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Q150 Digital Books – Section Details

Name: Queensland Past and Present: 100 Years of Statistic s, 1896–1996

Section name: Chapter 6, Transport, Section 2

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TRANSPORT

Table 6.4 Road transport: Average distance travelled by passenger vehicles by Stateand Territory, Australia, 1971-19951 2 months to30 September

1971 (a)197619791982

1985198819911995

NSW

16.115.614.815.4

15.416.114.213.7

Vic

16.415.715.615.2

16.016.414.214.2

Qld

15.114.614.615.6

15.415.415.016.3

SA—

16.115.015.014.9

14.214.413.513.4

WA'000km —

16.416.015.915.6

16.015.714.414.6

Tas

14.313.712.914.4

14.213.912.313.0

NT

16.615.514.514.8

16.515.315.413.8

ACT

n.a.17.316.617.1

15.615.716.316.4

Ausl

15.915.415.115.3

15.515.814.314.4

(a) For 1971 New South Wales includes Australian Capital Territory.

Source: ABS, Survey of Motor Vehicle Use, 1971-1995, Cat. no. 9208.0.

The 1995 Motor Vehicle Use survey found that 25% of all travel in Queensland, includingcommercial usage, was to get people to and from work in private passenger vehicles. Thisproportion is higher than any State or Territory except Western Australia and the AustralianCapital Territory. Passenger vehicles used to travel to and from work in Queensland coveredan average of 8,200 km a year for this purpose.

RAILWAYS

Early developmentsThe railways provided efficient passenger and freight services that were unchallenged untilafter World War II for both directness and speed. The first railway in Queensland was builtin 1865, six years after separation from New South Wales. Most railways were constructed,owned and managed by government. The individual interests of each Australian colony ledto the development of separate railway systems. Queensland used a 1,067 mm gauge formost of its lines while New South Wales adopted a 1,435 mm gauge and Victoria 1,600 mm.Passengers and freight were transferred between systems at Wallangarra near theQueensland-New South Wales border and Albury on the Murray River. But the size ofQueensland, and Australia, meant that linking all communities by rail was impossible due tothe cost:

Timeless types of transport flourished in Australia at the start of the twentieth century. Whilerailways were like a web in the south east corner of the continent, elsewhere were vast gaps whereno rails would ever be laid. Many places on the coast and innumerable points in the interior werehundreds of miles from the nearest railway. Many adult Australians had never seen a railway. In1900 one could travel along half the coastline of the continent, from Geraldton (W.A.) to Cooktown(Qld.) and find only two short railway lines in the intervening country.16

In 1896 Queensland had three main, and separate, rail systems: the Western Railway fromBrisbane to Cunnamulla, the Central Railway west from Rockhampton and the Great NorthernRailway from Townsville to Hughenden. A line also ran south from Brisbane to Wallangarraproviding a rail link to Sydney. Brisbane had a rudimentary suburban rail system, and separatesystems centred on Maryborough, Bundaberg, Mackay, Bowen, Cairns, Cooktown and

179

QUEENSLAND PAST AND PRESENT

Figure 6.1 Railway map of Queensland, August 1996.

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TRANSPORT

Wallangarra railway station, where the New South Wales andQueensland rail systems met, 1910.

Normanton. Total length of rail track in the State was 3,862 km.17 There was no railway linkingthe coastal centres.

The three major trunk lines were extended. The western line went south from Charleville toCunnamulla in 1898 and west from Charleville to Quilpie in 1917. The southern line wentfrom Warwick to Goondiwindi and then to Dirranbandi in 1913. The central line extendedsouth from Barcaldine to Blackall and then to Yaraka in 1917, and the northern line southfrom Hughenden to Winton and west from Hughenden to Dajarra. A link between Wintonand Longreach joined the northern and central railways. All these lines transported produceto the coastal ports. The profitability of Mount Isa Mines in 1923 resulted in the Mount IsaRailway Act 1925 (Qld) which included an agreement that the company would meet any lossesof a railway extension from Duchess. Single track was a feature of the whole rail system. By1922 passengers on the mail train from Brisbane to Charleville could join a Qantas flight whichtook them to Longreach and Cloncurry. Further expansion of rail was limited and constructionof general purpose railways ended in 1932.

The Queensland environment presented many difficulties for railway construction andmaintenance. Building a railway from Cairns to Kuranda meant the excavation of 15 tunnelsto lay a permanent way over the coastal ranges.18 The Normanton to Croydon line was laid onconcrete sleepers due to termites. Regular flooding of coastal rivers such as the Burdekinwashed away bridges and rail lines, requiring the construction of higher and more expensivebridges. The distances involved made railway construction costly.

South-eastern Queensland linesQueensland was linked by rail to New South Wales when the line to Wallangarra was openedin 1887, although passengers had to change trains. The Sydney Mail became the premier express

181

QUEENSLAND PAST AND PRESENT

in Queensland with special carriages built at Ipswich railway workshops. A rail link betweenBrisbane and Tweed Heads was built in 1903, partly in the expectation that the New SouthWales Government would extend its own north coast railway from Murwillumbah to TweedHeads. This would have provided a direct service to Sydney. The extension did not occur andthe potential value of the South Coast railway as an interstate link was diminished.

A 1,435 mm gauge line from Kyogle to Brisbane was recommended by the Queensland RoyalCommission into Public Works in 1914, but was rejected by the New South Wales Government.In 1921 a Commonwealth Royal Commission into Standard Gauge supported the Kyogle link.The Queensland Parliament passed the South Brisbane-Kyogle-Grafton Railway Act 1924and the Brisbane-Kyogle 1,435 mm gauge line was opened in 1930, reducing travelling time toSydney from 27 hours to 22 hours. Traffic on the Wallangarra line declined and the service wasdiscontinued in 1972.19

The Brisbane-Tweed Heads or South Coast line and the Sandgate line in south-easternQueensland, the Pialba and Urangan lines from the Maryborough railway, and the Yeppoonand Emu Park line from Rockhampton were initially built to transport farm produce to theports. But the lines also gave people access to the beaches. Passenger traffic increased andpicnic and special excursion trains offered cheap fares. From 1898 special trains ran from Ipswichto the South Coast via Corinda and took holiday-makers to Tweed Heads, signalling the startof tourism in Queensland. Sandgate became a popular seaside resort.

Northern coastal lineThe extension of the coastal line north of Brisbane was piecemeal. A 1,067 mm gauge line wasbuilt from Brisbane to Gympie in 1891, providing a connection with the Maryborough railway.Colonial Secretary Thomas Mcllwraith had unsuccessfully argued for a 1,435 mm gauge. Achange of trains in Maryborough was necessary for passengers and freight going to Bundabergon the 1,435 mm gauge line. The line north from Brisbane provided rail's first challenge tocoastal shipping, when the Colonial Sugar Refining Company negotiated a contract for haulingsugar between its Childers mill and Brisbane in 1895. The line was extended from Bundabergto Gladstone in 1897.

In 1898 the Government instituted a rail and steamer service to northern Queensland ports,with passengers travelling from Brisbane to Gladstone by train, and then boarding anAustralasian United Steam Navigation Company vessel for Townsville. Passengers could thentravel west from Townsville on the mail train. In 1904 Gladstone and Rockhampton werelinked providing through trains between Rockhampton and Brisbane on a 1,067 mm gaugeline. The train and boat trip from Brisbane to Townsville was promoted by the RailwayDepartment's Advertising Branch in 1911. The Tourist Bureau was administered by theCommissioner for Railways from 1929. Branch offices of the bureau were established inRockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Sydney, and later in Melbourne.

In 1910 the Queensland Parliament passed the North Coast Railway Act which provided forconstruction of 731 km of line to complete the railway from Brisbane to Cairns. A line northfrom Rockhampton to Marlborough and St Lawrence was built.20 A line south from Mackayreached Koumala in 1915 and Carmila in 1920, with a private motor service conveyingpassengers between St Lawrence and Carmila. Travel between Gladstone and Townsville wasstill quicker by sea. The Bowen railway was connected to the northern line to Townsville.

182

TRANSPORT

Mackay and Bowen were linked in 1923 making rail travel possible from Cloncurry to Perth,with changes at state boundaries due to different gauges. The Cairns railway was linked withInnisfail in 1912 and Townsville with Ingham in 1919. The remaining link was completed in1924 when construction teams from the north and south met at Cardwell.

With the exception of the Cooktown and Normanton railways, completion of the northcoast railway meant a unified Queensland rail network of 9,771 km of 1,067 mm gauge. In1924-25 the Railway Department employed 18,000 persons. It had 713 locomotives, 930carriages and 16,000 wagons and carried 5 million tonnes of freight and nearly 30 millionpassengers. Queensland has more kilometres of track than any other State, although NewSouth Wales railways had more than three times the freight and Victoria nearly twice thefreight. Return on capital for Queensland's railways was 3.2%, less than the other mainlandStates.21

Competition and technologyJust as railways challenged the dominance of horse and bullock transport, so motor and airtransport challenged the position of railways. Although enjoying a privileged position, railbegan to decline as the main transport before the 1930s depression. With passenger journeysand freight volumes falling, line expansion virtually ceased. Cost cutting included the closureof little used branch lines such as that to Ravenswood. One of several inquiries into the railwaysduring the depression was headed by James Brigden, Director of the Bureau of Economicsand Statistics, in 1931. This inquiry, which was related to competition between railways andshipping, found there was little conflict between the two.

Steam locomotive, Cooktown railway, 1920s. The B12 engine no. 40 was built in Scotland in1878 for use in southern Queensland. It was later transferred to Cooktown where it was

written off in 1928. It was the last steam locomotive on the Cooktown railway.

183

QUEENSLAND PAST AND PRESENT

The railways provided an essential service during World War II. The single track from Brisbaneto Cairns transferred personnel and materials toward the battle-front. Railway workshopsassisted in the manufacture of tools for munitions as well as aeroplane parts and gun barrels.Employees worked 56 hours a week.22 Supplies went by rail to Mount Isa and then by road toDarwin.

Improvements to railway infrastructure and rolling-stock in the postwar period included newlocomotives, new air-conditioned carriages, a wagon construction program, track relaying andregrading, and bridge strengthening and rebuilding. Later, large new workshops were builtand the suburban system was electrified.

New diesel locomotives replaced those driven by steam, and the last mainline steam locomotivebuilt in Australia was by Walkers Limited of Maryborough in 1958. Diesel electric locomotivesbegan operation in Queensland in 1952. The Queensland subsidiary of CommonwealthEngineering Company constructed new air-conditioned trains: the Sunlander, successor to theSunshine Express, between Brisbane and Cairns in 1953; the Inlander between Townsville andMount Isa in 1953; the Midlander between Rockhampton and Longreach in 1953; the Westlanderfrom Brisbane to Cunnamulla in 1954; and the Capricornia between Brisbane andRockhampton. A rail-motor provided quicker and more comfortable travel on the South Coastline and between Toowoomba and Brisbane via Helidon. Luxury services were introducedlater, including the Queenslander between Brisbane and Cairns in 1989 and the Spirit of theOutback to Longreach.

Rail had to compete with road transport. State Governments tried to restrict road transportthrough taxes and other control mechanisms. Intrastate hauliers were licensed and had to payfees under the State Transport Facilities Act 1946 (Qld). These fees were increased as the degreeof competition with the railways grew. Transport of goods such as minerals, sugar and grainrequired a permit. In 1954 the High Court of Australia found that taxes and other restrictiveactions were invalid under section 92 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. TheRoad (Contribution to Maintenance) Act 1958 (Qld) imposed a modest tax on interstate hauliers.Railway fares and freight rates were increased in 1960 to reduce the losses incurred by therailways. Road transport continued to grow and by the 1960s carried more than three timesthe tonnage carried by the railways.

Cost cutting in the 1960s meant the closure of many branch rail lines. The transport of goodssuch as dairy products, timber and livestock was the reason many of the branches had beenconstructed in the first place. But with competition from road transport, various branch linesbecame uneconomical. Lines to Cleveland, Fassifern, Mount Edwards, Tweed Heads and MountGarnet closed, as did the Cooktown to Laura line. The line to Cleveland was later reopened.In February 1996 the Beenleigh line was extended to Helensvale as part of a project tore-establish a service to the Gold Coast. Passenger journeys on the new service averaged 30,000a week.23 Planned large-scale closures of branch lines in 1995 resulted in considerable protestand the plans were shelved.

The railways maintained their monopoly in coal freight. In the 1960s coal trains weighing up to742 tonnes were hauled through Mount Morgan and Rockhampton. Coal from the Callideand Dawson valleys was exported through Gladstone. A private electric railway linking Mouraand Gladstone was built to enable three diesel locomotives to haul 4,000-tonne trains withmore than 60 wagons. The line was primarily for coal, but passengers and other freight were

184

TRANSPORT

Railways built to transport Queensland coal.

carried too. In 1971 the Goonyella line to the south-west of Mackay was opened to haul 5million tonnes of coal annually to a new port at Hay Point south of Mackay. The track androlling-stock were the heaviest in Queensland. Trains were hauled by four diesel locomotives.On new lines to mines such as at Saraji, radio-controlled locomotives were placed in the centreof coal trains to enable loads of more than 10,000 tonnes to be carried.24

Electrification of the rail network had been discussed since 1897. In 1947 a committee appointedby the Government recommended the electrification of the suburban system similar to Sydneyand Melbourne. However, in the 1950s priority was given to converting various single-linetracks to two-line and four-line tracks. In the 1970s population growth projections for Brisbaneand suburbs led to consultancy firm Wilbur Smith & Associates recommending electrificationof the suburban network and construction of a bridge across the Brisbane River to link SouthBrisbane and Roma Street stations. The bridge was completed in 1978. The first electric trainsran in Brisbane in 1979 and the suburban network to Ipswich, Ferny Grove, Shorncliffe,Cleveland, Beenleigh and Caboolture was soon electrified. In 1983 electrification of certainregional lines began, including the Brisbane to Rockhampton line.

Operations and earnings

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries administration of Queensland railways wasdivided into northern, central and southern divisions, paralleling the general administrativedivisions of the colony. A separate ministerial responsibility for railways was established in1885. Local government and private enterprise also constructed railways. Under the TramwaysAct 1880 (Qld) Cairns, Pioneer, Beaudesert, Belmont (in Brisbane) and Barcaldine shires hadlines that carried produce such as sugar cane. Private railways were constructed by mining

185

QUEENSLAND PAST AND PRESENT

Table 6.5 Rail transport: Lines open to traffic, and passengers andgoods carried, Queensland, 1895-96 to 1995-96

Year

1895-961900-011905-061910-111915-161920-21

1925-261930-311935-361940-411945-46

1950-511955-561960-611965-661970-71

1975-761980-811985-861990-911995-96

Linesopen to

traffic (a)km

3,8624,5085,0496,2257,9949,257

10,04210,50710,56910,56910,569

10,55710,39010,1779,3109,329

9,8449,932

10,22510,0159,300

Number ofpassenger

journeys (b)'000

2,2744,7614,5698,299

13,93914,908

28,38422,00925,24426,19438,200

34,11835,64728,87625,97929,536

34,27831,87341,50442,99040,082

Passengerjourneys

per capita (c)number

5.19.68.6

13.920.319.9

33.624.026.025.435.2

28.326.219.215.716.3

16.513.816.014.712.1

Goods andlivestock

carried'000 tonnes

1,1671,7391,9513,3484,0763,930

5,1883,9204,7395,6905,850

7,2978,3118,109

10,21115,665

33,11841,50473,59982,96596,200

(a) At 30 June.(b) For 1920-21 and earlier years, excludes season ticket holders.(c) Calculated using population at 31 December.

Source: ABS, Queensland Year Book 7996; Queensland Rail, Annual Report 1995-96.

companies, including the Bundamba and Tivoli lines near Ipswich and the Chillagoe branch ofthe Cairns railway completed to Mungana in 1901. The Department of Transport was createdin 1932. Rail, road and maritime transport continued to develop, and in 1989 an expandedministry brought together the various functions under the responsibility of one minister.

In 1995-96 Queensland Rail operated 9,300 km of railway line, and carried more than 40million passengers and 96 million tonnes of goods and livestock (table 6.5). Most of thepassengers were on Citytrain services. Passenger traffic had risen to 38.2 million journeys in1945-46 before falling to 26.0 million in 1965-66 and rising again to 43.0 million in 1990-91.Passenger journeys per head of population declined throughout most of the post-World WarII period from 35.2 journeys in 1945-46 to 12.1 in 1995-96. Freight has increased significantlysince the opening of the large central Queensland coal deposits, supplemented by the transportof minerals and cattle. Tonnage of freight increased nearly 12-fold from 8.1 million tonnes in1960-61 to 96.2 million tonnes in 1995-96.

The increase in freight resulted in an increase in earnings for the railways. Earnings rose from$73.1m in 1960-61 to $l,810.5m in 1995-96 (table 6.6). However, Queensland Rail has runmainly at a loss. The losses were considered part of the cost of opening up the country andproviding services to the people of Queensland, particularly in remote areas. Most of the losseswere due to the interest component on loans for capital infrastructure, and in most years the

186

TRANSPORT

Table 6.6 Rail transport: Earnings, expenses, surplus andindebtedness, Queensland, 1895-96 to 1995-96

Year

1895-961900-011905-061910-111915-161920-21

1925-261930-311935-361940-411945-46

1950-511055-561960-611965-^661970-71

1975-761980-811985-861990-911 995-96 (c)

Earnings

2,1712,6343,0925,4617,491

10,559

14,87412,95413,39516,83023,833

39,54462,62673,05984,178

110,165

230,492416,796965,963

1,205,6411,810,516

Workingexpenses (a)

- $'000 -

1,2892,1161,7273,1265,490

10,097

12,92010,16010,43413,42720,888

38,87867,74777,15484,370

105,494

266,351486,126848,125986,722

1,267,581

Operatingsurplus/ Loan

deficit indebtedness (b)

882518

1,3652,3352,001

462

1,9542,7942,9613,4032,945

666-5,121-4,095

-1924,671

-35,859-69,330117,838218,919542,935

33,51939,47943,48251,79873,67787,114

108,224125,87276,10680,80683,092

98,520148,690197,755246,699301,957

380,393516,052728,580

1,349,9932,316,884

(a) Excludes interest, redemption, sinking fund payments and losses on sale of assets.(b) From 1 July 1931 the capital account's loan indebtedness was reduced by $56m under The Railway CapitalIndebtedness Reduction Act 1931. Includes loans for Brisbane rail electrification for which payments are metby the Department of Transport. Loan indebtedness for rail electrification was $146m at 30 June 1994.Excludes general railway capital indebtedness which was $704m at 30 June 1994 and for which payment is notrequired.(c) Earnings includes a community service obligation payment by the Queensland government of $595.3m.

Source: ABS, Queensland Year Book 1996; Queensland Rail, Annual Report, various years.

railways had an operating surplus. On 1 July 1995 Queensland Rail was corporatised to give ita structure to enhance efficiency and improve public accountability. Its corporatisation was inaccordance with National Competition Policy endorsed by the Commonwealth and StateGovernments. In 1995-96 Queensland Rail had a $214.3m net profit after income tax equivalent,which was a 10% return on capital. The net profit figure included a community service obligationsubsidy of $595.3m. Loan indebtedness was $2,316.9m at 30 June 1996, compared with $197.8min 1961 and $125.9m in 1931.

SHIPPING

Coastal transport

By 1896 both interstate and intrastate shipping services carried passengers and goods alongthe length of the Queensland coast. Weekly services ran from Melbourne to Cairns, with stopsat Sydney, Brisbane, Mackay and Townsville. In 1896 there were twice-weekly services from

187