Coordinates: 28°56′20″S 114°48′07″E / 28.939°S 114.802°E / -28.939; 114.802
Walkaway is a small town in the City of Greater Geraldton local government area of Western Australia. At the 2006 census, Walkaway had a population of 262.[1]
Its name is a corruption of the native "Wagga wah", referring to the bend in the nearby Greenough River, and was originally given to the railway station when a line was built from Geraldton in 1887. In 1894 it was linked with Midland Junction by the building of a private line - that of the Midland Railway Company, constructed by an engineer and later the first General Manager of the Company, Edward Keane. With the railway and an expanding agricultural area, the township grew until with the dieselisation of the railway systems, and the take-over by the State of the Midland Railway in 1964, decline set in. This was also accentuated by the gradual absorption of the original smallholdings into the larger holdings of today's farming demands.
Notes and references
See also
Further reading
- Gunzburg, Adrian (1989) The Midland Railway Company of Western Australia - Locomotives Melbourne, Vic : Light Railway Research Society of Australia. ISBN 0-909340-27-7 (Includes a condensed history of the Company from 1886 to 1964)
- Heritage Council of W.A. (1988) Greenough/Walkaway heritage trail : settlement of the Greenough River Flats : a Commonwealth/State Bicentennial Project. Perth, W.A.: Heritage Council of W.A..
- Heritage Council of W.A. (1999) Heritage trail, Greenough/Walkaway : settlement of the Greenough River Flats. East Perth, W.A. : Heritage Council of Western Australia. - Part of the Heritage Trails Network.