Monday Morning Photo. 29/11/2010.

G'day all, I'm not too clear about the location of the various sugar mills around Bundaberg or about the distinction between the Bingera and Watawa Mills other than knowing that somehow or other there was a connection. Perhaps someone can put me right. I'm pleased that No.6 makes another appearance in the background of the shot of the ex QGR B13 because it has occurred to me that it made it's first appearance on Queensland rails just 41 years after Stephenson's "Rocket" first hauled passengers on a public railway, the Stockton&Darlington in the north of England. To put that into some sort of perspective I took these photos nearly 50 years ago, No.6 was born about the same time as my paternal grandfather. That thought brings home to me how rapidly the world was changed by industrialization and the self propelled vehicle on its ever extending rails, each of course dependent on the other.

Getting back to the photos, I think all three of the little cane locos are Bundaberg Fowlers, that is built by the Bundaberg Foundry Company under licence to John Fowler&Co of Leeds in the U.K, but again I am open to correction. My knowledge of the sugar cane lines was pretty sketchy to begin with and it has been mostly deleted in the intervening years.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

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Monday Morning Photo. Tuesday 16/11/2010.

G'day all, it's amazing how busy life gets when you quit full time work.

As well I've been scanning old negatives of our trip up the North Coast line of the Queensland Government Railways and trying to fill in the gaps in my memory. With limited success I might add.

I had thought that we made this trip in late 1963 but I've had to revise that to probably late 1964. My recollection is that we ran into the Wet as we got further north and it was certainly hot.

This week I'm going to bypass the strictly chronological because I've come across some photos that really need to appear on the same page.

1271 was at Gympie, an almost brand new [Feb 1964] English Electric loco, given that I didn't often waste valuable film on diesels I'm amazed that I have a photo of it.

But I'm glad I did because a couple of days later at the Watawa Mill near Bundaberg we found No.6, almost 100 years older, built by Nielsons of Glasgow in 1865 and just for a bit more contrast parked right next to it was a 1964 XM Falcon.

The link below leads to a bit more information about No.6.

http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Learning+Resources/~/media/Documents/TWRM/Learning/Fact%20sheets/Fact%20Sheet%20-%20A10%20No%206.pdf

Some of my photos from this trip were damaged by the humid weather, the damage is apparent in the shot of 1271. I was shooting 120 paperbacked film, 12 to the roll, and some films suffered when the film stuck to the backing paper.

Next week I'll backtrack a bit and in the meantime I'll try to relive the trip in my mind so I can get it down on paper.....as it were.

We visited a few sugar tramways so I'm going to have to do a bit of revision via Google too.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

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Monday Morning Photo. 08/11/2010.

G'day all, four photos today of the Shay at Moreton Mill in late 1963. It was out of service by this time unfortunately and that was a pity, seeing a geared loco in action is really something.....a lot of noise, smoke and steam and very slow progress.

This link will take you to further information and photos of all the mill's locos.

http://www.starfieldobservatory.com/MapletonTramway/29Where.htm

I remember reading about a fan trip behind the Shay in an Australian model railway magazine sometime before our visit to this mill. These days it just wouldn't happen, risk management would decree it far too dangerous, perhaps there are just more dills around nowadays, people likely to put themselves and others at risk. Maybe. In fact we wouldn't have been allowed to roam unsupervised around the property if today's conditions had applied then. As I have remarked before in these postings all you needed to do back then was ask permission to have a look around and once permission was granted take care and stay out of the way of operations, in other words, use your common sense.

The other two photos are of our transportation from Nambour, the Monday to Friday Caboolture to Yandina train. When we got to Yandina we were still almost 1000 miles and about a week from Cairns.

You'll soon see why it took so long.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

Previous postings at

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