中国火车模型 Chinese Model Trains - Trip #16

Australia (Queensland) 2023

The Plan

One night at work back in 2022 and off the back of my Indonesian railway adventure, my colleague and good friend Shaun were discussing the wonderful sugar railways I had visited in Java. He didn't seem particularly interested as they weren't Australian, and soon we started talking about the cane railways in north east Queensland which he had wanted to visit for a long while. He seemed fascinated with them and the more he spoke about all the different networks and uniqueness of every mill, I made an off the cuff remark that maybe we should plan a trip north to investigate further. I didn't give it too much thought until a few weeks later where I was presented with a huge compilation of maps showing a plethora of lines leading into countless cane fields with a stack of high potential photo locations which had been carefully studied and marked. Shaun was certainly as serious - or more so - that what I usually put myself through when planning one of my overseas jaunts. While I always like my trips to be very well planned out to maximise my time, I was more than happy to let him take charge of this one as he clearly knew a lot more about the topic than I ever would, and besides I was already well engrossed into my own research for another railway trip for the rabbit warren that is Japan, which would begin straight off the back of this one. My contribution to the planning stages was simply plotting which days would be allotted to which mill we wanted to do and to take on the hotel bookings for each location.

Initially Shaun had envisaged flying up and hiring a car, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made financially. Sure there was that pesky drive north from Melbourne, however we did have access to a car with unlimited fuel - so as long as we could manage being in a car for almost 15,000 kilometres over two weeks without wanting to strangle each other, everything should work out just fine. It would take two solid days of driving just to arrive at our first mill at Sarina, however we could break it up into sections, share the driving and of course find some trains to photograph along the way.

white-tagged-map-of-regions-of-queensland-australia-2JG6C1X.jpg

Mossman

Gordonvale

South Johnson

Sarina

Proserpine

Ayr

Homehill

Mackay

Map

Queensland

Queensland is the north eastern most state of Australia, a huge landmass of over 1.7million square kilometres which hosts a huge array some of the deadliest animals on the planet including snakes, crocodiles and jellyfish. It is extremely humid, typically hot and sunny (expect when it isn't) and these conditions are perfect for growing sugar cane. It is said by some locals that Queensland runs on cane, cattle and coal. Unfortunately the former is facing a number of challenges with fluctuating prices, infrastructure mill closures and labour shortages, however for now it still remains one of the top ten sugar producers in the world.

Goals

Our main goal was simple - to visit all the sugar mills on the Queensland coast, with the exception of the three mills in the Bundaberg area in very far south Queensland. We built in a little bit of flexibility into our itinerary which was just as well as a couple of mills turned out not to be crushing cane during our visit.

Sarina
Proserpine
Ayr
Homehill
South Johnstone
Mossman
Mackay

August 21 - Melbourne - Moree

We started our journey on a very cold and dark Monday morning from Sunbury, Victoria. Our goal was to reach Moree, a modest distance of some 1200 kilometres with a time budget of 16 hours including some select stops along the way. This would see us arrive at our overnight accommodation by about 9pm. Our first pit stop was to be at Tocumwal just across the border in New South Wales for a quick bakery stop and a quick squiz at the old Tocumwal railway station to see if there were any trains about. Once loaded up on coffee, milk, mixed berry slices and other gluten-infused treats, we headed off to the railway station very close by where there was indeed a train in the station in the form of the Tocumwal goods being loaded with containers. Rather than burn six hours to watch its departure, we continued northwards.

A couple of hours later we passed through the town of Narrandera, where the Griffith line cuts through the middle of town. We had a very brief stop here to get some quick photographs of preserved 73 class diesel-hydraulic locomotive, #7340. This locomotive is owned by Manildra and in good complete condition, but appears to be no longer in use. A handful of old tank wagons are also stored behind the locomotive.

We took a slightly less direct route to catch a grain train loading at Barellan. At the time most of Pacific National's grain services had the typical "one big, one little" motive power combinations. The larger unit was often an 81 or 82 class, with the smaller locomotive being one of the very endangered Goodwin-Alco six axle 48 class diesels. Pacific National 48's were already slated for imminent retirement/storage with Manildra due to take over many of the grain contracts about a year later. We found the 23-car grain train adjacent to the main road loading, unfortunately with 8150 leading and 48162 as the second unit. A hi-rail passed by as we got a handful of photographs, and while the train was at least 3/4's of the way through loading, we had to press on shortly after.

Our main lunch stop was at West Wyalong where we would swap over drivers and refuel the car. Shaun would also refuel himself with lunch and another coffee while I took a couple of photos of the street art close by. I still had enough pastry items to make a cardiologist have palpitations. As we were travelling very well time wise, we had a little extra time at Parkes, a major railway center in central New South Wales and home of PN's now small fleet of 48 class locomotives. We spent a little time around the station to catch the 48, 80 and 81 class locomotives parked up and was lucky enough to catch a Manildra train departing from the east end of Parkes station behind 8146 and a seemingly very unloved 48123 with her FreightCorp paint work in such poor condition, her original multi-decades old original Tuscan livery was the predominant color!

The road north out of Parkes was littered with caravans, every one of them having a more idiotic name to the previous one. These were often being pulled along by Subarus or Ford Territories and were always travelling well under the speed limit and obstructing lawful citizens. Shaun was particularly gifted at applying sufficient power to get past these obstacles in the very limited opportunities as they became available. Soon after leaving Parkes, Shaun blasted past one particularly slow caravan emblazoned with "Adventure Before Dementia!" but quickly hit the anchors to allow me to get a couple of very impromptu long distance shots of the famous Dish Observatory before throwing the power on again to stay ahead of these particular grey nomads.

Our final daylight stop was at Gilgandra, where we found a Qube train loading at the grain terminal. We decided as there would be nothing else to see after here anyway, that we stick around for a departure. We doubled back down the main road and found a decent photograph spot where we waited for half an hour in the fast fading evening light before giving up and continuing on our way to Coonabarabran for dinner before taking on the final stretch to Moree. As we arrived into town, we topped up the car for the next day's drive and noticed a train stabled at the Moree grain terminal with a very hard to find DL class in the mix. Most of these locomotives have been withdrawn and stored at Wes Creek for years now, so to find one out in the wild was an excellent end to the day. We checked into the Alexander Motor Inn before heading back to the grain terminal for some night photographs of the train. Once back at the hotel and now starting to feel the effects of a massive day, I charged all of the used batteries from the drone and camera and then headed off to bed surrounded by the soothing scent of mothballs.

August 22 - Moree - Mackay

We checked out of the Alexander Motor Inn at 6am for our second day of solid driving north for a late evening arrival in Mackay, not before heading back to the Moree grain terminal to get some quick daylight photos of the DL class locomotive on the stabled grain train. Our first stop along the way was at Goondiwindi, where we were alerted to the imminent arrival of grain train (HA4G). By the time we arrived at Goondiwindi and found a suitable photography location along Cemetery Road level crossing, the train was almost upon us. We got some quick photos of the disused cotton siding close by before the headlight appeared in the distance. I set the drone up for some aerial video and then fired up the Canon for the stills. A pair of hood units, locomotives 2358 and 2701 trundled in slowly into town. The 2300 class were made up of a handful of classes, 2358 being an ex 2450 class from 1980. It was nice to see it in her old Queensland Rail colours, although a little shabby and the centre long hood shell appeared to be from a donor unit having a much browner shade of red! 2701 by contrast looked factory fresh in solid yellow Aurizon livery, 2701 being a rebuilt 2300 class. We followed the train into town, watched the locomotives reverse order and then hightailed it north.

It was now Shaun's turn for a spell at driving for the next leg to Miles. I foolishly settled in for a nap shortly after leaving Goodiwindi and when I woke up some 45 minutes later, Shaun asked me to check the map to see where we were. With very sparse internet coverage, it was perhaps by some miracle I was able to bring up Google maps and as he read out road names we were passing by, it soon became quite clear that while we were still heading more or less north, we were travelling a slightly different north to what we should have been - towards Toowoomba. I suggested he pull over so we could formulate a plan to get back on track and he did so at the next intersection, which was rather suitably named "Wanka Road". As much as I tried to convince him to have a selfie with the huge stone road sign proudly declaring its own magnificence, the shame was clearly all too much and I was unable to grab a proof shot.

We decided that whether or not we pressed on or headed back, we would lose at least an hour and a half so continued north to Dalby, then then west towards Miles. This turned out to be not so bad as we found a pair of coal trains at MacAlister - train Y44M (locos 2347D and 2310D) loading and east bound train 813M behind locomotives 2313D and 2321D.

We had to keep on trucking as soon as this one passed and we continued on to Chinchilla where we both visited a stupidly overpriced bakery. From here, we didn't have time to stop as we were now a good couple of hours behind schedule and we still had 700 odd kilometres before we would reach our hotel at Mackay. No trains were seen on the Moura network, nor on the Rockhampton/Blackwater lines when we passed them in darkness. We were happy not to have been stabbed as we visited the supermarket at Rockhampton for some supplies. Just prior to our arrival at Mackay, we saw our first sugar cane train near Karremal of the Sarina network. We took a few night photographs of the shunting movements here. The locomotive was being controlled by the driver via remote control, a fairly common method on many of the sugar railways to reduce walking for the often single member crews, and he was surprised to find us waiting at the level crossing with an array of cameras on tripods. He even asked us if we were there for him, oddly! We found a second train as we headed northwards and we chased it for a little bit, as Shaun had somehow found a renewed burst of energy. He had just enough time to get a video of this lengthy fast moving train as it raced southwards. We finally made it to the Shakespeare Motel in Mackay almost at midnight.

August 23 - Sarina & Proserpine

Today was our first proper day exploring our first sugar mill, Plane Creek Mill located at Sarina. Sarina mill is owned by Wilmar Sugar. The railway network is of 2' gauge and covers an approximate 50 kilometre area between Hay Point and Carmila. The main line from Sarina to Carmila runs for around 40 kilometres with a couple of smaller branch lines around Koumala. There are a series of smaller lines north of Sarina, the majority of which went unexplored. The locomotives are relatively large B-B Diesel hydraulics and the ones seen were in a solid yellow livery. All of the wagons, or bins, were small twin axle rigid type.

Given the very late end of the previous day, we started off at 0730 and set off for the Plane Creek Mill. Sadly we had arrived too late for mill departures. We did find an unidentified locomotive inside the yard next to Lee Street, which was presumably used as a shunt locomotive to transfer loaded and empty cane bins between the Lee Street yard and the mill yard. There was also no movement at the mill yard, so we headed slightly south to Yukan where the cane lines parallel the electrified coal lines used by huge unit Pacific National and Aurizon trains, however we soon a track occupation put to rest any wishes to see any working coal trains. From here we headed to Koumala to try and find a cane train, but nothing was found. I was beginning to wonder what on earth Shaun was thinking to drag me half way across the continent. Thankfully this was short lived and we discovered Aurizon had departed Mackay with a Linfox container service bound for Acacia Ridge behind locomotive 2841 which raced through shortly after.

We decided to move further south to Carmila, checking a number of empty sidings along the way. At Carmilla however, we found locomotive of (almost) the same name "Carmila" shunting the large yard here. With little else going on, I sent the drone up for some video. The yard here is quite large and we mistakenly thought the locomotive was shunting a train together, however it looks like the yard here was used exclusively used for exchanging empty can bins for loaded ones. A constant stream of trucks would arrive with a few loaded cane bins which were rolled off and then empty bins would be winched on to the truck for taking back to the farm.

The day suddenly got very busy from here and we found a north bound Pacific National container train (8CP1) led by locomotive PN8 and we raced ahead to Mount Christian and set up our equipment, however we abandoned this as we spotted an elusive loaded Watco cattle train approaching. We bundled everything into the car, pulled off an almost perfect J turn before not speeding off to catch it at Ilbilbie. Unfortunately I was really only able to get an incredibly crisp clear shot of the back of Shaun's head and a few blurry ones of the train itself (behind locomotives 2257 and 2266 from here we continued north, surprisingly catching up with the PN container train again. We didn't stop for this one again, instead found ourselves next to the cane railway at Armstrong Beach Road nearly back at Sarina, and didn't have long to wait before a long train of loaded cane bins behind a Walkers B-B diesel hydraulic locomotive (converted from ex Queensland Railways DH class #17 back in 1994). We were able to catch the same train again as it entered the mill on the North Side of Sarina.

As Sarina was very quiet and the network rather simple, we figured we should head to Proserpine for the second half of the day. This would require a fairly quick 140 kilometre drive north. We had to drive through Mackay where an absolutely massive railway network used by three sugar mills. We decided to leave Mackay for the end part of the trip, but we had a brief stop over as we arrived at Mulei where we found one of Marian Mill's locomotives "Gargett", a large B-B diesel hydraulic locomotive built by Eimco (1990) shunting at Hampden 03 siding. The locomotive left half of her wagons here and we got some photos of it departing as it crossed Hampden Rd and again slogging up a very steep bank near Hampden as it rolled into Rollo's Loop where it left the remainder of its wagons before returning to 'Hampden 03' siding to collect the rest of her train. From here, we headed northwards to Proserpine .

The drive to Proserpine is quite pretty with large forested areas and sugar cane fields with a nice mountainous backdrop. We stopped about 15kms south of Proserpine where the cane railway crosses the Bruce highway for a short while hoping to catch a train at this popular photo location, but no trains were found here. I was very happy to see a low flying RAAF C17 Globemaster taking off out of the Whitsunday Coast airport, Shaun less so!

On arrival at Proserpine, we immediately found 0-6-0 Diesel "Proserpine 8" (Clyde, 1965) next to the main road picking up loaded bins at Mackay Corner siding. From here, we headed slightly north towards the entrance at the level crossing on the Bruce Highway. At this time there were no trains to be found, so we decided to head south again where I spotted a train way off in the distance. We found the train at Casswell Road, led by Walkers Proserpine diesel-hydraulic #14, a locomotive rebuilt from a NSWGR 73 class in 1998.

Early mornings and much driving was catching up with us. Alternated driving / sleeping to Proserpine.
Arrived into Proserpine and caught Proserpine 8 (0-6-0 DH 1965 Clyde) picking up fulls at Mackay Corner siding beside Bruce Highway. Went to Mill yard at Bruce Highway and waited for some time - only saw Proserpine 8 shunting it's train into mill. No rail action so drove around to other side of mill - no trains there either. Decided to drive out of town to the South again to see if we could find anything. A few km out of Proserpine Peter spotted a loaded train across several km of paddock heading for Proserpine. U turn and headed to Casswell Road, caught Proserpine 14 (B-B DH Walkers 1972 ex SRA NSW 7339. Rebuilt into Proserpine 14 1998) approaching Casswell's Siding with long rake of fulls and BV. Drove to Bruce Highway LC, driver split train into 2 (presumably due to size of mill yard) and brought first half into yard.
Proserpine 12 (B-B DH Walkers Ex West Australian Government Railways M1851, purchased 1994) was already in the yard with a rake of fulls from the North. Once 14 cleared the yard, 12 ran LE to attach to the rest of 14's train and BV and brought them into the yard.
Waited for more trains, hoping to catch an empty departing as there is a fantastic photospot at Bruce Highway LC about 10km South of Proserpine. Had a few trains arrive from the North but nothing heading out South. Just before sunset Proserpine 12 departed to the South with a rake of empties and BV. Caught train at Bruce Highway LC in town, Mackay Corner sidings and Casswell's siding. Then went to Bruce Highway LC and caught last of sunrise (no trains). Train arrived well after dark - cows on track - video only.
Prossy Pies.
Continued North several hours. At Home Hill caught 2850 coming off the Burdekin River combined Bruce Highway and rail bridge, with 796X Linfox Intermodal from Townsville to Acacia Ridge. Got time exposures of PN 8805 loading raw sugar at Home Hill 'Inkerman' mill. Short drive to Ayr and stayed at Ayr Max Motel - 1 night only. Poor accommodation, rooms not very clean. Interesting assortment of animal statues with weird facial expressions surrounding pool. Late night by the time we arrived.

August 24 - Ayr

August 25 - Ingham

August 26 - Ingham

August 27 - Tully

August 28 - South Johnstone

August 29 - Gordonvale

August 30 - Mossman

August 31 - Homehill

September 01 - Mackay

September 02 - Mackay

September 03 - Mackay - Moree

September 04 - Moree - Melbourne

Summary

Video Library

Some videos of my recent trip to Java can be found here. To assist with my YouTube channel, Pete's World Railway Videos, please consider subscribing to the channel, sharing with your friends and commenting & liking my videos. This greatly helps with YouTube's algorithm.