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All aboard! The train heads west...

Text: All aboard! The train heads west...

from Kate Eltham, 17.08.09

They really do say that. "All aboard!" with an upward inflection. Cabin doors slam, the engine gives a high-pitched fart and the train shunts into motion.

I'm thrilled, in a way I haven't been since I was eight years old and clambering aboard Puffing Billy for my first steam train ride. The acrid tang of the coal steam triggers those memories as surely as if I've stepped back in time and its a competition between the childhood me and the 32-year old as to which one of us is having more fun.

This is the second and final Writers Train journey. As I write this I'm sitting in the first-class carriage of an old-fashioned steam train, the Q150 Steam Train on its final leg.

We left Brisbane this morning at 9:45 and will be passing through Ipswich, Rosewood, Grandchester and Rangeview on our way to Toowoomba, our first overnight stop.

In front of me is Hinemoana Baker, the 2009 Arts Queensland Poet in Residence, and Beth Green, of Book Links. Across the aisle is Kim Wilkins, author of The Autumn Castle and Giants of the Frost,with her seven-year old son Luka and behind me, Nick Earls, author of Zigzag Street and The True Story of Butterfish.

I'll be getting them to post blogs here later, and I'll also have some photos for you. Just sink back into the cushioned leather seats and settle into the pitch and sway. We've a long way to go.

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