Running from Rockhampton
From small beginnings …
Rockhampton was a place that needed to be kept happy, for many years in Queensland history. The threat of a separate colony, or state, based on central Queensland meant that whatever Brisbane, or the south got, then Rockhampton should get as well.
So it was with the railway.
The line westward from Rockhampton was built at the same time as the first stages of the Southern and Western railway from Ipswich, opened in the early 1860s. It was political pressure from central Queensland that saw the construction of the railway begin in 1865. Builders of the line were mostly European immigrant labour unaccustomed to work in a tropical climate. Special working hours were introduced for workers on this line, allowing them to work in the early morning, and late afternoon. This very short ‘northern’ line, from Rockhampton to Westwood opened to traffic two years later - on 19 September 1867 - with little public fanfare.
It was perhaps memorably (or not so memorably described) by the Victorian era novelist, Anthony Trollope, as “a pair of rusting rails running to a gum tree.”
Westward, Ho…
Extension of the railway beyond Westwood was approved by Parliament in September of 1872. It was the westward expansion that was to really ‘make’ the Northern Railway, (as it was then known) into an important part of the Queensland railway system. The railway opened to Emerald, in 1879. After Emerald, the line continued westward, “toward the setting sun”, (or the Northern Territory border). The towns of Emerald, Alpha, Barcaldine and Longreach owe their existence to the construction of the railway, reaching Longreach in 1892.
A northwards extension to Mackay was not completed until 1921, this enabled Rockhampton to continue as a regional export point, for the wealth of central Queensland.
A railway crossing was built over the Fitzroy River to North Rockhampton in 1899, with the graceful Alexandra Bridge. To reach the northern running railway however, trains had to traverse the ‘street railway’ along Denison Street.
The Administrative Centre, for the centre…
Rockhampton became the headquarters of what was called the Central Division of Queensland Railways, and the railway network from Rockhampton stretched south to near Bundaberg, north towards Mackay, west to Winton, and included lines to places such as Mount Morgan, the Dawson and Callide Valley’s, Clermont, Springsure, Emu Park, and even to far off Yaraka. It was the sprawling central part of the railway empire of Queensland, and was one of the major centres of the railway industry in Queensland. During the Great War (First World War), and the Second World War, it was a major transport hub, and junction point for trains going north, south, west, or even east.
The inquiring mind of the Engineer…
The engineer placed in charge of construction beyond Westwood on the central line was Robert Ballard, who previously was responsible for construction on the Toowoomba range railway, in 1865-7. Ballard was an innovative engineer, who had an interest in many things, from the pyramids of Egypt, to butterflies. His home ‘The Palms’ in Rockhampton was well known for its large library.
He was an engineer with a quick and active mind, who championed not only safety, but, also making an affordable railway system. He also learnt from the example of the building of the developmental railroads in the United States, with their rugged and tough locomotives. The Sydney Bulletin called him, “the boldest engineer in Australia.” After completing his time with the Queensland Railways, in the 1880s he then went on to work for the Mount Morgan Mining Company.