Main Range Railway

About

Main Range Railway is a heritage-listed railway from the end of Murphys Creek railway station, Murphys Creek to the Ruthven Street overbridge, Harlaxton, Queensland, Australia. It forms part of the Main Line railway and was built from 1865 to 1867 by railway builders Peto, Brassey and Betts. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 5 February 2009.

The Main Range Railway, between Murphys Creek and Harlaxton on the outskirts of Toowoomba, was built in 1865–1867 by railway builders Peto, Brassey and Betts, for the colonial Government of Queensland.

The Main Range, part of Australia's Great Dividing Range, was a formidable geological barrier to trade following pastoral settlement on the Darling Downs in the 1840s. An adequate transport link between the sheep stations of the Darling Downs and the ports of Brisbane and Ipswich became increasingly important to enable the export of wool and the import of station supplies. A number of dray routes were used, with varying degrees of difficulty, to move goods and people across the Main Range during the 1840s. From 1847 Spicer's Gap replaced Cunningham's Gap (1828) as the preferred route in the southern Downs region. On the northern end of the Downs, Gorman's Gap was used from 1840, followed by Hodgson's Gap in 1842.

In 1855 the Toll Bar Road was opened and the traffic that soon came to use this route facilitated the expansion of the settlement of "The Swamp", from 1857 officially known as Toowoomba. By the early 1860s Toowoomba was the principal settlement on the Darling Downs, supplanting nearby Drayton as the service centre for the surrounding district. In this period, the pastoralists of the Darling Downs wielded significant political and economic power in the young colony of Queensland. This influenced the decision to initiate Queensland's railway network from Ipswich, considered the port for the Darling Downs, rather than Brisbane.

Queensland's earliest endeavours toward constructing a railway were through the activities of the Moreton Bay Tramway Company. The company intended to construct a tramway with horses hauling vehicles on timber rails, surveying a route between Ipswich and Toowoomba in 1861. The company failed to raise sufficient capital for the project to succeed and by the end of 1862 was insolvent.

Thereafter, the Queensland Government took responsibility for building the colony's railways. The first Railway Bill, authorising the government to construct and borrow funds for this purpose was passed on 3 September 1863. In the lead up to the Bill, Irish civil engineer Abraham Fitzgibbon, estimating comparative construction costs of rail gauges between Ipswich and Toowoomba, recommended to the government the adoption of a light railway with a 3 ft 6 in narrow gauge (1,067 millimetres (42.0 in)). The ascent of the Main Range was the principal engineering and expense obstacle for the railway to Toowoomba and a narrow gauge allowed for tighter rail curves on the Range incline. A lighter railway with extensive use of curved track meant cheaper construction costs, lessening capital outlay. After much debate, the Queensland government adopted Fitzgibbon's proposal. While contemporary examples of shorter narrow gauge railways existed in other parts of the world, none were of the length or scale proposed for Queensland. The railway between Ipswich and Toowoomba was the first use of a narrow gauge for a main line.

Shortly after the bill was passed, Fitzgibbon was contracted as chief engineer, responsible for surveying the line, providing specifications and construction supervision. On 23 December 1863 he was appointed as Queensland's first Commissioner of Railways, a post held until October 1864. Sir Charles Fox was appointed consulting engineer, responsible for selecting the various components such as trains, rails and bridges to facilitate the railway. Samuel Willcox was responsible for the workforce involved in constructing the line.

The construction of the line between Ipswich and Toowoomba was divided into five sections. Section 1 was from Ipswich to Grandchester and opened on 31 July 1865. Tenders were called for Sections 2, 3, 4 and 5 on 24 August 1864 to extend the line from Grandchester to Toowoomba. Messrs Peto, Brassey and Betts, contractors with extensive worldwide experience in railway construction and builders of Section 1, were awarded the contract on 27 February 1865 for a sum of £ 515,000.

Section 5, the ascent of the Main Range from Murphy's Creek to Toowoomba was the most difficult section to engineer, involving steep gradients of 1 in 50, nine tunnels, 47 bridges, 126 curves, numerous cuttings, embankments, culverts and nearly 18 miles (29 km) of track work. Extensive use of 5 chains (330 ft; 100 m) radius rail was necessary to negotiate the ascent. Nearly two thirds of the line required cutting, approximately one quarter embankments and the remainder tunnelling and bridging, over a rise close to 1,200 feet (370 m). Section 5 was engineered in two separate stages, delineated by the current site of Spring Bluff railway station. The incline from this point towards Toowoomba provided the most engineering challenges within Section 5, with work including five tunnels and three major bridges.

The immense scale of the Main Range Railway demanded large numbers of skilled and unskilled workers to complete the project. The Queensland Government's immigration agent advertised in Great Britain and Germany for railway workers, offering free passage on the Black Ball shipping line to artisans such as excavators, bridge carpenters, masons and bricklayers. During April 1866 a total of 1009 workmen were employed along Section 5.

Peto, Brassey and Betts contracted work for specified lengths of line or engineering features to agents, who were responsible for ensuring contracts were adhered to and who in turn employed gangs of workers. Peto, Brassey and Betts also appointed an Engineer-In-Charge, Robert Ballard, to oversee construction on the Main Range. Prior to working on the Main Range, Ballard had gained experience in tunnel construction in New South Wales and his expertise in challenging engineering work, especially tunnelling, determined his appointment. Ballard's high standard of work on Section 5 (the Main Range Railway), in comparison with other sections of the Ipswich to Toowoomba line, was noted in reports soon after its completion and was considered the least expensive section of the Ipswich-Toowoomba railway to maintain. The high standard of his work on the Main Range Railway later earned him appointments as Superintending Engineer on Queensland's Great Northern Railway (later known as Central Western railway ) in 1872 and as Chief Engineer for the Central and Northern railways (1882). He was granted £ 5,000 in the 1880s by the Queensland Government for his achievements in cost-effective railway construction.

With the large amount of cutting and tunnelling required, much of the labour force was engaged in heavy manual labour to remove earth. While explosives were used to blast through rock, the work relied on large teams of men excavating with pick and shovel, assisted by horse and bullock teams to move earth, which was then used to create embankments. Such work in difficult terrain carried with it a high degree of risk and a number of work-related injuries and deaths occurred along the line during construction.

Tunnels were constructed where the terrain was too difficult to create cuttings. Two were ready for brick lining on 1 November 1865, one on 1 January 1866 and another on 13 Feb 1866. By April 1866 three quarters of the tunnelling had been excavated and work had begun on lining the tunnels. Within the tunnels, curved and straight rail, or a combination of both were laid. In addition to its two portals, tunnel 8 was constructed with the aid of a side gallery to allow boring to proceed on four faces. The side gallery is the only example of a side gallery on a railway tunnel thought to exist in Australia.

The tunnels built for the Main Range Railway are among Australia's earliest. In Queensland the only tunnels predating those of the Main Range are the two ( Victoria Tunnel and the Six Chain Tunnel), built through the Little Liverpool Range in Section 2 of the main line opening 1 June 1866 (and still in use). The first railway tunnels were built in Victoria on the double line between Melbourne and Bendigo, opening in 1862 (still in use). New South Wales' first tunnel, initially supervised by Ballard, was the Redbank Range Tunnel at Picton which opened in early 1867 (since closed).

A large quarry now known as Cliffdale was established roughly halfway up the Main Range during construction, to supply ballast for the line. In later years the quarry was furnished with its own siding (since removed) and loading area, with stone extracted from the site into the 1950s.

The navvies (construction workers) and contractors resided in a number of camps along the course of the railway. From the base of the range upwards, camps included Gibbon's, Fountain's, Holmes', Main Range, Ballard's and Cameron's, generally named after the person responsible for the section of line in a particular area. The camps operated as temporary townships and bases for specific engineering projects. Bricks were being manufactured at Ballard's camp by August 1865. Peto, Brassey and Betts supplied a prefabricated church at Ballard's and buildings were supplied for community use at other camps. Fountain's, Holmes' and Ballard's camps were the most substantial, with Ballard's working population reported at about 500 in mid-1865.

Stores such as butchers and bakers were established and fresh produce was sourced from Toowoomba and Ipswich. Numerous drinking houses, legal and otherwise, provided workers with alcohol, meals and entertainment. Although many workers were single men, around one third were accompanied by their families. The makeshift nature of the camps led to inadequate sanitation with typhoid and diphtheria causing the death of a number of infants and young children in 1866 and 1867. One murder at Holmes camp and a small number of accidental deaths at campsites also occurred. Some 22 deaths (mainly infants) were recorded at Main Range camp.

The construction of the Main Range Railway took just over two years to complete. It was one of the most important early public works undertaken in Queensland and a major government investment in infrastructure. The first train to cross the Range made its entry into Toowoomba on 12 April 1867; the official opening of the line took place on 30 April 1867.

The railway soon became the dominant transport artery for the movement of goods and people between Toowoomba and Ipswich. From Toowoomba the Western railway line extended to Dalby in 1868 while the Southern railway line reached Warwick by 1871. Numerous visitors to the Darling Downs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marvelled at the engineering and scenic qualities of the Main Range Railway. Until road transportation began to dominate in the twentieth century, the railway was intrinsically associated with the development of pastoral, agricultural and mining industries, closer settlement and the growth of townships on the Darling Downs and south western Queensland.

The Main Range Railway was one of the most challenging sections of line for enginemen during the steam era on the Queensland Railways. Despite the advent of more powerful locomotives during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the combination of sharp curves, steep grades and tunnels created difficult conditions for crews. Railway workers needed to ensure adequate supplies of coal and water to negotiate the crossing and banking engines were employed between Murphy's Creek and Toowoomba to assist ascending trains. On curved sections of track inner check rails were laid to minimise the possibility of derailment after 1897. Sandboxes were placed along the line to assist wheel traction. Despite being a difficult stretch of railway to work, the Main Range line has been relatively free of major disasters. Of the fatal incidents that have occurred, the worst was the Murphy's Creek collision (1913) when six men were killed.