Mackay – The railway sugar built
Mackay’s own railway
Mackay was a place that was literally built on the fortunes of the sugar industry. In the 1860s, John Spiller established a small plantation and a homemade sugar mill. By 1874, the Mackay district had 16 mills, and produced over one-third of Queensland’s sugar. Mackay was a place that was literally built on the fortunes of the sugar industry. In the 1860s, John Spiller established a small plantation and a homemade sugar mill. By 1874, the Mackay district had 16 mills, and produced over one-third of Queensland’s sugar.
Mackay was badly damaged in 1918 when a cyclone raged for three days. 30 lives were lost, three quarters of the buildings were damaged, and sugar crops and mills were ruined. The railway was vital for the rebuilding of the town, as it was used to bring supplies into the devastated town.
A small group of plantation owners became extremely wealthy with the growth of the sugar economy in the north, on the work of indentured South Sea Islander labour. In 1885 the Queensland Premier, Sir Samuel Griffith challenged the sugar aristocracy of the north with a proposal for central sugar mills, financed by the Government and run on co-operative lines, thereby opening up the sugar market. Selectors would be given a chance against the plantation owners. North Eton and Racecourse central mills were opened in the 1880s.
The first railway in Mackay opened in 1885, linking Eton and Mirani. The Pioneer Divisional Board built two ‘feeder’ lines into the Government branch line between Cattle Creek and MacGregor Creek. The extension up Cattle Creek was opened to Finch Hatton on 4 November 1904, and finally to Netherdale in 1911.
The line between Rockhampton and Mackay was constructed progressively in sections from a north-south direction. The line southwards from Mackay branched off at Paget Junction, named after the then Railway Minister, Paget, who himself was a local from Mackay. To the south of Mackay, extensions were made to Sarina where the Government had established the Plane Creek sugar mill in 1896, 1 July 1913, and eventually to Carmilla on 10 August 1920.
Mackay - The last stronghold of steam
In the 1960s, with the phasing out of steam as a motive power throughout Queensland, Mackay Locomotive Depot became one of the last strongholds of the steam locomotive due to the demands of the ‘crushing season’. The sugar season of 1969 marked the last use of steam in the Mackay district, and the last official steam train ran from Mackay to Outer harbour on 29 December 1969, this farewelled the steam era in Queensland.
Mackay during the War…
Mackay during the steam era, and especially during the Second World War was an important locomotive depot. Ron Power, a retired engine driver of the Queensland Railways recalled what a railway town like Mackay was like in the 1940s during the Second World War.
“I remember one occasion I was going on a train to Bowen and we were going out about eight o’clock at night. I got down with a ‘slush’ light, to hook the engine on to the wagons, next thing there was an American with a bayonet. He told me to extinguish my light - because we were in a war zone. In them days they used to have a tarpaulin come down from the cabin down to the coal bunker. When you would open the fire doors of a night time, especially when the cloud was low, you could see the glare go right up into the clouds. Fear was a Japanese bomber might see you. We had to get the station master to talk to the fellow over that.”
Ron Power