Rail transport in Queensland

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Rail transport in Queensland, has a long history, with the first line opening in 1865.

The first line was surveyed while the colony was still part of New South Wales, but the colony of Queensland had separated before railway proposals became really serious. At that time, the colony had a tiny population in a vast territory of 1.8 million square kilometres, and the burning question was how to build inexpensive and affordable railways.

[edit] Narrow gauge

The naiscent Queensland Railways was persuaded that the way to build low cost railways was to use a narrower gauge than the standard gauge of 1435mm. A prototype existed in Norway. The proposed narrow gauge railway would have very sharp curves of 5 chains (100 metres) on the long climb to Toowoomba] at about 900m above sea level. If the railway could only manage a top speed on 20 miles per hour, then that would do for a hundred years.

The choice of the non-standard narrow gauge was and still is controversial, and the choice was approved very narrowly by parliament.

Thus the die was cast for a large narrow gauge system, which was copied by many other countries. A hundred and fifty years later, Queensland is still sparsely populated (4 million in 2005), but many trains hauling coal are some of the longest and heaviest in the world.

[edit] See also

• Queensland Rail