On day three of our historic look backs as part of Queensland Week we share a tale of a railway line that almost came to be… In the 1870s and 1880s, private groups and individuals were promoting the idea of a transcontinental railway to cross the plains of western Queensland to a port on the Gulf of Carpentaria providing a gateway to Asia and a shorter journey to Britain. Sir Thomas McIlwraith, the then Premier of Queensland, supported the plan for a private railway that would run form Roma to Point Parker, on the Gulf. It was proposed that the builders would receive land parcels alongside the railway to encourage its construction similar to that in the United States. This proposal collapsed with the fall of Sir Thomas’ Government. In 1885 the Glasgow based Cloncurry Copper Mining and Smelting Company offered up its prospectus to develop the Cloncurry mining field. As a result, the government decided to proceed with a railway from the port of Normanton, to Cloncurry, connecting copper to the coast. The first section towards Cloncurry was approved on 16 November 1886 and 160km of rails were ordered for construction. The discovery of gold at Croydon meant Normanton quickly became the port for the rich gold field. Travel was extremely difficult in the hot dry conditions or during the wet season. The population of Croydon by 1887 reached 6000. The Queensland Parliament had to choose between gold and copper and plans for a rail line to Cloncurry or one to Croydon. Either way, the first few miles (or 21 kilometres) would be the same. It was a case of hedging your railway bets for the future. In October 1887 construction of the first 68 kilometres of railway to Croydon was approved. The rest of the railway to the goldfields was approved by parliament on 28 May 1889. It was another 20 years before Cloncurry got a railway, but this time not from the Gulf, but through Hughenden, to the east.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 06:00:00 +0000