Episode 20 - The North Coast Railway

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries most of the travel between the isolated railway systems, and towns of Queensland was carried out by coastal shipping. 

By the end of the nineteenth century there were eleven of these isolated systems of the Queensland Railways and most of them ran from a coastal point towards the bush – the closest port was considered a good enough place to start from.

Or finish?

However, it was these far-flung lines heading off to the interior that would form the various staging points for the North Coast Line when Parliament approved its construction in 1910, and stitching together the railway patchwork that was Queensland in that era. The North Coast Railway Act gave the official nod by the Queensland Parliament to construct 740 kilometres of railway to link Cairns and Brisbane. 

The line would eventually be completed in 1924, and by the mid 1940’s it was to become the major railway line, and connection in Queensland. The north coast line was crucial in the Defence of Australia, from 1942 - 1944.

Today we look back a century to when a very large bridge, over a very large river in northern Queensland finally a railway construction project that really began in the 1880s, along the north coast.

We also talk to Rob Shiels, from the Queensland Museum Rail Workshops, about their exhibition that recognises the centennial of the completion of the railway in December 1924.  

Come along and join our journey through the decades.

Have a question about our railway's history? - email Greg: [e-mail]

Links to archival images discussed throughout the episode:
https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/media/30853
https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/media/29185