because the people concerned well knew the way the award dealt with the ordinary.

The original article gave no sources for the discussion (p 179) about how the line came to be built. How did it come to be that a branch line was planned and partly built for the benefit of Gin Gin Mill when Queensland sugar mills generally, and certainly at the time this line was planned, had to provide their own railways or tramways for the transport of their cane input, indeed when Gin Gin Mill already had a connection to the QR and could have been expected build its own tramway in the Goondoon direction? This is a subject for a future historian of the line to take up.

Had Rod Milne referred to another Bulletin article, by John Armstrong, on the tramways of the Gin Gin Mill, in Bulletin 449, March 1975, p 53, he would have noticed that there were two tramway crossings of the QR at Wallaville, not the one shown in the diagram in his article. That 1975 article also gives the layout of the 3ft 6ins gauge sidings within Gin Gin Mill.

Rod Milne missed all reference to the short lived tramway which ran from Goondoon to Albionville, which was equivalent to the Snake Creek of the QR branch. On this, see John Kerr’s article in Bulletin 571, May 1985, p 114.

QR CME file 30/1254 reveals that when rail motor services commenced from Bundaberg to Mt Perry and Wallaville on 5^th January 1931, the first car used was 45 hp AEC RM56 with trailer P69. Postwar, the service was generally provided by a 102 hp car.

On page 185 of his original article, Rod Milne says that cane traffic moved in four wheel (and later bogie) open wooden-side wagons. I wonder how he knows that bogie wagons were not used in the early years for cane? A photograph on page 89 of "Southern Sugar Saga" shows two bogie H wagons on the siding at Gin Gin Mill at the opening of the line to Wallaville. On that occasion, they conveyed people. Can he be sure that cane wagons without sides (FC, VC) were not used on this line? Were steel wagons never used from the fifties?

On p 186 of his original article, Rod Milne says that it was once common practice for trains to divide to traverse Oakwood bank (between Goondoon and North Bundaberg on the Mt Perry branch). What is the basis for that claim? I have failed to find an instance in the record of Driver Macdonald. That is not to say it never happened, but it would seem very doubtful that it was common.

There are statements in Rod Milne’s January 2001 letter which are irrelevant, but are presented praying great knowledge. He says "I doubt if many crews would agree with (the Knowles) contention that the loading could be easily handled by the one train….." That proves nothing about how many trains were needed or ran. He does not know what the crews would have thought, and offers no analysis of what might have influenced their thinking. It was in any case the management which decided how many trains ran, and he offered no analysis of how many they needed to run.

Similarly, his apparently knowledgeable "Remember that this traffic (though small by today’s lean and mean standards) was conveyed for less than half the year, by a single PB15, in small wooden low-capacity wagons over an up and down defile". (I think he means profile rather than defile?) This is true, but it is a diversion - it says nothing at all about the subject under discussion, how much cane was actually conveyed each year and how many trains ran each day to haul it.

It is Rod Milne who seriously misrepresented the traffic on the line, not I, and he uses diversions to avoid acknowledging that.

In his letter in Bulletin 759, Rod Milne says that to correct misconceptions and errors, he must answer yet another letter from me regarding one of his articles. He complains about my writing style, says that I find so-called "errors" in his articles, that he has no doubt that my need to go through every QR article he does with a fine tooth comb will continue ad infinitum, and that history has not been well served by my nitpicking in this case. He urged me to be a little more courageous, constructive and creative, and pen my personal viewpoint on history in lengthy articles of the size of his for similar fine detail critical assessment.

If Rod Milne believes it right to correct errors, he cannot object when someone else corrects him, any more than I can. He is clearly irritated by my finding errors in his articles. I think there have been too many errors, errors of considerable magnitude, and irrational defence of the errors and his denigration of any attempt to correct them.

I intend that my corrections set the record straight. I have no doubt that history has been properly served by my suspecting and finding errors in his articles, and taking the trouble to research and publish them.

I have written sufficient to open myself to criticism, so I will decline Rod Milne’s fatuous suggestion that I write more solely to in some way be judged relative to him.

Rod Milne urges creativeness on me. If by that he means that I should let his errors pass, then I disagree with him strongly. He makes far too many errors, resents having that pointed out and does not give his sources. On the matter of Wallaville being an outdepot in the sugar season, for example, all he knew was that it worked thus at some time. From that he went on to be creative and wrong. What he should have said is that he was told as much by old drivers, but that he did not know when the drivers served there, that he had noted from Interpretations in certain WNs that it functioned as such in years X and Y. He should then have said that he did not know how the traffic was worked in other years, rather than to have (as he did) generalised his information to cover every year the line was open. He could of course have researched the old Sugar Season Timetables and found out some more. That would have been generous, accurate and complete.

Even more important, history would have been properly served had the editors of ARH published corrections and not covered up the errors and smokescreens, large in number and serious historically.