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Living on the line

Text: Living on the line

from Peter Ravenscroft, 31.07.09

G'day all,

I have the odd privilege of sitting on a railway line as I type. Or, one that was. Steam trains used to go right through exactly where I am now, in my office caravan, years ago, so I hope Dr Who keeps that blue police call box of his far away.

The image is, I think, of one of the trains that came through the kitchen, so to speak.

This was the line to from Brisbane to Dayboro. It used to move passengers, then there was a very bad accident. It went on for a few years, hauling bananas, but black sigatoka got the bananas and so the trains also.

We keep finding bits, old sleepers, coal, and so on, when we dig in the cutting for some reason. Curiously what has survived best is the wooden droppers and bits of wire from the old fence on the edge of the rail reserve. That shows we have had no fire through here in fifty years, so is good to know. It is mostly back to being a forest, with at least one rare dry rainforest tree that made it because of the line. We have one end of a bridge abutment, with the ant caps still on the two big posts. Also found the midden from the camp site of the blokes who built the bridge, with their tin tub.

One day I found what I thought was a usable fence post, in the middle of the lower paddock. I thought I'd dig it up, but it got longer and longer and then there was another timber as big, bolted on and heading off in another direction. It was the old railway bridge, cut down or washed away, and now diverting the small creek into a new channel. It's still there, waiting for the archaeologists down the time track

Towards Brisbane a couple of ks, is the big old railway tunnel. still open for most of its length. A species of small bat used to live there, in thousands, but they disappeared about a decade back. The main road runs over the top, and it may be that the roadside herbicide spraying knocked them out, Larger bats, a few dozen, have now replaced them. .

A couple of years back, about 200 people or so came walking along from Samford, following the line. We said they were very welcome to traipse through the open kitchen we have here, also right on the line, but they declined and just waved as they went by. There has not been much traffic since. 

If of interest, I can add bits to this, over time

Regards

Peter.

PS: Rather like steam trains. As kids, walking back home through the Cape Town docks on a quiet Sunday, after sailing from the yacht club there, my brother and I were the only spectators to quite a sight, The railwaymen had got seven really big old steam engines hooked nose to tail, and were revving up and down the dockyard and skidding some distance, when they locked the brakes. The boss must have knocked off. We got broad smiles and waves back from the cabs, for our thumbs ups.

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