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And there were other, less conventional (or perhaps more unexpected might be closer to the mark) forms of public transport. A ferry service operated from a pier at the bottom of Denham Street, just down from the old Tree of Knowledge and transferred members of the Waterside Workers’ Union to and from work. Some of those aboard would have been notified there was work for them in the Spares on call announcements on both commercial radio stations, wedged between the top of the hour news and the funeral announcements.

Had there been more than a single rail corridor through the city there would probably have been suburban rail services in conjunction with daily rail motor services that operated south through Giru, Ayr and Home Hill as far as Bowen.

You’d guess there’d have been a separate rail motor service that ran back and forth from Oolbun, the township that housed some (at least) of the workforce for the Alligator Creek meat works. The works had been established in 1879 updated with a prefabricated structure in 1914, and closed, along with the local post office, in 1966. At some point in the future,  we’ll divert from the highway at Julago, or wherever the turnoff the Phantom Retreat is  and take a gander at what’s left.

There were probably similar services to Ingham and Charters Towers, though I don’t have anything more concrete than a supposition in the memory bank.

Those rail services were part of a statewide network that progressed upwards through those local (or relatively local) services to the long distance mail trains and, at the very top of the pecking order, the Sunlander and its peers that ran westwards from Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville.

As a railway enthusiast kid in Brisbane,  I have vague memories of perusing a statewide railway timetable, the sort of publication that provided the raw material for On the Queensland Railway Lines. It would be interesting to be able to peruse the same publication today. It was, after all, the era when the state railways were the only genuine statewide long distance travel arrangement that was affordable as far as the everyday worker and his family were concerned.

The Sunlander, as the flag bearer of the system, had on-board catering. 

Services below that post-1953 diesel rather than steam-driven option that eliminated meal stops and other delays and reduced the travel time between Brisbane and Cairns from 45 to just over 41 hours had to fend for themselves, which is where the network of dining and refreshment rooms across the state’s railway stations came into play.

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© Ian Hughes 2013